CONFIDENTIAL
2
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機密
8.
On further
examination I see that
Article
8
to MARPOL provides that each party to the Convention shall make all necessary arrangements for the appropriate officer or agency to receive and process reports and notify the organisation (IMO) with details of such arrangements.
9.
The UK is the party to the Convention which has been applied to Hong Kong. I agree, therefore, with Ms Foakes that the notification procedures in relation to Hong Kong registered ships under MARPOL may be changed by a request made by the contracting party to IMO.
10.
It is open
to
SES to send a telegram to the FCO in London requesting that a report of incidents about Hong Kong registered vessels should be passed directly to the Hong Kong Government Office by contracting parties.
11.
An alternative procedure which I would recommend would be that we need not trouble IMO at all. The existing arrangements for the reporting. of incidents to the FCO would remain but the FCO would immediately send the report to the Hong Kong Government Office in London. In this way the contracting party to the Convention would be kept informed of incidents and the procedure whereby the report is circulated around Whitehall would be avoided. SES and you may prefer that approach.
12.
Finally, it should be recognised that we should not make too much of a song and dance about all this as the delay before Hong Kong received the report was almost entirely attributable to the 18 months it took the Germans to report the matter to the FCO. Moreover the Germans did describe the vessel as UK registered.
Jah Huntty
(J.R.A. Hanratty)
Ag Law Officer (International Law)
c.c. SES (Attn: Mr A.R. Clark) w/e
Commissioner, London (Attn: Mr D.A. Hall) - w/o encl.
CONFIDENTIAL
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