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very small indeed, the possibility that we would face litigation
cannot be excluded.
12. There would be no legal difficulty in entering a reservation
for Hong Kong Article XV (1) (c) provides that amendments to
Appendices I and II adopted at a meeting of the Parties to the Convention shall enter into force 90 days after that meeting for all Parties "except those which make a reservation in accordance with paragraph 3 of this Article". Paragraph 3 of the same article provides that during the period of 90 days any Party may, by notification in writing to the Depositary Government, make a reservation with respect to the amendment. It goes on to provide
that:
"Until such reservation is withdrawn the Party shall be treated as a State not a Party to the present Convention with respect to trade in the species concerned".
There is already a precedent for us making a reservation in the text
of the CITES Convention: we did so in 1977.
13.
MAED warn that the Department of the Environemnt are likely to
be reluctant to enter a reservation. This would run counter to their policy to seeking to take a leading role in the international ban to ban the ivory trade. They believe that it would damage the UK's standing in CITES, even if we made it clear that the reservation applied only to Hong Kong. Embarrassingly, such a reservation would conflict with the position taken by the Department of the Environment at an early stage in the CITES Conference that the ban should be implemented immediately. MAED also point out that our abstention on behalf of Hong Kong was almost universally condemned by the press and any departure from the 90 day deadline will be fiercely criticised by the press and the conservationist lobby on the grounds that it will offer a loophole through which poached ivory can continue to reach the market. There is
considerable scepticism among conservationist bodies about the effectiveness of the Hong Kong Government's controls against illegal trade in ivory, despite their undoubted good intentions. There is also considerable dispute about the status of Hong Kong's stock
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