Mr Arkwright HKD
RESTRICTED
-Head 385/1
FROM:
'DATE:
3 COCT 1987
Paul Fifoot
5 August 1987
Mrs Heidgen NCAU
86
UN CONVENTION ON PSYCHOTROPIC SUBSTANCES 1971: EXTENSION TO HONG KONG
1.
I am trying to resist coming to the conclusion that Articles 27 and 28 in the Psychotropic Convention have a different effect from Articles 43 and 44 of the Narcotics Convention, but without much success.
I fear I shall have to take you through the argument bit by bit.
2. There are a number of Conventions which make specific provi- sion for extension to dependent territories but say nothing about treating the dependencies as separate territories. In many cases this is unnecessary. If the obligations under the Convention are to prevent a particular activity and to legislate to do so, the State concerned takes upon itself the obligations both in respect of its metropolitan territory and in respect of any dependent territory to which it extends the Convention and it is indifferent to the other parties to the Convention whether the relevant legis- lation is contained in one metropolitan Act applying also to the dependencies or in a metropolitan Act and separate Ordinances in the relevant dependencies.
3.
The Narcotics Convention, however, contains a number of pro- visions which limit manufacture and importation, and it requires that the relevant limits shall be applicable to each of the terri- tories to which the Convention extends. It is reasonably clear that if the Convention is extended to dependent territories then those limitations apply specifically to each dependent territory as well as to the metropolitan country concerned. The Convention is, therefore, drafted in terms which apply these limitations to "each of their territories", ie each of the territories of a party which has applied the Convention both to its metropolitan terri- tory and to its dependent territories.
4. The Narcotics Convention goes further and enables a party to notify that "one of its territories is divided into two or more territories". This would enable the United Kingdom to notify England, Wales and Scotland as separate territories. But that Article is not necessary to enable Hong Kong to be treated as a different territory for the purposes of the Narcotics Convention. It is a separate territory by virtue of the extension Article taken together with the definition of territory in Article 1.
(I should add for compelteness that when the United Kingdom rati- fied the Narcotics Convention, it apparently excluded from that initial ratification any dependent territory).
RESTRICTED
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