TNAG-2860-FCO40-4114-Hong-Kong-participation-in-the-World-Conference-on-Human-Rig-1993 — Page 42

Your Ref: CAB B3/11 Our Ref:

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Foreign & Commonwealth

Office

Date: 11 March 1993

24112

RECEIVED IN REGISTRY 12 MAR 1993

BY FAX

DESK OFFICER INDEX

REGISTRY PA Action fake..

Mrs Jenny Chok

Constitutional Affairs Branch

HONG KONG

London SWIA 2AH

♡

Telephone: 071-

270-2655

Dea Tomy,

WORLD CONFERENCE ON HUMAN RIGHTS

2

1. Thank you for your letter of 9 March and the Fax of the Amnesty press release. I enclose a note prepared by Human Rights Policy Unit here which sets out some of the background to the meeting. I shall be sending more details by bag.

2. You asked in our telephone conversation this morning whether HMG had any view on participation by Dependant Territories at the Conference. The situation is similar to that of the Rio Conference on the Environment. HMG are happy to represent the interests of Dependant Territories but equally they are welcome to participate as part of the UK delegation. This also applies to the Regional Conferences, although in the case of the Asian one, as the UK is only an observer, then HK too could only be an observer. I have been asked to point out that you would have to meet your own costs.

3

I should be grateful to know should you decide to send an observer to either of these meetings as part of the UK team. In practice the meetings will be looking at ways of making the existing institutions work better, rather than discussing individual countries Human Rights records. It is not clear then what Hong Kong rather than UK angle there might be. A thought might be that a member of International Law Division (Miss Foakes?), could make a valuable contribution.

4. I do not think that there is any particular China angle. The precedent for Hong Kong attending international conferences as part of the UK delegation is now well

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