TNAG-2225-FCO40-3196-Political-relations-between-Hong-Kong-and-Australia-1991 — Page 28

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United Kingdom in the case

of Gibraltar where the United

Kingdom provided a Constitution whose preamble affirmed that:

"Her Majesty's Government will never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another State against their freely and democratically expressed wishes."

Similarly, the Constitution of the Falkland Islands, enacted

after the war initiated by Argentina, recognises the rights

of the people of that colony to self-determination. As I

have said, the same right has not been accorded to the people

of Hong Kong. Instead, without proper and effective

consultation with the people, nearly 6 million of them,

citizens of the Commonwealth of Nations and present subjects

of the Queen, are transferred into the control of the

of the PRC

without an act of self-determination by them.

Declaration and the Basic Law exclude, and are a substitute

for, an

act of self-determination. The Bill of Rights

Ordinance, notably, excludes from the re-enactment for Hong

Kong those provisions of the International Covenant on Civil

and Political Rights which guarantee the

the right to

self-determination.

The Joint

This represented an intolerably paternalistic

abdication of a fundamental obligation imposed on the United

Kingdom by international human rights law. It is the subject

of a mission by the International Commission of Jurists. It

may be expected that the mission's report will be available

to the Governments of the United Kingdom, the PRC and Hong

Kong before too long. Even at this stage, it may not be too

late to ensure that the government of Hong Kong is provided

with the legitimacy of a complete democracy. Unless this is

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