104 United Nations Convention Against Torture and its Optional Protocol of the Convention, in so far as that Article might not be compatible with obligations towards States not Party to the Convention under extradition treaties concluded before the date of the signature of the Convention. 20  In written comments based on the revised Swedish draft, while noting that the underlying objective of the Convention is to prevent torture, Italy pointed out that ‘some of the provisions of the [revised Swedish] draft could conflict with [States parties’] bilateral undertakings, [. . .] particularly with regard to extradition, expulsion, and return’ and that ‘[t]he Convention would [. . .] be applicable only between States parties and could not have a direct effect on agreements it made between those States and ‘third’ States which might conflict with it. In order to avoid the situation where a State party might find itself unable to observe the Convention without violating bilateral undertakings previously subscribed to, Italy proposed a new wording for Article 3 which, while providing for a number of specific undertakings by States acceding to the Convention, would make it possible to ensure the following: (a) that undertakings arising from this Convention should be considered to take precedence, between Member States, over those arising from existing agreements that conflict with it; (b) that States parties should not subscribe to new agreements conflicting with the Convention; (c) that States parties should proceed to modify any agreements to which they subscribed before the Convention on Torture, if implementation of those agreements could entail a violation of the principles embodied in the Convention.24 21  The advisability of including the word return (‘refouler’) in the revised draft text gave rise to considerable discussion during the 1979 Working Group. Arguments in favour included the following: that there were strong humanitarian considerations for the inclusion of the word ‘return’ which broadened the protection of the persons concerned; and that the concept is also found in Article 33(1) of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Arguments against included the following: that the 1951 Convention covered a different subject area and besides was not broadly accepted; that the concept of ‘return’ might require a State to accept a mass influx of persons when it was not in a position to do so; and that disagreement over the concept of ‘return’ had led to failure in the drafting of the Convention on Territorial Asylum. It was therefore proposed that the term be deleted or that specific provisions be made in the Convention for States to attach a reservation to their acceptance of the Article. 22  A proposal by the UK to replace the phrase ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that the person concerned might be in danger of being subjected to torture with ‘substantial grounds for believing that he would be’ in danger of being subjected to torture in order to make the criteria more precise was adopted in the revised Swedish draft. Other alternatives suggested were ‘substantial evidence indicating’ and ‘substantial indications’. The view was expressed that some of the formulations proposed, such as the word ‘grounds’, were too vague. The term ‘evidence’ was also criticized as possibly too technical and lending itself to different interpretations in the various legal systems. The view was expressed that such problems were difficult to avoid and that the effective application of the provision would, in any event, depend upon the good faith of those concerned. It was 24  Summary prepared by the Secretary-​ General in Accordance with Resolution 18 (XXXIV) of the Commission on Human Rights (1979) UN Doc E/​CN.4/​1314/​Add.4, paras. 27–28. Ammer/Schuechner