TNAG-2879-FCO40-4151-Agreements-between-the-Hong-Kong-Special-Administrative-Regi-1993 — Page 166

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облять,нко

The Minister was

CONFIDENTIAL

grateful for this note.

Mr

G.J.Dorey.

нува міжка

PS/Mr Goodlad

HONG KONG:

FROM:

16 DATE:

CC:

Aug 15/4.

LEGAL ISSUES

va. ra

M16(4 Mr Mom's

Mr Baske

(12)

Some of Hese prints, in

v. abbrieriated form, sho

te in the nave for the

PF Ricketts

Hong Kong Department

15 April 1993

Sir J Coles

Mr Davies, FED

s/stake.

Ms Brooks, Legal Advisers

Mr Wye, RAD

HKCC 370/4

16.

RECEIVED

* ?

ASTRY

4 MA 1993

CSK

RECISTRY

tion Taken

1. David Edwards, the Law Officer (International Law) in the Hong Kong Government and a former FCO Deputy Legal Adviser, was in London in the week before Easter. We had a useful meeting, including FCO Legal Advisers, to take stock of work on legal aspects of the transition. There is a formidable amount still to do, including some important areas not yet broached with the Chinese. I thought the Minister might be interested in a summary of the main points.

Multilateral Treaties

2.

Mr Edwards told us that as far as the Hong Kong Government were concerned, work on this subject is drawing to a conclusion. There are some 230 international conventions and treaties applying to Hong Kong. Of those, we have reached agreement with the Chinese on the continued application to Hong Kong of 106. We have given them papers on about 100 of the remaining treaties and await their views. The majority of these are of a purely technical nature. But they include a small group of human rights treaties. The Chinese will find it particularly difficult to swallow the continued application of these to Hong Kong. For example, under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (the application of which to Hong Kong the Chinese agreed in the Joint Declaration) the Chinese will be responsible for reporting to the UN Human Rights Committee on developments in Hong Kong after 1997, as we do now. When we next report to the Committee on Hong Kong in 1994, we will be pressed as to what arrangements will be in place for reporting post-1997. We will need to be able to say at a minimum by then that we have broached the subject with the Chinese side. There is a final group of some 15 treaties on which we have not yet given the Chinese papers.

wf 370/9/93 for for

reference Crefd

to in

folio (15

CONFIDENTIAL

hum14.4legal/MINS

Builler 30 x 95