TNAG-2523-FCO40-3684-Application-of-political-and-diplomatic-multilateral-treatie-1992 — Page 3

2-NOV-1992

16:09

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IL/POL/11/5

*** Our Ref.:

來函檔號 Your Ref.:

810 2387

Tel. No.:

Miss Shelagh Brooks,

Legal Counsellor,

Foreign & Commonwealth Office,

King Charles Street,

London SW1A 2AH

V.K.

Dear Shelagh,

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS

INTERNATIONAL LAW DIVISION

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Telex: 81710 HKAGC HX Fax: 852-5-8690720

ра

27 November 1992

FIKC 031/24

нкс

IRO Sub-group: Political and Diplomatic Treaties

We spoke on Wednesday 25 November about my faxed letter of 20.11.92 to John Marshall (HKD) which enclosed discussion papers on some of the treaties in the Political and Diplomatic Category.

Items 15.12-15.15

21

You expressed some concern about our proposal to delete these items from the list which you felt could be of significant benefit to the future HKSAR. As promised, I have had another look at these treaties in the light of our conversation to see whether we could establish a reasonable legal basis for their continued application after 30 June 1997. I must confess that I would still have considerable difficulty with

any proposal for the continued application of the 1958 Conventions on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone (15.12) and on the Continental Shelf (15.15). Both contain, for example, provisions which set out the rules for measuring and identifying the territorial sea of State and its continental shelf respectively. I cannot see how the PRC could assume the obligations imposed by such provisions in

respect of only a part of its

territory.