Policy paper

Closing Statement: Overseas Territories Attorneys General Conference 2019

Published 11 March 2019

This was published under the 2016 to 2019 May Conservative government

The Attorneys General of seven of the UK’s Overseas Territories (Anguilla; the British Virgin Islands; Cayman Islands; Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; Montserrat; St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; and the Turks and Caicos Islands), the Assistant Attorney General of Pitcairn, Henderson, Ducie and Oeno Islands, Attorneys General of the Crown Dependencies of Guernsey and Jersey, a representative from the US Department of Justice and a delegation from the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office met in the Cayman Islands from 19-20 February 2019 to discuss a range of topics relating to the rule of law and administration of justice in the Territories and to enhance our mutual cooperation.

During the conference we discussed cooperation on a number of important topics, including anti-corruption, transparency in the financial services industries in the Territories, child safeguarding, human rights, international obligations, criminal justice issues, information sharing and law revision and reform.

The Solicitor General for England and Wales, Robert Buckland QC MP, joined the conference via telephone to update the group on political developments regarding EU exit and to answer their questions. We discussed the importance of ensuring that the Overseas Territories are legislatively prepared for EU exit, including by making any necessary amendments to their domestic statute books, ensuring that UK sanctions legislation is in a position to operate effectively in their jurisdictions, and that any relevant draft secondary legislation, arrangements or agreements shared with the OTs are given due consideration insofar as practicable given possible resource constraints. We discussed the principles behind the OTs’ constitutions and welcomed an update on the process for making constitutional changes.

We shared experiences on the challenges of same-sex marriage legislation and noted the steps taken by some Territories to recognise these unions. We continue to welcome and encourage engagement and dialogue with all of the Overseas Territories to remove all forms of discrimination. We will also work together to ensure that all legislation, including for same-sex couples, is compliant with our human rights obligations.

We discussed the importance of reviewing the observations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in readiness for the next periodic examination of the UK in 2021; and putting measures in place to enable application to be made for the extension of the Lanzarote Convention to the Overseas Territories. We discussed the merits of legislating to provide special measures for vulnerable witnesses. There was also discussion on the need to provide for cyber-related offences against children to support the work of NCA-CEOP including the establishment of the Digital Forensic Hub.

We also welcomed continued work by the Territories with financial centres to support international efforts to tackle criminal financing and to promote tax transparency, in particular the ongoing bilateral arrangements on beneficial ownership. We highlighted important developments in anti-corruption, including ongoing work in Bermuda and the Turks and Caicos Islands, with a view to future extension of key conventions to their jurisdictions.

UK Government and Overseas Territory representatives in attendance committed to:

1. Continue to involve the Overseas Territories in the EU exit process. This includes ensuring that OT interests are taken fully into account in the negotiations on the future relationship with the EU, and working with them wherever possible in order to ensure that all necessary legislative preparations for EU exit have been undertaken.

2. Continue to work in partnership with Territory governments to ensure that our financial sectors are hostile to illicit finances, keep meeting commitments in the bilateral arrangements on beneficial ownership, engage constructively on the introduction of public registers and support each jurisdiction to adopt and implement international standards, including compliance with Financial Action Task Force standards, where they have not done so.

3. Support the Territories to achieve extension of core Human Rights conventions where these have not been extended, and complete a review of outstanding reservations against core UN human rights treaties.

4. Review the recommendations made by the Wass Inquiry to establish which recommendations have cross-territory read across; work towards extension of the Lanzarote Convention; review the observations made by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and make progress in readiness for the next periodic examination.