TNAG-1382-FCO40-1830-Future-of-Hong-Kong-nationality-and-citizenship-1985 — Page 130

CODE 18-77

Power,

чуть

HKD

Mr Powę

CONFIDENTIAL

HKK 04614

Reference

HONG KONG: HOUSE OF LORDS COMMITTEE STAGE

STAGE:

کے

W

NATIONALITY

1413

1.

Thank you for sending me today a copy of the Home Office's Notes for Supplementaries. The Notes contain the following sentence

2.

"The Government does not consider that under current public international law there is a clear obligation on it to admit those of its nationals who do not have the right of abode."

123

If a foreign state sought to deport a British national to the United Kingdom who did not have the right of abode under UK law, but had a right of abode in Hong Kong or the Hong Kong SAR we should presumably seek to persuade the Government of that state to deport the person concerned to Hong Kong. It would be bordering on the absurd for, say, the Phillipine Government to deport somebody to the UK and for us immediately to send him straight back to Hong Kong.

3.

Nevertheless if the foreign state in question insisted, for whatever reason, to deport the British national to the UK I think we should be in some difficulty in trying to establish that we had no duty under international law to accept him. On the other hand we must presumably assert the principle that we have no obligation under international law to grant the right of abode in the UK to the large number of persons who have British nationality but no such right of abode under existing UK law.

For these reasons it might be better to amend the sentence quoted above to read -

4.

"The Government does not consider that under international law there is an obligation on it to grant the right of abode in the UK to all persons who hold some form of British nationality.

A small consequential amendment would be to delete the word "clear" before "duty" in the following paragraph.

5.

Bunowo

12 March 1985

Copies to:

Mr Grainger, LA Mr Hill, LA

CONFIDENTIAL

F Burrows

Legal Advisers