TNAG-1152-FCO40-1432-Relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-the-Commonwealth-1982 — Page 22

OFFICE OF THE COMMONWEALTH SECRETARY-GENERAL

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE PALL MALL LONDON SW1Y 5HX

LONDON

Circular Letter No.1/82

ANNEX E

5 January 1982

Commonwealth Activity în the Field of Human Rights

At their 1981 Melbourne Meeting, Commonwealth Heads of Government. considered the report of the Commonwealth Working Party on Human Rights. Their conclusions were set out in the Communique as follows:

"Heads of Government considered the report of the Commonwealth Working Party on Human Rights and reaffirmed the importance which all Commonwealth governments attached to the observance of human rights. They urged those governments which had not yet done so to accede to relevant global and regional instruments on human rights. They endorsed in principle the recommendations of the Working Party concerning the establishment of a special unit in the Secretariat for the promotion of human rights within the Commonwealth subject to agreement being reached on the appropriate method of financing the unit. requested the Secretary-Ceneral to consult further with member governments on an agreed definition of human rights within the Commonwealth context as well as of the unit's functions. They took note of the Working Party's proposals for an Advisory Committee for the protection and maintenance of human rights and asked that these should be further considered by the next meeting of Commonwealth Law Ministers."

They

The Secretariat has been giving thought to ways and means of implementing the Melbourne decision. On the question of "an agreed definition of human rights within the Commonwealth context as well as of the unit's functions", the Commonwealth's several major collective pronouncements on human rights issues would be an important starting point. Pre-eminent is the 1971 Singapore Declaration of Commonwealth Principles, which affirms the fundamental principles on which the Commonwealth association