M Hill
HKD/FCO
CONFIDENTIAL
OVERSEAS DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION
Eland House Stag Place London SW1E 5DH
Telephone 01-213:
or Switchboard 01-213:3000
19
Your reference
HKC 102/1
RECEIVED IN REGISTRÝ
-8 FEB 1988
Our reference
Date
18 January 1988
Room WH305
FCO Whitehall
DESK OFFICER
INDEX
PA
Action Taken
Dear Mr Hill
MIGA AND HONG KONG: DRAFT SPEAKING NOTES AND BRIEF
1.
2.
Thank you for copying these documents to me. As we discussed over the phone, we
are presently exploring the possibilities of excluding all our dependent terri-
tories an offshore islands at the outset and including them later. Apparently a
legal precedent for this exists in the form of the ICSID Convention (Convention
on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of other
States). In this case UK notified the depository that it excluded from the appli-
cation of the Convention certain specific territories "pending written notifica-
tion to the contrary". if the World Bank agree to us using a similar formulation
in respect of the MIGA Convention the pressure to secure an answer from the PRC
would not be as great.
To take account of these developments, may I suggest a couple of amendments to
the draft speaking notes and question and answer brief as follows:
i)
Draft speaking note paragraph 3, delete second and third sentences.
ii)
Draft q/a brief, delete A6 and replace with the following "for wider con-
siderations not related to Hong Kong, the UK wishes to notify the Conven-
tion as soon as possible (possibly in March). As the Convention is worded,
it would not be possible to exclude Hong Kong and other territories for
which UK has international responsibility and subsequently include them: but we are discussing with the World Bank a possible formula which would
enable us to do so. If this proves to be possible we shall exclude them
CONFIDENTIAL
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.