TNAG-1709-FCO40-2384-Hong-Kong-narcotics-offences-and-drug-trafficking-1988 — Page 141

(By Air Mail)

布政司署 禁毒處

香港金鐘道六十六號

金鐘道政府合署高座廿三樓

*Our Ref.: NCR 10/1/10 III

來函檔號 Your Ref.:

75

Telephone:

Mr. Tom Smith

Hong Kong Department

Foreign Commonwealth Office

Dear Mr. Smith,

HUD

Jules

A728 1971 Corr A

Радов

NARCOTICS DIVISION GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT

QUEENSWAY GOVERNMENT OFFICES,

HIGH BLOCK, 23RD FLOOR,

66 QUEENSWAY,

HONG KONG

29 May 1987 3851.

RECEIVED WREC

15 JUN 1987

DESK OFFICLE

INDEX

217

Ann. A

Ann.B

UN Convention on Illicit Drug Trafficking

In February 1985, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations requested the Commission on Narcotic Drugs to initiate the preparation of a draft convention against illicit traffic in narcotic drugs which would cover the various aspects of the problem as a whole and, in particular, those not envisaged in existing international instruments. In March 1986, Mr. N.A. Nagler of the Home Office of HMG asked us to assist in the drafting of an article relating to controls over drug smuggling in free ports and free trade zones. We did that and our draft article has now been incorporated to a certain extent into the preliminary draft of the Convention Against Illicit Trafficking in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance published by the United Nations on 17 June 1986. A copy of the preliminary draft convention is at Annex A. In respsonse to a request by the Home Office Hong Kong commented on the preliminary draft in September 1986. In our letter dated 11 September 1986 to Mr. Nagler (copied to the Hong Kong Department and United Nations Department of FCO) and a copy of which is now attached at Annex B for ease of reference, we requested HMG to put forward an amendment to the draft which would enable Hong Kong (and the future HKSAR) to be a party to the Convention in its own right. Failing that, we felt that there should at least be a territorial application clause acceptable to China plus an Article based on but more explicit than Article 28 of the 1971 Convention on Psychotropic

Substances.

Having heard nothing from either the Home Office or the FCO regarding our request, Mr. Mortimer, the then Commissioner for Narcotics in Hong Kong raised the matter with Mr. Jim Poston at the 32nd Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs held in Vienna in February this year. Mr. Poston asked if a further letter could be sent to the FCO saying whether the status which Hong Kong was seeking under the new Convention was to be regarded as a precedent for other treaties by which Hong Kong is or may in the future be bound. The answer to this question is that our request for Hong Kong to be a Party in its own right or to have an appropriate territorial application clause in the new Convention need not be taken as a precedent for other treaties. We take this view because