Legal Advisers – Legal Information Group
King Charles Street
London
SW1A 2AH
Mr Martin Keegan
E-mail: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
24 February 2012
Dear Mr Keegan,
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT 2000 REQUEST REF: 0177-12
Thank you for your recent enquiry under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“FOIA”). In
your email you requested to know the following information:
i)
How many treaties are currently in progress (i.e., drafted, the subject of negotiations,
awaiting signature, etc)?
ii)
What is the UK's current position in relation to each such treaty? (in the sense of
whether the UK has signed, or are awaiting information that other parties have
signed, etc)
iii)
What is the working title of each such draft treaty?
iv)
Which states or other persons under international law are the other expected
signatories or acceders to each such treaty?
I have conducted a search for the information you have requested. Information regarding the
total number of treaties which are currently being drafted, negotiated or awaiting signature
(etc.) is not centrally held as any number of government departments might be working on a
treaty at any given time, depending on the subject–matter in each case. Section 12 of the
Freedom of Information Act makes provisions for public authorities to refuse requests for
information where the cost of dealing with them would exceed the appropriate limit. The limit
has been specified in the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limit and
Fees) Regulations 2004. For central government the appropriate limit is set at £600. This
represents the estimated cost of one or more persons spending 3 ½ days working days in
determining whether the Department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and
extracting it. Your request as presently formulated is widely-framed and I estimate that it will
take more than 3 ½ working days to locate, retrieve and extract this information. In these
circumstances we are not obliged under the Act to comply with your request. You may
therefore wish to refine your request to narrow its scope to bring it within the appropriate
limit.
I hope you are satisfied with this reply. However, if you would like a review of our decision or
if you wish to make a complaint, please write to the Information Rights Team at The Old
Admiralty Building, Room SG 120, London, SW1A 2PA. E-mail:
xxxxxx.xxx@xxx.xxx.xx. You have 40 working days to do so from the date this letter.
If you are not content with the outcome of your complaint, you may then apply directly to the
Information Commissioner for a decision. Generally, the Information Commissioner cannot
make a decision unless you have exhausted the complaints procedure provided by the FCO.
The Information Commissioner can be contacted at: Information Commissioner's Office,
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.
We continually strive to improve our service, so we would welcome your feedback and
comments. If you would like to provide feedback on our service, please email our
Information Rights Team, again at:
xxxxxx.xxx@xxx.xxx.xx
You can also find out more about the FCO and freedom of information issues at our Access
to Information websit
e: http://foi.fco.gov.uk/en
Yours sincerely,
S Kay
Sebastian Kay
Office Management Section
Legal Advisers
We keep and use information in line with the Data Protection Act 1998. We may release this personal information to other UK
government departments and public authorities.