Page 172 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

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110 THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE ARABIAN GULF STATES

■ i protection, as provided in the above-mentioned Articles. As regards
i Kuwait, she ceased to be bound by the Agreements after 1961, since
;:1 the ‘territorial application clause' in the Agreements could no longer
apply to her after that date. However, on 13 September 1962 Kuwait
formally accepted the Articles of the two Agreements in her own right
as an independent sovereign State.1

2. The General Agreement of Tariff and Trade (GATT), dated 30
October 1947.2
!
The United Kingdom which became a signatory to GATT from 28 July
i 1948, notified the Secretary-General of the United Nations on that
date that she proposed under Article XXVI, 5(a) of the Agreement,
i to apply it provisionally to all territories for the international relations
'
; of which she was responsible, with the exception of Jamaica. In this
respect, the Arabian Gulf Shaikhdoms have become bound by the
provisions of the Agreement.3 Regarding Kuwait, in particular, the
United Kingdom specifically applied the Agreement to her in 1951.'1
And in November 1961, a few months after Kuwait’s full indepen­
dence, the United Kingdom, in line with procedures adopted by the
Contracting Parlies in 1957, informed the Executive Secretary of GATT
that Kuwait had acquired full autonomy in her external commercial
relations, and that it was then for her to decide on the question of her
future position vis-a-vis the Agreement. Consequently, as Kuwait
wished to become a contracting party to the GATT in her own right,
she was advised to adopt one of three methods: (a) To become a
contracting party under Article XXVI 5(c), ‘immediately and auto­
matically’, by virtue of sponsorship by the United Kingdom which
was formerly responsible for Kuwait’s international relations. (b) To
request that the Contracting Parties should, for a period of two years,
apply the GATT to Kuwait on a de facto basis provided that she
continues to apply the GATT de facto to other Contracting Parties.
(<•) To apply for accession in her own right as a new member, under
Article XXXIII, and negotiate her way with Contracting Parties ‘with
a view to exchanging tariff concessions on a reciprocal and mutually
advantageous basis’.5 Having considered these three alternatives with
regard to her membership of the GATT, Kuwait decided in November

1 Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kuwait.
2 U.K.T.S. (I960, Cmncl. 7258 and Cnuid. 9413; U.N.T.S., vol. 55, p. 194.
3 Ibid. The provisions of Article XXVI 5(a) of the GATT states that ‘each
Government accepting this Agreement docs so in respect of its metropolitan
territory and of the other territories for which it has international responsibility,
except such separate customs territories as it shall notify to the Secretary-General
of the United Nations at the time of its own acceptance’. 4 Ibid
6 Private Correspondence and Notes on the Procedures for Accession to OA l i
and the Advantages for Less-Developed Countries, Issued by the Executive
Secretary ofGATT in October 1961 and January 1962, MGT(61)30.