The United Kingdom and Human Rights - College of Social ...

138 Values and Civil and Political Liberties
criteria in the Immigration Rules. The effect has been
more removal (an 87 per cent, increase between 1986 and
1988) of people, who, knowing they cannot appeal, go
back not involuntarily to their countries by way of
supervised departure.
Self-determination
Another residual problem of empire is Hong Kong.
Hong Kong consists partly of the Crown Colony (Hong
Kong Island, ceded in 1842 to the United Kingdom after
the Opium War with China, and some of the Kowloon
peninsula and Stonecutters Island ceded in 1860) and
partly of the New Territories (a strip of mainland adjoining
the Kowloon peninsula, together with a group of
islands granted in 1898 on a long lease from China
following further hostilities). The population of Hong
Kong in both the Crown Colony and the New Territories
has been so administered over the last 90 years that it
can be said to have become "a people" entitled both to
internal and external self-determination. Because of
China's proximity and political attitudes, no United
Kingdom government has been willing to allow any
genuine self-determination to the people of Hong Kong.
Internal self-determination or self-government has been
denied and external self-determination ignored, with
China and the United Kingdom agreeing over the heads
of the people of Hong Kong. A smooth transition to
absorption into China has been deemed the best outcome
for the people of Hong Kong—and for British
foreign trade. This contract between two sovereign states
infringes the Hong Kong people's international human
right, recognised in both UN Covenants, to self-deter-