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a Privy Council hearing.
New evidence had also recently come to
light concerning a premeditated murder committed in 1982.
Mr Waterworth recalled that during his visit to Cayman last July, there were reported to be four prisoners on death row. He assumed that these included the murderers in the first case mentioned by Mr January. Progress on the erection of the gallows had at that time been very slow. Mr Wallace expressed his shock that prisoners should be kept on death row for so long. WIAD should investigate this matter. Mrs Britton observed that the retention of the death penalty on DT statute books was not a contravention of HMG's international treaty obligations. However, she was concerned that Amnesty International had launched a worldwide campaign against the death penalty. If this campaign were to highlight the retention of capital punishment in the DTS, it would become much more difficult for HMG to appeal effectively for commutation on behalf of UK nationals and Hong Kong belongers in third countries.
16. Mrs Britton also referred to HMG's obligation to publish the
terms of the Human Rights Convention in the DTS. She proposed that a copy of the Convention and of the UK's reservations be sent to each Governor for display in the public library. The meeting agreed
to this proposal.
Item 5 Environment
17.
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Mr Dalton reported on the plans to establish cooperation agreements for environmental protection between the US authorities
and certain Caribbean DTs. MAED and Legal Advisers had drafted a
standard agreement and were now awaiting comments from DTp and from
the IMO representative in San Juan. Mr Dalton was unable to commit himself on the question of whether the US authorities would be prepared to sign such an agreement with every one of the Caribbean
DTS. Much would depend here on the distances which the US emergency services were prepared to cover. They might well be less willing to sign an agreement with Montserrat, for instance, than with BVI. As
for the scope of cooperation, Mr Herdman was pressing for as
comprehensive an agreement as possible, but all would depend on the
types of assistance the US authorities declared themselves ready to
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