Diplomatic briefcases and such are supposedly immune to seizure by customs. What’s the deal with larger things such as spy planes ?
Admiral Blair, chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, claimed this morning (on ABC) that the US plane which landed in China after colliding with a Chinese jet, is considered sovereign territory, similar to an embassy. Is there really some sort of international treaty to this effect, or is the Admiral just blowing smoke ?
I think they are justing staking a claim, hoping that the Chinese will accept it.
A navy ship can, with their permission, enter one of their ports without having to worry about the Chinese siezing it or studing/copying all of its electronics and mechanical systems. This is what the Admiral is refering to.
International laws do let aircraft in destress land.
Remember when Soviet pilots would defect to Japan with the Soviets new fighters. The US would send people to “help” the Japanese return the planes to the Soviets and so learn a lot about the fighters. The Admiral is trying to remind the Chinese not to do that.
As far as I know, regulations are the same for ships and aircraft: They are territory of the state where the company running them is registered, no matter where this vehicle is placed. Thus, an American jet on Chinese ground is American territory (not sovereign territory - it remains under authority of the U.S. government). Therefore, Chinese police are not allowed to enter the plane (not even to arrest someone who committed a crime in China). The question is whether an American spy plane was allowed to enter Chinese air space. I think the Chinese are not allowed to enter the plane because it’s Aerican territory, but they are allowed to forbid the plane’s departure until they have reached an agreement with the U.S. about the question of violating Chinese territory.
This is at least what I know baout it, but I’m not absolutely sure.
It seems to me that this situation is exactly analogous to the U-2 incident: A U. S. spy plane crashed in territory unfriendly to us, but with which we are not at war. The crew of the plane, having commited a crime (at least in the eyes of the country they were in!), and were taken into custody. It sounds to me like China has every right to do as they’re doing.
There is one big difference between this incident and that of the U-2: the U.S. plane in this case was not violating Chinese airspace at the time of the collision. It was carefully staying in international airspace. Only after the collision, at which point it became a plane in distress, did it violate Chinese airspace.
This is an important distinction from the U-2 incident, where the U-2 was violating Soviet airspace (and international law). At the time, we didn’t think the Soviets could do anything about it (due to the U-2’s high altitude).
From MSNBC:
In the current case, it also seems most likely that the Chinese fighter was the cause of the collision. (See links in above site for cites/quotes.) The large, slow propeller-driven U.S. plane was much less likely to make an abrupt maneuever than the Chinese fighter travelling much slower than it usually does. The Chinese also appear to have been trying to provoke a reaction recently by flying very close to U.S. planes.
Chronos does make the good point that legality is in the eye of the beholder. The Chinese may feel that spying on them, even in international airspace, is illegal. From an international law standpoint, though, they have far less justification for their actions than the Soviets did with the U-2.
I believe that MSNBC quote is slightly misleading. The United States claims that the plane enjoys sovereign immunity, that is, it is considered foreign property and its contents are not to be violated without express permission, which of course is never given.
I’ll have to hit the books for the proper definitions, but I don’t think I’ll be far off the mark when I define the relevant terms as:
Sovereignty: complete self-government and independence (in this case).
Sovereign territory: territory belonging to aforesaid independent entity. Embassies are usually granted this status, which is why the United States takes such a dim view of bombings or attacks on them, even though they are in foreign nations. Such acts are, by definition, acts of war in the eyes of American law.
Sovereign immunity: That spy-plane is one big diplomatic package, the personal property of the independent entity and therefore inviolable by the foreign nation it is located currently within. If I were a Chinese fellow, I would be completely disassembling, photographing, and reassembling said inviolable property just as the Poles did the German Enigma machine before WWII, or the Americans did to that defector’s MiG-25 Foxbat during the Cold War. So long as it all gets back in one piece, you know. Such a violation is not, so far as I know, an overt act of war; it’s just really, really low, and we’d do it the first chance we got were the tables turned.
We might call it sovereign territory, just as the Chinese term it an unauthorized landing, but I’m going to need to see some citation before I go so far as to say that holding and examining the aircraft is an act of war. I’ll tell you this: I’d trade three hard drives hidden behind a copy machine for forty-eight hours with that damned surveillance, hands down. Somebody f**ked up real bad, and our buddies the Chinese just won big.
I’ve often wondered whether cars of diplomats were territories of the states those diplomats worked for (more accurately, whether their volumes were extraterritorial to the host country). Perhaps this is what the special red-and-white diplomatic license plates in Ontario signify?
When I saw the thread title “portable sovereignty”, I immediately thought of Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash”. In this science-fiction novel, Stephenson postulates a balkanized future North America containing sovereignties of all sizes, down to single-person size. There were also “franchise-oriented quasi-national entities” (FOQNEs), which were essentially nothing but embassies (imagine McDonald’s as its own country).
There was a hint of a recognized ‘Sovereign’ status that could be obtained by an idividual, presumably through wealth and/or offensive capability (informational or military). The example single-person sovereignty rode around on a motorcycle with a nuke in the luggage compartment.
This seems to go a little against the requirement for a ‘defined territory’ laid down in Cecil’s column “How do I go about starting my own country?”. Possibly in the past there were a wider variety of sovereignties generally recognized, and this may be so again in the future?
The plane in question is US territory, right? Is entering it then like crossing a border into the US?
Is this normal for travelling vehicles? Was my stepfather’s Canadian-registered car Canadian territory when he was driving it across the US to California? If he had been pulled over, would the US police officer have the same permissions (if any) to enter the car as to enter a US car?
I wonder whether there’s some kind of treaty between the US and Canada that explicitly covers this.
I know that there are agreements between Ontario and a number of US states regarding billing of toll payments on Highway 407 around Toronto. Payments are tied to the vehicle owner, not the driver; the system works by scanning license plates or by triggering transponders, so the system needs access to Ministry of Transport license records, and the corresponding records for other jurisdictions.
It sounds a bit like the old law of the sea which bars nations from preventing a ship escaping a storm or otherwise in distress from seeking shelter in their territorial waters. In general, the distressed vessel may enter a port without being subject to local regulations concerning any incapacity, penalty, prohibition, duties, or taxes in force at that port. I believe pirates were even immune from arrest in such circumstances. Aircraft have similar rights under treaty.
Warships are extensions of the flag and enjoy immunity from the territorial sovereignty of the foreign nation in whose waters they may be located as long as they are there legaly. Its not true Sovereign territory however as, for instance, one needen’t extradite or deport someone from a warship. The particular immunity (I prefer that word to sovereignty) for military aircraft comes from the Convention on International Civil Aviation of 1944.
I think the sticking point is whether the immunity can realistically apply when the plane was allegedly violating the national airspace of china.
It wasn’t in Chinese airspace until after it was in distress, which I would take to mean that the immunity would apply, assuming we’re correct about the relevant international law. Anyone have any cites of the actual treaties?
An Ambassador’s car is also considered part of the embassy. Thus, if you’re driving around in a Chinese limo with the Ambassador you are technically in China and subject to their laws. There is a scene in the movie Sneakers where a Russian diplomat tells Robert Redford to not leave the car when the FBI pull them over. As long as Redford stayed in the car he was immune to American law.
I do not know, however, if it is the car or the people who it is carrying that makes the car sovereign territory. If the limo driver is driving by himself to 7-Eleven for a Slurpee is the car still immune to the host country’s law or does the ambassador (or diplomat) have to be rpesent to confer that status?
Jeff, not sure where you find that but it certainly isn’t in the vienna convention. They always talk about Sovereignty but the reality is somewhat different. Consular premises are protected from intrusion by authorities but that is it. If you break into the Chinese
Embassy in Newe York and assault someone inside your breaking US laws. It may be that Chinese law would also have jurisdiction but the chinese would have no authority to hold you (over and above anyone else) or transport you to China.
Premises are defined and don’t include transport though freedom of movement is guaranteed I don’t think one could establish a strict legal right to not have the car stopped at all. It may be that vehicles could be covered by the same sort of imunity as the plane under another convention but I don’t know where it would come from.
I understand that they are taking the position that they have a right of inspection this morning. The spokesman somewhat disingenuously asked how american territory could and at their airport. I really hate it when people play stupid.
I’m fairly certain you are wrong about this. An Embassy is a little remote blob of a country’s territory. If I break into the Chinese Embassy and assault someone I am breaking Chinese law. Imagine the trouble if an Embassy were subject to the host country’s laws. For instance, we could force mid-east embassies to hire women to comply with our equal rights laws.
As someone already mentioned this is why country’s take such a dim view of having their embassies sacked. That is essentially an attack on their territory and their citizens which in most people’s book is tantamount to war.