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SECURITY CLASSIFICATION
DSR 11C (Revised 5/87)
time for the traders to dispose of their existing stocks
and for a retraining scheme for ivory craftsmen to be
implemented.
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Moreover,
4. I very much doubt whether the idea of establishing an
international buy out fund is really practicable.
Although it could be argued that all the major CITES
parties have an interest in preventing the trade from
going underground, there is no provision in the
Convention for international compensation.
nearly all the major CITES parties, including the United
States and our EC partners are ivory consumers rather
than traders. With the exception of Portugal (which
abstained on behalf of Macau), their delegates at the
CITES Conference all rejected Hong Kong's argument for
continued trade in legally held existing stocks. Given
the mood at the CITES Conference, there is not reason to
suppose that these countries would now be willing to
contribute to a fund to compensate Hong Kong's ivory
Furthermore, the only other CITES parties
traders.
involved in the ivory trade Japan, Burundi, the United
Arab Emirates and Macau hold much smalier stock piles
-
than Hong Kong and would therefore have no interest in
supporting the establishment of an international fund
primarily for Hong Kong's benefit.
5.
While the idea of an international fund is probably
impracticable, I believe that we have no option but to
agree to enter a short-term reservation on Hong Kong's
My reasons for coming to this conclusion are as
behalf.