TNAG-1709-FCO40-2384-Hong-Kong-narcotics-offences-and-drug-trafficking-1988 — Page 166

1

By Express Airmail

Annex B

布政司署 禁毒牌 香港金鐘道六十六號 金鐘道政府合署高中八樓

本處償游 Our Ret

NCR 10/1/10 II

*#* Your Ref

DDA/85 1/118/7

-10

NARCOTICS DIVISION

GOVERNMENT SECRETARIAT QUEENSWAY GOVERNMENT OFFICES, HIGH BLOCK, 8TH FLOOR, 66 QUEENSWAY,

HONG KONG

11 September 1986

Telephone.

5-295027

Mr. N.A. Nagler,

Drugs Branch, Home Office,

Queen Anne's Gate,

London SW1H 9AT

England.

Dear Mr. Nagler,

U.N. Convention on Illicit Drug Trafficking

to Cordon Mortime 1

Thank you for your letter of 16 July 1986 addressed

Gordon is at present Acting Secretary for Security and I am filling the post of Commissioner for Narcotics.

You asked for our comments on Articles 1 and 13 of the preliminary draft of the proposed U.N. Convention on Illicit Drug Trafficking. As the Convention, if applied to Hong Kong, will have significant staffing, administrative, political and social implications, I have asked relevant government departments, including the Political Adviser, to comment on all the Articles. Our consolidated view on the Articles is given in the Appendix to this letter.

We feel that Hong Kong would stand to benefit from the new Convention and also has a lot to offer to signatory parties in terms of information exchange, training and experience. We would therefore support the Convention in principle and would wish it to apply to Hong Kong in due course.

However, in view of the change of sovereignty over Hong Kong in 1997, we would like to raise a fundamental question regarding the mechanism whereby the Convention can apply to Hong Kong. Our Political Adviser has. suggested two ways

(a) Hong Kong to become a signatory in her own

right; and

(b)

the Convention to be applied to Hong Kong

:

by the UK. upon ratification, i.e. by territorial application.

There are of course legal problems with option (a) in that the Convention is intended to be between States. However,