Your reference
Our reference
EI 49/62/02
Dear Mrs Smill.
LORD CHANCELLOR'S DEPARTMENT
26-28 OLD QUEEN STREET
LONDON SWIH 9HP
The R Bunten Eig APA(G), Hay I can tel
13/4
Esq
Telephone 01-210 3530
12 April 1988
انتانا
apa.
& TW1324
HKD 371/1
Mutual Judicial Assistance Agreement with
The People's Republic of China
Your predecessor, Pamela Major, sent me a copy of her minute of 18 March inviting views on what further steps should be taken on the negotiation of a possible agreement with the People's Republic of China. I am sorry to be replying somewhat late but I wished to show the papers to the Lord Chancellor and invite his agreement to the line the LCD would propose to take in contributing towards the general UK position.
I am pleased to tell you that the Lord Chancellor agrees with the assessment of his officials that a bilateral agreement on each of the subject areas of the China/France agreement (i.e. service of documents, obtaining evidence abroad, recognition and enforcement of judgments and arbitral awards, abolition of legalisation and exchange of legal information) is, in principle, negotiable with the People's Republic of China. Most of these subject areas are, of course, covered in whole or in part by Conventions adopted by the Hague Conference and to which the UK is already a party. This is not the case, however, with the recognition and enforcement of judgments, a subject area of some importance as is underlined by the letter of 26 November 1987 from Sir Max Williams to Robin McLaren of FCO.
I have, of course, seen Peter Monk's minute of 23 March 1988 and agree with him that the optimum is for China to ratify the relevant Hague Conventions. However, I do not think that such ratification is at all an early prospect: the impression I gained from Mr Tang Chengyuan of the Department of Treaty and Law
Mrs Claire Smith
Far Eastern Department
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
London
SW1
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