HKK 243/1
CODE 18.77
212
ملنا
HKK 243/3
Mr Chatterjie, UND
(154)
M
CONFIDENTIAL
no zjza iz Ata liz-
по
侣
Rereiche
440918
l. to
پہر KeR
Mr. House is 24.
Th
HONG KONG'S CLOSED CAMPS IMMIGRATION (AMENDMENT) ORDINANCE 1982, AND THE INTERNATIONAL COVENANT ON CIVIL AND POLITICAL RIGHTS.
1.2.
1. Please refer to your minute of 25 November. I, too, under- stand that HKGD are awaiting a reply from the Attorney-General of Hong Kong to Mr Clift's letter of 6 October. We may have to wait some time; it is not an easy letter to answer!
1
2.
HKI5243/1ZZE)
Turning first to paragraph 3 of your minute, I would explain that the point made in paragraph 8 of Mr Burrows' minute of 24 September is concerned not with the possibility of derogation under Article 4 of the Covenant, but with the possibility of disengaging ourselves altogether from our obligations under the Covenant in respect of Hong Kong In that regard we concluded that this was not a real possibility because it would require the concurrence (or at least acquiescence) of all the parties to the Covenant and would be accompanied by considerable political difficulties. Moreover, it would not relieve the UK from its liabilities for breaches of the Covenant which had already occurred.
3. Derogation under Article 4 of the Covenant is a separate matter. You have suggested, in paragraph 4 of your minute of 25 November, that there might exist criteria other than public emergencies threatening the life of the nation and that we might be able to proceed to a derogation for some lesser causes. This is not correct. The opening words of Article 4 ("In time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation and the existence of which is officially proclaimed .") govern all that follows. In other words, even if you proclaim a public emergency (and the proclamation is justified in that the emergency threatens the life of the nation), you are still obliged to restrict the measures you take to the extent strictly required by the exigencies of the situation. It would not be permissible to seek to justify measures in derogation on the basis of some situation which fell short of a public emergency as defined.
•
...
21.. Thus, we have to ask ourselves whether the problems created by the influx of thousands of Vietnamese refugees to Hong Kong "threatens the life of the nation". You will understand that "the nation" in this context is the UK and Hong Kong, as it were, taken together. Under the Covenant, the rights and obligations in relation to Hong Kong are undertaken by the UK. It is obvious that the problems of the refugees does not threaten the life of th UK itself and even if we were to stretch the point and consider Hong Kong on its own (which would, in my view, be too simplistic) I do not believe that we could realistically argue that the refugee problem threatens the life of Hong Kong as such.
15.
We keep
CONFIDENTIAL
Page 60Page 61
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.