BACKGROUND
HUMAN RIGHTS
1. Christine Loh's note (attached) raises the question of Chinese accession to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). She argues that if China did not accede to the Convention, the undertaking in the Joint Declaration that it should continue to be in force for Hong Kong after 1997 could not be guaranteed. The technical details of a method for accession in respect of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region alone are being explored with the Chinese. When the ICCPR was raised with China in the Troika, it was on general Human Rights terms, without reference to Hong Kong.
2.
Christine Loh and Emily Lau spoke at the launch on 22 January of the Article XIX report Urgent Business: Hong Kong, Freedom of Expression and 1997. The article in question is Article 19 of the United Nations' Declaration of Human Rights. This report calls among other things for amendment to the Basic Law, amendment to Hong Kong Ordinances, which it claims are incompatible with the Bill of Rights, a Freedom of Information Bill and the establishment of a Human Rights Commission. To date this launch has not generated much press interest in the UK.
NATIONALITY ISSUES
British Nationality Scheme
C
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3. Established by the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990 to give British citizenship to 50,000 key people in the private and public sectors in Hong Kong. The pace of registration under the scheme was initially slow because all applications had to be processed - and potentially successful applicants interviewed before registration could start. Registration now on target. 20,980 Principal Beneficiaries have been registered up to mid January, plus 36,682 dependants (total of 57,662). Average family size is 2.75. Target for registration under first tranche is about 39,500 Principal Beneficiaries, the remaining 10,500 to be allocated under the second tranche due to open early 1994.
4.
All BDTCS are eligible to compete under the the British Nationality (Hong Kong) Act 1990. The second tranche will start early in 1994. Ethnic origin is not a factor in the scheme (and since information is not collected on such a basis we have no figures to show the success to date of the ethnic minorities in the scheme).
There will be some adjustments for the second tranche which will require a new Order in Council. Home Office have yet to submit on the details.
5.
6.
Ms Lau has complained that fewer people will benefit from the Scheme than originally estimated (Ministers announced the figure of 225,000 as an illustrative maximum), because the number of dependants is proving to be lower than that estimated by the Home Office. Ministers always made it clear