Сс
Mr Evans, ESED Mr Darby, NTCD
Spoke to An Darby:
ile does not think RAD can
advise. He will give further
views
Cs
10/6
Mr Sainty
HKD (WH 305)
w/o encs,
Reference
} wlo
File??
From: Ms J Barrett
Ra.
52
Pu917 Conservation
Assistant Legal Adviser Treaties.
K 166 270 3381
Date: 6 June 1991
HKcosifa
INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION FOR THE REGULATION OF WHALING (1946) AND ITS PROTOCOL (1956): APPLICATION TO HONG KONG
1.
127
I refer to minutes by Ms Major of 20 May, Mr Evans of 21 May and Mr Darby of 28 May and 2 May, (all attached).
(25)
A
30)
2.
m
The Convention and Protocol are both silent as to territorial application. Apparently, the UK's instruments of ratification, deposited in respect of the Convention in 1947 and the Protocol in 1957, both referred only to "the Government of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". The question which I have been trying to find a definitive answer to concerns the UK's treaty practice in 1947 and 1957. Where a treaty was silent as to territorial application, would a reference in a UK instrument of ratification to "the Government of GB and NI" have been regarded by the UK as including reference to all the DTs, or would we have given some express indication of its territorial scope?
3. I have looked through the (voluminous) papers of the Interdepartmental Study Group on the Law of Treaties prepared by the FCO in 1967 in preparation for the Vienna Conference on the Law of Treaties in 1968; but these do not take us any further than the minute by the Legal Adviser dated 24 January 1985. This indicates (in para 5) that one of the elements of our practice since 1967 has been to regard a treaty ratified in the name of "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" as not applying to DTs, in the absence of any contrary indication. The minute does not specify what our practice was before 1967, but the obvious inference is that we adopted the opposite assumption ie that such wording was considered to include all DTS, in the absence of any contrary intention. *
4.
I therefore consider it highly probable that the Whaling Convention and Protocol do apply to Hong Kong. However, it would be wise to ask RAD to find clearer evidence of our treaty practice on this point in the 1940s and 50s so that we can be absolutely certain.
Jill Banett
Jill Barrett
* But I see from
JB2ABD
CODE 18-77
વ
from para
4 of Mr Darby's minute 2 May that the 193! Whaling convention was ratifed by the UK in 1934, and subsequently extended to DTs in 1937, RAD might like to look at the
Wording of the 1934 ratification.