Britain's Obligations under the Simonstown Agreements

Abstract

N February, 1971, the Attorney-General presented to Parliament a White Paper i(Cmnd. 4589) entitled Legal Obligations of Her Majesty's Government arising out of the Simonstown Agreements. It comprises the Opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown for England and Wales together with an annex of twenty-eight letters and aidememoire exchanged between the South African embassy in London and the British Government (the Foreign Office, the Admiralty, the Ministry of Defence and in one instance (letter No. 17) H.M.S. Vernon). This is the first time that correspondence relating to the implementation of the Simonstown Agreements 1 has been made public and it is clear that there is other earlier correspondence, since letter No. 1, which is dated September 5, 1961, refers to a letter of March 24, 1961.2 The Law Officers' Opinion begins by a section entitled The Background which gives a very brief description of all the Simonstown Agreements followed by a fuller, but still short, description of the Sea Routes Agreement. In all, both descriptions comprise four paragraphs covering less than a page and a half. It is, therefore, hardly surprising that this brief account takes up the story of the Simonstown Agreements at the time of their signature on June 30, 1955; but the agreements themselves were the result of earlier developments which must be appreciated if the agreements are to be understood. Moreover, any interpretation of the treaties that goes beyond strict textuality requires an understanding of their context. The significance of this point will appear hereafter when it will be argued that the neglect of context is a weakness in the Law Officers' interpretation and that, paradoxically,