TNAG-2566-FCO40-3751-Agreements-between-the-Hong-Kong-Special-Administrative-Regi-1992 — Page 33

律政司署

國際法律科

中拿下亚厘辔道

政府台署東座4桜

: 81710 HKAGC HX

TEBANE : 852-5-8690720

Our Ret.L/TRE/54/1

CONFIDENTIAL

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S CHAMBERS

INTERNATIONAL LAW DIVISION

3/F.. EAST WING.

CENTRAL GOVERNMENT OFFICES LOWER ALBERT ROAD, HONG KONG, Telex: 81710 HKAGC HX Fax: 852-5-8690720

* Your Ref.:

Tel. No..

810 2403

Mr Paul Ricketts

Head

Hong Kong Department

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

السلام سعيد ما

16 September 1991

lease

sosida + discuss

Agreements between UK/HKSAR

When Ι was in London in mid-July I mentioned to Shelagh Brooks and Jill Barrett that I thought we should soon begin to give consideration to what arrangements will need to be in effect between the UK and Hong Kong SAR after 1997 and how we should set about achieving this. letter is intended to get that consideration started.

2.

This

First, what subjects will need to be covered? Presumably it will be essential for the UK and the SAR to have in place satisfactory arrangements after 1997 in all those areas that we are busy fixing up now with other important countries.

Thus, we will need arrangements covering air services, extradition, investment promotion and protection, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters and reciprocal enforcement of judgments. Other areas we shall need to think about include visa abolition and prisoner exchange. Provided we get a good result in the! IRO Sub-group on the multilateral treaties in the Private International Law category (I have principally in mind the various Hague Conventions and the New York Arbitration Convention), I guess it would be satisfactory to allow UK/SAR relations to be governed through those multilateral conventions after 1997.. It may well be that there are other areas to be covered and we are now considering those here and will come back to you as necessary. You will no doubt let us know if you think there are other subjects that need to be covered. One can get an idea of the sort fields we should be thinking about by looking at JD 134; indeed that provision would presumably be the formal basis for our approach to the Chinese on this matter.

of

3.

The second mechanism to have currently of bilateral agreements

are

question we need to consider is what in place to achieve our objectives. We course negotiating various kinds of

with a number of relevant countries.

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16.9

OVAL AFFAIRS

$265

16/9/91