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Mr. Parry (Legal Adviser)
Copies (with encls.) to: Mr. Hyatt (Research Dept.) Mr. Janvrin (HKIOD)
Mr. Hodge (Republic of Ireland Dept.)
BOUNDARY DISCLAIMER NOTE TO BE USED ON MAPS AND CHARTS PRODUCED BY THE DIRECTORATE OF MILITARY SURVEY
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1.
We discussed on 21 April Mr. Holland's letter of 23 March to me about the formulation of a new statement to be printed on DMS maps disclaiming authoritativeness of boundaries or political status of territories shown on those maps.
2.
I spoke to Mr. Beynon in the DMS after I had spoken to you. I asked him to consider informally two possibilities:
3.
(i) that the disclaimer should be dropped;`
(ii) that, if a disclaimer is to be used, something along these lines would be printed on all DMS maps, including those showing the U.K., and those jointly produced with the Americans which (if the Americans published them) will also have an American disclaimer: "D.Mil.Svy maps
do not necessarily represent the view of the U.K. Government on boundaries or political status".
Mr. Beynon said that the DMS would have no objection to dropping the disclaimer altogether, but alleged that the F.C.O. insisted that one should be printed on their maps to avoid those maps being quoted as evidence in any boundary dispute. I think on reflection that we should perhaps continue to encourage the DMS to print a disclaimer: apart from any other arguments, if the disclaimer were now to be dropped, users of the maps might assume that we were now claiming them to be authoritative.
4.
lir. Beynon thought that the formulation at (ii) above would be satisfactory. It could be used on all maps produced by the DMS and on those printed by the Americans. It seems to me that it meets all the American objections described in paragraph 4 of Mr. Holland's letter under reference, except for (b).
5.
I think the disclaimer proposed above meets the DMS's
two chief requirements:
a) The statement is clear that DMS maps are not to be used in either legal or political disputes about boundaries or sovereignty.
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(b) It will not, on the other hand, cause any misunderstanding about whether a particular boundary is to be regarded as firm. Apparently during 1975 three soldiers in Northern Ireland strayed across the border into the Irish Republic. They complained afterwards that the disclaimer printed on the map they were using had caused some doubt in their minds about where the border actually lay. You may recall
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20€ 18-77
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