CONFIDENTIAL # #passed to me
Special Duties Unit, Attorney General's Chambers
SD/TRE/17/1 II
HEMO
سال
In Mulloy
Tuka
17
Commissioner for Narcotics 196
L
HKD 385/
Your
date.
PM
USTRY
Res
(13)..
!...
5-8102387
25 May 1987
1961 Single Convention oh-Narcotic-Drugs. 1971 Convention on Psychotropic Substances
ток
217
." Taken
135
At the meeting on 3 April to discuss the Convention on Illicit Drug Trafficking it was agreed that further thought should be given to the possibility of a declaration being made by the UK in respect of Hong Kong under Article 43 of the 1961 Convention, which already applies to HK, and under Article 28 of the 1971 Convention when it is applied to HK. The idea was not only to achieve a useful practical result under those Conventions but to pave the way for an Article providing for a more extensive declaration in the Convention on Illicit Drug Trafficking now being drafted.
2.
The UK has never thought it appropriate to make
a declaration under Article 43 of the 1961 Convention and looking at the Article again I can understand why. It does not provide for a declaration relating to the dividing up of UK territory (e.g. that HK is separate from UK).
Rather, it provides for a declaration that one of its territories (e.g. HK) is divided into two or more territories or that two or more of its territories are consolidated into a single territory. None of this is relevant to Hong Kong's position.
3.
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Insofar as it is desirable to enable HK to function as a territory separate from the UK for certain purposes under the Convention, this is already achieved by the language of the relevant Articles of the Convention thus Art. 19 requires Parties to furnish "for each of their territories" certain estimates; Article 20 requires statistical returns "for each of their territories"; Article 21 imposes limits on the manu- facture and import of drugs "by any country or territory" and Article 31 prohibits the export of drugs to any "country or territory". Indeed, a number of other articles also refer to territories, and although the term is not defined, I am of the opinion that it does include Hong Kong. Article 43 has no bearing on this point and I do not see any value in pursuing the idea of a declaration under it.
4.
In the 1971 Convention, the operative Article is worded rather differently, namely
"Any Party may notify the Secretary-General that, for the purposes of this Convention, its territory is divided into two or more regions [or that two or more of its regions are consolidated into a single region]."
/Under
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