Council on 9/10 December. Policy clearance and
instructions would follow as soon as possible. might be ready for introduction early in 1992.
The Antarctic Environmental Protection bill
The Bill
The recent Special Consultative Meeting of Antarctic
Treaty Parties in Madrid elaborated a single text of a
draft Environmental Protection Protocol to the Antarctic
Treaty.
The Consultative Parties intend to conclude
negotiation of this Protocol in Madrid on 23 June. If this happens, we would wish to retain the possibility of
acting quickly to sign the agreement, enact the necessary legislation and ratify the Protocol.
The UK has been wrongly portrayed in the media as
the principal country blocking progress on the protection of Antarctica. It would help our cause, and restore public faith, if we were seen to act quickly to bring into force any agreement. Certainly there will be
pressure from the NGOs such as Greenpeace and WWF, who have been highly critical of our position, for us to
ratify the agreement without delay.
The need for a slot in the Legislative Programme for
an Antarctic Environmental Protection Bill in the
1991/92 legislative programme is, therefore, probably of greater importance and priority now than when we put forward the bid, and I would request that its contingency
place in a first session be retained.
The Mauritius Republic Bill
Contingency provision has been included for a first session Bill to give effect to the change of Mauritius's
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.