SOUTH - EAST ASIA TREATY ORGANIZATION (IMMUNITIES AND PRIVILEGES) ORDER 1965 (Hansard, 13 April 1965)

§ THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD TAYLOR)
My Lords, I beg to move that the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order 1965, which was laid before your Lordships' House on March 24 last, be approved. As your Lordships will know, this Order was examined by the Special Orders Committee and they thought that it did not raise any important questions of policy or principle, that it was founded on precedent, and could, therefore, be passed by your Lordships without special attention. Nevertheless, since it involves immunities and privileges, I thought your Lordships would wish to have a short explanation of what it is about.
The South-East Asia Treaty Organisation came into being as a result of the Treaty signed at Manila in September, 1954. The main aims of the Organisation are to provide for the collective defence of the area against outside aggression, and to promote the economic well-being and development of all the people in the Treaty area. There is an international Secretariat at Bangkok for continuing consultation by member Governments in pursuing these aims. The present Order is needed to give effect to an agreement concluded on March 12, 1965, and this agreement requires us to confirm certain privileges and immunities on SEATO and persons connected with it. The agreement is not reciprocal, because the other members of the Organisation have already accorded to SEATO appropriate privileges and immunities.
The United Kingdom has, of course, been a member of SEATO ever since the Manila Treaty was signed in September, 1954. However, Her Majesty's Government are only now preparing to grant it the treatment already enjoyed by other comparable organisations, such as NATO and CENTO, because for the first time since it was established SEATO is to meet in the United Kingdom. What has happened is that the meetings of the SEATO Council have revolved as it were, around 283 the capitals of the various nations which belong to it, and it is now our turn. This meeting is the annual meeting of the Organisation at ministerial level which will be preceded by meetings of military advisers of the member States.
The Council meeting is due to begin at the end of April and will last a week, and it is expected that similar meetings will take place in the United Kingdom about once every ten years. So this is not a very serious volume of immunity, taking both time and people into consideration. Since SEATO has no establishments in Britain, the Order will have little effect when the meeting is over, except in relation to acts done in the course of the fleeting, and in so far as occasional official visitors may come here from time to time. For this reason, the Order is in rather simpler form than usual. So far as the representatives of member States are concerned, the Order confers no more than Section 4 of the International Organisations (Immunities and Privileges) Act, 1950, which provides that representatives of foreign sovereign Powers convening in this country should enjoy the immunities of an Ambassador. I think this is only after their names have been published in the London Gazette. Equivalent treatment is available to representatives of Commonwealth countries under a separate Act of 1961. Thus, even in the absence of an Order, the principle representatives—that is, the Ministers, the military advisers and the Council representatives at official level attending the Conference; and in all there will be 21 of them—would be immune from the jurisdiction of the English courts.
The other representatives coming under Article 5(2) of the Order will in fact enjoy less under the Order than they would under Section 4 of the 1950 Act, since their personal immunity is limited to immunity from detention and arrest. The staffs of both categories of representatives will have immunity only in respect of their official acts, and British Government chauffeurs will be provided for the representatives and high officers, so we hope there will be no problem there of chauffeurs having diplomatic immunity. Without an Order under the 1950 Act, however, it would not be possible to confer privileges and immunities on the Secretary General of SEATO, the Deputy Secretary General and the members 284 of the Secretariat. Both these two gentlemen will in general be equated with Ambassadors in the matter of immunities, and the Secretariat—there will be about twenty members of the international staff coming to London for the Council meeting—will have immunity in respect of their official acts only.
There remains the question of fiscal privileges under the Order. The representatives and the Secretariat will be exempted from income tax on their salaries, but the exemption will have little, if any, practical effect since during their short stay in this country for the conference they will not in any event be likely to become liable to tax for emoluments they receive from an organisation functioning in Bangkok. British representatives and representatives of U.K. nationality are specifically excluded from benefiting under this Order. A privilege of which senior representatives and high officers may well avail themselves, and which is limited to those two categories, is exemption from customs duties on imported goods. Such exemption is made usually for official entertainment during the short conference and the amounts imported are unlikely to be large. The commitments upon us under the Order are just the same as for NATO and CENTO, and clearly we cannot treat our SEATO allies differently. I therefore ask your Lordships to approve the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation (Immunities and Privileges) Order.

§ LORD DERWENT
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for having given us such a full explanation. As the noble Lord will know, many of us are very concerned about the numbers, increasing year by year, of those getting diplomatic immunities and privileges. In this particular case, of course, your Lordships have no option but to approve the Order; it is by agreement, and in any event the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation is a suitable organisation to have these immunities and privileges, which are, as the noble Lord has explained, limited.
285 There are two general questions I should like to ask the noble Lord to answer. I believe I am right in saying that international discussions have been going on for some time as to whether—not in this particular case but in other cases—it might be possible to limit, in certain directions for various organisations, either existing or future diplomatic immunities or privileges. I would ask the noble Lord whether those discussions are still going on and, if so, whether there has been any progress.

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for the courteous way in which he accepted the Order. I know that the House feels about the extension of diplomatic privileges in the way he has described, and that is true of another place also. But the remarkable thing is that this appears to be a British sentiment only, and we have had considerable difficulty in persuading other countries to think that this is an important matter. We have in fact recently circulated some 24 Governments, mainly those of Western Europe, the United States, Turkey and the old Commonwealth, with a memorandum suggesting that fresh thought should be given to the whole question of the privileges and immunities of international organisations; and they are aware of the public feeling on this matter in this country. The noble Lord is right in thinking that the question is before two international committees. The Committee on Legal Co-operation of the Council of Europe and the International Law Commission of the United Nations have the matter on their agendas. It is expected that the matter will eventually be discussed at the Sixth Committee of the United Nations, and possibly at an international conference. In the meantime, we will certainly maintain our contacts with other Governments on this matter. But I think it would be holding out false hopes if I suggested that they were likely to he sympathetic to our pleas. It is just worth remembering that these arrangements are reciprocal, and that in some cases the benefits which an international organisation obtains in other countries are most welcome to us, for very obvious reasons; the stability 286 of the country concerned may be less than that of Britain. I think we need always to bear that in mind.

§ LORD BROCKWAY
My Lords, I am sure that all Members of this House will wish this humble Address to be presented to Her Majesty. While the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation is in existence we shall want to give the immunities and privileges to its representatives who come here. I would say to my noble friend that many of us are increasingly doubtful about the value of the South-East Treaty Organisation. It represents in South-East Asia only Pakistan and Thailand; it does not represent India or Ceylon or even Malaysia. And I think Her Majesty's Government will have to take into consideration the fact that our overseas defence expenditure is beyond what our economy will bear, and will have to reconsider the whole question of both CENTO and SEATO in the future in regard to our obligations. I think it would be insincere if, in passing this presentation of the Address, Members of this House who have these feelings did not express them.

LORD FARINGDON
My Lords, I find myself in a great deal of agreement with the noble Lord, Lord Derwent, and with other Members of the House who have expressed themselves on this particular question of immunities on other occasions. I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in their opinion, complete abolition of diplomatic immunities would interfere with the proper functioning of diplomats, either in this country or anywhere else.

§ LORD TAYLOR
My Lords, I think I can answer that without the slightest doubt; it most certainly would.