Mr Bott
Bottomley
15)
CONFIDENTIAL
14
In connection with Sir L Monson's minute, you may care
to see the attached exchange of minutes on the legal aspects
of discrimination in favour of Hong Kong.
2. Mr Wood's two minutes are by no means easy to follow, but
I think the position may be summed up as follows:-
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3.
(a)
We have accepted GATT obligations in relation
to Hong Kong under Article XXVI 5(a).
Article XXIV accordingly requires that for
purposes of the territorial application of
the Agreement, Hong Kong should be treated,
X in relation to other contracting parties, as though it were a separate contracting party, though it does not acquire rights or
obligations vis-à-vis the UK.
(b) Consequently we are not allowed to discriminate
between Hong Kong and other GATT contracting
parties in relation to tariffs (Article I) or
quotas (Article XIII
If the Long Term Agreement on cotton textiles can be regarded as overriding the more general GATT obligation, we might perhaps be able to make exceptions for Hong Kong on the basis that the LTA requires us only to administer restrictions "in an equitable manner and with due regard to the special needs and situation of the less developed countries."
CONFIDENTIA
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