CONVENTION COUNTRIES (Hansard, 2 March 1972)

§ Mr. S. C. Silkin (Dulwich)

I should like to ask one question of the Minister, which might be helpful for the enlightenment of the Committee, the House and the public. Part II of the Bill, as I understand it, enables this country to accede to the convention of 1956.

It contains some 14 or 15 Clauses which set out in detail the law which will come into force as a result of that accession or to enable the accession to take place. I wondered whether the Under-Secretary of State could explain why it is necessary to set out the law in detail in this way rather than follow the precedent which has been followed on another occasion in another Bill when the same object has been given effect to in a single Clause.

§ Mr. Carlisle

As far as I can understand it, Part I of the Bill deals with bringing up to date provisions relating to those countries which have similar legal systems to our own and it replaces the existing law under the 1920 Act. As the hon and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) says, the whole of Part II deals with our ability to sign the United Nations Convention on this matter which has been signed so far by 36 other countries. It sets out the methods by which one can enforce claims made in countries which have totally different legal systems from ours. The answer to the question must be that it is necessary to set out in the statute the law which is to be applied when we are a signatory to that 881 Convention. If we sign the Convention without setting out the law, there would be no provisions under which our courts would be acting when they were enforcing claims made in a foreign country whose laws were totally different from those which applied in this country. That is the best I can do for the hon. and learned Gentleman for the moment.