*
days, provided we have by then got agreement within Whitehall and
the Islands on the precise text of the reservations. We should also
be able to ratify for several of those Dependent Territories who
have already formulated their areas of reservation; much depends on
how long they take to agree the precise texts. But we would
certainly not be able to ratify within this time-frame for those
Dependent Territories who have not yet replied. For reasons
relating to the need to consult with the Chinese under the
International Rights and Obligations guidelines, it may not be
possible to ratify for Hong Kong when the UK ratifies.
8. Legal Advisers have confirmed that there is nothing wrong in
principle with two stage ratification. Nevertheless not to include
some Dependent Territories in our ratification may lead to some
ill-informed criticism in the UK which we believe we could counter
and contain.
9. On the other hand to continue to wait until satisfactory replies
are obtained from all Dependent Territories before ratifying for the
UK will lead to a significant delay and increased Parliamentary and
public criticism. As there is no guarantee that we will be able to
persuade Gibraltar to ratify, we could anyway eventually find
ourselves in the position of having to ratify without Gibraltar.
If it is agreed to proceed with two-stage ratification, we would
need to say that we were consulting with Dependent Territory
Governments about the terms under which they wished us to ratify on
their behalf and that we hoped consultations would be completed
soon. We expect all Dependent Territories to become parties to the
Convention eventually; if any prove intransigent we will have to
address the problem in the particular circumstances then prevailing.
us
FR Baker
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.