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Baroness Lydia Dunn
Baroness Lydia Dunn received her DSc honoris causa in March 1995. The text which follows is taken from the formal address given at the graduation ceremony.
''As the University of Buckingham, a relatively small but rapidly developing institution, strives to maintain its independence and widens further its academic and cultural links across the world, it seems very appropriate that it should be recognising the work of Baroness Dunn today. For Lady Dunn has been a staunch defender of the interests of Hong Kong, a relatively small but extraordinarily dynamic place which relies heavily on its ability to nurture business enterprise and to benefit from an open and free international trading system.
Educated in Hong Kong and at the University of California, Lydia Dunn's outlook has been entrepreneurial and internationalist. She has pursued a very active career in private business, becoming a Director of John Swire Ltd and a Deputy Chairman of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation as well as a non-executive Director of Cathay Pacific Airways.
Alongside these business commitments Lady Dunn has been active in the political life of Hong Kong. A member of the Legislative Council after 1976 she has been involved in numerous committees investigating some of the most important problems facing Hong Kong including matters such as land supply, transport and trade policy. In 1988, Lady Dunn became a member of the Hong Kong Executive Council and now, as the Senior Member, is a policy adviser to the Governor during this crucial phase in Hong Kong's history.
A list of jobs does not, however, do justice to Lady Dunn's contribution to the development of Hong Kong or to her influence on trade policy more generally. She has been a tireless exponent of the benefits of freer trade and international cooperation. Her work has been recognised by the Prime Minister of Japan's trade award in 1987 and by the United States' Secretary of Commerce award for services to peace and commerce in 1988. Her approach to economic development is well represented by her report for the Trade Policy Research Centre in 1983 on 'Protectionism and the Asian-Pacific Region'.
The Study Group warned of the danger that trade restrictions or so called 'managed trade' might be introduced by the United States and by Western European countries as a response to internal political pressures from threatened interests. Protectionist policies, they argued, could only impoverish both the Asian-Pacific Region and the countries imposing trade restrictions. The successful completion of the recent GATT round of trade negotiations owes much to the support of Lady Dunn and like-minded colleagues. Free trade is never perfectly secure, however, and the danger of a resurgence of protectionist sentiment in Europe is considerable. When Lady Dunn produced her report in 1983, the rate of unemployment in Germany, France and Italy was around 8 per cent. Today the unemployment rate is 12 per cent in France and Italy and over 20 per cent in Spain. It seems likely therefore, that the struggle to maintain a trading system free of quotas, tariffs and other restrictions will be as difficult in the later 1990s as it was in the 1980s. The work of champions of free trade like Lady Dunn is never done.''