TNAG-2681-FCO40-3878-Implementation-of-United-Nations-sanctions-by-Hong-Kong-agai-1993 — Page 40

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1993

FROM:

PF Ricketts

Hong Kong Department

DATE:

10 June 1993

CC:

Mr Hum

EAU

Ms Evans

UND

ERD

Miss Brooks, Legal Advisers

UN SANCTIONS AND HONG KONG

1. You will have seen that Hong Kong had some initial difficulties in implementing the provisions in UNSCR 820 on impounding vessels controlled by the former Yugoslavia in its territory. This illustrates a wider point about the implementation of UN sanctions in Hong Kong by Order in Council.

2.

The Hong Kong authorities are genuinely keen to carry out their enforcement obligation efficiently: indeed it is very much in their own interests, vis-a-vis the Americans and others, for them to do so. Sanctions are normally applied in the Dependent Territories by means of an Order in Council parallel to that bringing the arrangements into force in the UK. No doubt for most Dependent Territories, such Orders present few problems. But things are different in Hong Kong. As the world's largest container port, and a major international financial centre, sanctions on the movement of goods or financial assets can put Hong Kong in the forefront of the sanctions enforcement operations at very short notice.

3.

The operational point I want to register is that those drafting Orders in Council to apply in the Dependent Territories should not take Hong Kong for granted. I recall that in previous sanctions exercises against Libya and Iraq, Hong Kong were given an opportunity (even if only briefly) to comment on draft Orders before they were laid. That did not happen in the case of the Orders implementing SCR 820: indeed Hong Kong did not even see the text until a few hours before its entry into force. They then found it difficult to get urgent guidance on technical points. It is not fair to the Hong Kong authorities to expect them to implement complex sanctions at nil notice. I realise the pressures which all concerned with the FRY sanctions issue are working under. it would be very helpful if in future cases (both relating to FRY and future international pariahs) those concerned remembered to bring Hong Kong and HKD into all correspondence relating to sanctions and the Dependent Territories at the earliest possible moment.

But

PF Rickett's

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