AL
Extract from a minute from Mr MT
D. Jones to
A. Buxton dated 15 July 1970
Berat primer meundo duran ama vezana kameran maeng qama mapatano mkenge, stating de me dorang makan berat badan kemana keraman dan nan daunali dergahın memnastusega mesta ikamuar vëmë frymen umat a-mata manage
From a strictly legal point of view Mr. Dunnett is undoubtedly right. Only the UK can participate in any GATT body, including the Cotton Textiles Committee, or accept any GATT instrument, such as the LTA. On the other hand, the UK did explicitly accept the LTA on behalf of Hong Kong and, practically, it has always been accepted that the UK delegation can speak with two voices in the OTO with regard to its own interests and the interests of Hong Kong. This means that the position under the LTA is somewhat different, even legally, from that in the GATT as a whole, where the Protocol of Provisional Application makes it clear that a contracting party with depondent territories is assumed to apply the GATT to all those territories, which are separate customs territories, unless it explicitly states otherwise. Thus, when
the UK accepted e.g. the protocol giving effect to Part IV of the GATT, it did not mention any of its dependent territories because such acceptance was taken to extend automatically to those territorios. This was clearly not the case with the LTA or Hong Kong would not have been mentioned explicitly and I take it that the LTA is still not extended to any other dependent territory apart from Hong Kong (this is, of course, almost entirely an academic question).
The convention, or practice, that the UK is in effect, two parties to the LTA has been buttressod by a number of factors over the years the Arrangement has been in operation, including the following:
(a) the Colonial Office, when it was in existence,
always sent a representative to the CTC to sit with the Hong Kong representatives (this was usually me from 1963-66);
(b)
when he was Chairman of the Committee. Sir Eric Wyndham-White always called the Hong Kong representative separately and referred to him as "the representative of · the UK speaking on behalf of Hong Kong";
/(c)
CONVIDENSITAT.