CODE 18-77
”་ M2
Arkwright, HKD
UNCLASSIFIED
Miss Robson
Het 385 18
23 OCT 1987
FICER
X
NEION
DRAFT UN CONVENTION ON ILLICIT DRUG TRAFFICKING
1.
Mr David Bentley, the Home Office Legal Adviser who had been attending the drafting group on the new Convention in Vienna rang on 12 October with a question from
Mr Gareth Mulloy from Hong Kong.
2.
The draft arrangements in the Convention provide that in case of mutual assistance it will be for parties to the Convention to designate "a central authority". Mr Mulloy thought that it would be useful for more than one "central authority" to be able to be designated so that the Attorney General of Hong Kong could be specified as
contact rather than have to pass through the UK "central authority" every time.
3.
Mr Mulloy wondered whether this was a reasonable view to take and whether, if we agreed it was, we would work to see such a provision included; and he would also like to know whether we had any objection to his talking about the problem to the representatives of the Peoples' Republic of China.
4.
-
Please would you pursue this question with Hong Kong Department. We should also, however, be clear whether the same problem applies to the other Dependent Territories would we, for example, wish to designate the Attorney General of Gibraltar or of some Caribbean Dependencies?
5. We shall need to send instructions to UKMis Vienna as soon as possible, although Mr Bentley believed that, given the frighteningly inept chairmanship of the drafting group (unfortunately by Parejo Gonzales), it is unlikely that the relevant Article will be reached before the drafting group breaks up at the end of this week.
J.p.
J Poston
NCAD
13 October 1987
CC:
NA Nagler Esq
C5 Division
Home Office
N29ACB