TNAG-2566-FCO40-3751-Agreements-between-the-Hong-Kong-Special-Administrative-Regi-1992 — Page 17

CONFIDENTIAL

HKC 370/9

W10

24 July 1992

D M Edwards Esq

Law Officer (International Law) Attorney General's Chambers HONG KONG

AGREEMENTS BETWEEN UK/SARG

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I first owe you an apology for the unconscionable delay in letting you have a substantive reply to your letter of 16 September 1991. I hope that this is the worst skeleton in the Department by a long way! As I explained, the letter was inexcusably lost here after receipt. You have been patient in awaiting a reply.

2.

We have now discussed the problems you posed at a meeting with Legal Advisers, Far Eastern Department and Research and Analysis Department. This threw up a number of thoughts, and tentative conclusions, as follows.

Coverage

3. Your first point was what subjects will need to be covered. We believe that an IPPA, an ASA, an MLA and agreements on the Reciprocal Enforcement of Judgements are the most important with an Extradition Treaty, a Visa Abolition Agreement and a Transfer of Sentenced Persons Agreement of a lower priority. There are special factors in

some cases:

On the question of Extradition, provisions for re-surrender would be a sine-qua-non for us. While the Model Agreement contains no such provisions, the Chinese have agreed to draft Agreements which contained such a provision.

A VAA would build confidence in Hong Kong, but the in the light of JD 168, such an agreement would presumably require an entrustment to the SARG from the CPG: ie it could only enter into force after 1 July 1997. As an alternative, we thought it possible for the SARG to decide by administrative act that visas would not be necessary for British passport holders. But JD 166, which provides that the HKSARG may apply immigration controls on entry, stay in and departure from the HKSAR by persons from foreign states and regions, is not absolutely clear as to the degree of autonomy to be enjoyed by the HKSARG with regard to policy on visa abolition.

4. We doubted that some of the subjects contained in JD 134 (eg tourism, culture and sport) would need a bilateral UK/SARG agreement. In some areas, we thought that bilateral agreements would not strictly be necessary (eg

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CONFIDENTIAL

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