5.
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I suppose it's fair to say that there is one issue on which the Governor of Hong Kong has fallen out with all the political parties, or two of the political parties in the United Kingdom, and that is the question of passports and right of abode, with also some differences of view on war widows and on the ethnic minorities. But on everything else we have been, to finish finally with a biblical metaphor, we have been a seamless garment.
Mr Paul Cheng: Governor, going back to reporting to the United Nations Human Rights Committee after 1997. In your comments, on the one hand you said they will be happy to receive reports on Hong Kong and then in another part of your comments you said, China has an obligation to report. In the corporate world I'm used to, sort of saying that when you need to report something you are accountable to the Head Office, so to speak. Can you clarify whether China does have an obligation or is it just a voluntary situation that you are talking about?
Governor: No, the terms of Article 40 of the International Covenant are entirely clear. Since China accepts that the international covenant should apply to Hong Kong it must accept that Article 40, which contains the reporting obligation, should apply to Hong Kong as well. But the Chairman of the UN Human Rights Committee raised a different issue, which is an important matter of international jurisprudence, which is what happens to human rights undertakings given in respect of individual countries when the Government of those countries changes or when those countries split up, as has happened with the CIS states and Yugoslavia, or by extension, when the Sovereignty of a country changes. And the Chairman, and I think others, have made perfectly clear that because the human rights, which are guaranteed, devolve to the individuals in the country, rather than just being something to be locked up in a bank by the Government of that country, even when the Government or the sovereignty changes, there's no difference as far as the human rights that have been guaranteed are concerned. So, on two grounds there is no doubt whatsoever about the reporting obligation. And I repeat, not in order to try to extend or arouse controversy, but very much in the attempt to do the reverse, that there are very few things that would make more difference to people's confidence in the future of civil liberties, human rights, in Hong Kong, than a clear statement that China will find some way of reporting after 1997. Because until that statement is made, people wonder what the problem is.
I'm bound to say that I think there were very few people who understood there was any problem at all until recently.
Mr Paul Cheng: Isn't this more of a question on the fact from a sovereignty point of view, until China becomes a signatory, at which time then China would then have a formal obligation? But at this point in time, until they become a signatory it's strictly on a voluntary basis?