Let’s say they went on a killing spree or committed an act of terrorism. Could our government do anything to them without the coaperation of their own government? Could they tell a NY beat cop to “blow off” (or something more descriptive) for more minor offenses such as smoking in public building ect? I would think that certain, smaller nations with diplomatic relations might “sell” the opportunity to be a “diplomat” for a day just to enjoy the privledge of committing these minor infractions without consequence. Someone like Donald Trump might pay ALOT of money so that he could park his helicopter where he wanted or disregard various other minor New York laws.
A diplomat from Libyan shot and killed a British policewomen in London in 1986. If I remember correctly the shot was actually fired from inside the embassy and aimed at some demonstrators, but accidentally hit the women. Britain broke off diplomatic connections but beyond that I think nothing was done to try to convict the killer. So this diplomatic cop killer actually seems to have gotten away with something really bad.
As can be seen here, the Metropolitan Police are still investigating the murder of PC Yvonne Fletcher, 20 years after the event.
The problem in 1984 was that the British Government was not prepared to invade the Libyan embassy (ie a foreign territory with support from OPEC) while people inside were armed with machine-guns and the Libyan government had close links with the IRA and other terrorist organisations.
A tough call, but the British forced the Libyans to accept responsibility for the killing (along with the Lockerbie PanAm bombing) before re-establishing diplomatic contacts recently.
As for Diplomats, immunity does not count for much these days. They are expected to obey the laws of the country in which they reside, and will be prosecuted for crimes they commit (even traffic offences). I expect that a police officer will take no notice of a claim of “diplomatic immunity,” preferring to arrest a suspect and letting their superiors (or the lawyers) sort out the fallout.
Simon
I don’t know what they would do, but according to the international law (convention of Vienna), killing spree or not, the immunity still apply. Only the state the diplomat is representing could try him. However, when a serious crime is commited, this country can accept to suspend the immunity, hence to allow the prosecution/trial. It happens.
As for selling diplomatic status of something like that : the host country can always refuse to accredit the diplomat, if it thinks there’s something fishy about him. It can also declare him “persona non grata” and have him leave the country, after the fact. What it cannot do is arrest him , interrogate him , try him, etc…for whatever reason after he has been accredited.
There’s however an issue with the UN since the host country doesn’t accredit diplomats representing another country at the UN, though they still benefit from the diplomatic immunity.
There has been such a case in France recently, when the businessman Pierre Falcone, who was being prosecuted for a messy weapon traffick in Angola, was appointed by Angola as a diplomat at the UNESCO out of the blues (Falcone wasn’t a citizen of Angola). Since he was apointed at the UNESCO, rather than at the Angola embassy in France, France had no say in this appointment. Since he was now a diplomat, it couldn’t be prosecuted. And finally since the UNESCO headquarters are is in Paris, he could stay in France.
As an example of what clairobscur said: In 2001, a Russian diplomat struck & killed a woman while driving drunk in Ottawa. Here’s a news story from the time. He returned to Russia, was prosecuted for the crime there, and was sentenced to four years in prison.
As I understand it, no country has any obligation to admit diplomats from any other country (cf. North Korea.) I would suspect that if, say, São Tomé e Principe or some other small country started selling diplomatic immunity, they would find their entire embassy ejected from the U.S. in short order.
Of course, if it’s the diplomat from North Bumfark, and we decide that maintaining diplomatic relations with that place isn’t worth the manure they sell us, we could essentially deny the diplomat’s status completely and make him an enemy combatant.
How does five years in prison without so much as an indictment sound?
I don’t understand the purpose of diplomatic immunity and why a country would grant it to someone in the first place. I mean, what is the purpose of telling someone they can’t be arrested for a crime committed here? Why would anyone think this is necessary?
It’s to prevent bogus criminal charges being filed against a diplomat for political reasons. This isn’t really a problem in the major industrialized nations, but it could be if, say, the dictator of the small nation of Rupertstan decided to charge the U.S. Ambassador with the felony of Failing To Do Exactly As I Say in a effort to gain concessions from the U.S. government.
I’m presuming that is is to protect the ambassadors and diplomats who come from liberal countries, when they are stationed in a country with comparatively less liberal laws.
What constitutes a crime in your adopted country might not be a crime in your own.
Obviously I do not condone the abuse of diplomatic immunity, by corrupt official, but I think that’s why it exists in the first place.
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Of course, if it’s the diplomat from North Bumfark, and we decide that maintaining diplomatic relations with that place isn’t worth the manure they sell us, we could essentially deny the diplomat’s status completely and make him an enemy combatant.
[QUOTE]
We could, in theory. But we’re not going to.
The point of diplomatic immunity is reciprocation. We don’t want our overseas representatives to be subject to trumped-up charges and harrassment from officials. So, in exchange for immunity for our guys, we grant immunity to their guys.
Same reason an embassy is considered to be part of the managing country’s actual legal territory. Basically, it’s recognition of an emissary’s special status, and it (in theory) saves the diplomatic staff from having to bone up on weird local laws and customs (although any competent diplomat should do that already). It’s kind of like the traditional government immunity from lawsuits – saves really important people from having to waste their very important time diddling with petty legal matters.
To the OP: It’s been my understanding that when a diplomat really puts his foot in it, the host country can (and often does) demand the expulsion and deportation of the individual in question. On occasion, assuming good relations between the countries, the diplomat or staffer can then be tried in his own country for the crime in question.
Failing that, he leaves the country… although technically, this is up to the ambassador. The local cops can’t enter the embassy without causing a major international incident. Theoretically, the ambassador could simply say “go take a flying leap. He’s staying here,” and there wouldn’t be a thing the host country could do about it, short of terminating relations with the embassy’s country and either blockading the embassy or invading it.
There are precedents for each of these scenarios, if I’m not mistaken.
Not obvious at all. The status of diplomats is a very serious matter, and I doubt this would fly. Other countries would most probably strongly object to such a behavior, since avoiding arbitrary seizings/arrests, etc…of diplomats or diplomatic material is precisely the goal of the Vienna convention. It would be sending the following messages all over the place : “Any diplomat present in the US can be arrested at any moment for any reason or without any reason at all”. And it would create a precedent that even the US would certainly want to avoid, since it means that they wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, if, say, China arbitrarily arrested and interrogated a dozen american diplomats the next year just because Chinese authorities felt like that.
There are some international agreements which are very dearly held by essentially all nations, and the immunity of the diplomatic staff is certainly one of those. Even political assassinations organized by diplomats in the host country didn’t result in them being arrested, but rather simply declared “persona non grata” and expelled. Even when war break out between two countries, if there are diplomats still present, they’re allowed to leave freely.
Diplomatic Immunity is a guarrantee by the host state. Ultimately, this amounts to a gentleman’s agreement. It can be broken at any time. If a government wanted to, they could surely embarass the government of said criminal diplomat into either punishing the guy themselves or not making a stink over losing the diplomatic immunity for him.
That’s the effective version.
Not quite. Any host country has the right to declare a foreign national persona non grata which tells the person he is no longer welcome and has X amount of time to get out of the host country. Sure, the ambassador could just pull the person into the embassy and keep him there but that would just lead to a bigger blow up.
IIRC the process of diplomatic immunity evolved on the battlefields. Each army would have ‘heralds’ who ensured communications between opposing forces didn’t break down (for peace talks and surrenders and suchlike). Such heralds were (supposedly) inviolable non-combatants. The wouldn’t fight and shouldn’t be attacked and they made themselves obvious with clothing and banners.
Well, yes. Quite correct. I believe I just said that. This is, sorta, what happened with the Japanese embassy staff right after Pearl Harbor, except that the Japanese ambassador was not given the opportunity to keep the embassy open, much less hang around himself. A good thing, too, considering the temper of the times.
It seems to me, though, that I have heard of at least one situation where persons have been kept in foreign embassies despite the wishes of the host country to have them removed, but durned if I can cite them… largely because I can’t remember which countries were involved. Anyone out there up on this?
Because this would leave diplomats (and even other foreign representants like head of states, for instance) open to any kind of prosecutions, arrests and interrogations, arbitrary or not. For instance, one could plant some heroin in the ambassador’s pocket, then arrest him, and interrogate him in some backroom, and not necessarily about heroin traffick, possibly blackmail him into revealing secrets in exchange for the droping of charges, or whatever else. Similarily, documents could be seized, etc…
You might have confidence in your country’s institutions not to use various more or less legal “traps” for purposes which have nothing to do with actually punishing an actual crime, but other governments don’t necessarily share this confidence (and probably rightly so) . And your government probably doesn’t rely that much about the good faith of other governments, either.
Also, generally speaking, if the diplomats have to permanently worry about possible arrests and seizure of material, it’s going to hamper their ability to do their job. They already have to take a lot of precautions, but if the local police can pop up in the embassy at any time, seize all the documents therein and keep the staff in custody, they will essentially be unable to do what they’re suposed to. Even if the motive is legitimate (say, the police seize all the embassy’s computer’s hard drives because a member of the staff watched child-porn online).
Finally, laws vary widely from one country to another, and it would be impossible to agree on what is a legitimate motive for arrest or prosecution, even if there was some way to establish if the arrest/prosecution was motivated by genuine concerns and conducted in such a way that it wouldn’t be harmful for the interests of the country the diplomat came from (and both are essentially impossible to establish in any objective way, either).
So, the issue had been handled in the most simple and objective way, by granting a total immunity to diplomats. Once again, this immunity doesn’t mean that they can’t be prosecuted/ sentenced for the crime in their own country, or that this country can’t cancel their immunity in order to let the host country prosecute them. It’s just not left at the host country’s appreciation. And since it’s reciprocal, it benefits everybody.
For the same reason, diplomatic buildings are considered foreign territory and the diplomatic “suitcases” (Which aren’t actual suitcases. The “suitcase” might well be a dozen trucks) aren’t open to search or seizure.
I have the dubious distinction of once having to claim diplomatic immunity…well twice actually. My father is in the State Department. When I was in high school we spent two years in another country where my dad was serving a tour. I was twice busted for drug possession and both times I was simply taken to the American Embassy by the cops after they saw my Dip ID card (families of dips have dip immunity too). The first time, the Embassy just let my dad deal with me (which he definitely did), the second time I was unceremoniously returned to the US. (I’m not proud of any of this. I was a punk ass little jerk back then. It was over twenty years ago. I’ve grown up a little since then).
Basically, dips and the families of dips are expected to obey the laws of the host country as much as possible. In some cases this can be difficult. Women may have to wear veils in Muslim countries for instance. On the Embassy compound, it’s different because the Embassy is considered sovereign to the guest. So that means if you’re in Saudi you can drink on the Embassy compound but not outside of it.
If local laws are violated by dips the guest country deals with it. If its a parking ticket that ususally means the Embassy will force the person to pay it. If it’s something serious the Embassy will send the person back home where they can be further disciplined. In extreme cases, the guest country may relinquish dip priveleges for the person involved but I’m not aware of this happening very often. Basically, something will be worked out between the two countries and justice will be done. I used to hear that if you shot someone in the host country that you would be sent back to the states and tried for murder there but I’m not sure if that was true.
Hmm…I read a couple posters stating that though this is unimportant in western democratic nations, it protect diplomats from these countries stationned in less savory places.
I must say I completely disagree with this statements. Western democracies aren’t above using dirty tricks to get their hands on interesting stuff and informations. They’ve no qualm spying on each other, either.
Even if the diplomat was arrested for genuine reasons (which wouldn’t necessarily be accepted as valid according to the laws of the other country : importing chewing gum in some south-eastern country, anybody?), the intelligence agencies of the host country would most probably not pass this chance (“You know, the prosecutor could perhaps be convinced by the General Attorney to do something about this murder charge, if only you were willing to told us…”).
By the way, the immunity also extend to the family of diplomats, for quite obvious reasons (avoiding possible pressures).
Examples:
Cardinal Mindszenty, 1956-1971 in the US embassy in Budapest (allowed to go into exile)
Mohammad Najibullah, president of Afghanistan 1987-1992, 1992-1996 in the UN compund in Kabul (seized and hanged by the Taliban)
Manuel Noriega, president of Panama, December 1989-January 1990 in the Vatican nunciature in Panama (surrendered to the US)
This happened several times. Usually, it involves locals persecuted for political motives who find their way into the embassy, putting the ambassy and the country it represents in a difficult situation (handing these people to the local authorities, or refuse to abide and keep them inside for god only knows how long). It seems to me it happened in several western embassies in China following the Tien-an-Men issue, but I could be mistaken.
A different example I have in mind is the general Aoun, former prime minister of Lebanon and opposed to the Syrian presence in his country who seek refuge in the french embassy in Beyrouth at the beginning of the 90’s and stayed there for quite a long time, IIRC, before the Lebanese authorities accepted to let him leave the country.
I remember a question about this very issue while I was preparing an exam for a position as a civil servant. It was along the following line : “You’re posted in an embassy in some country ruled by a murderous dictator. Someone is rushing towards the embassy’s entrance, chased down by the local para-militaries and shouting that he’s a political opponent and that they’re after him to kill him. There are guards at the doors. You happen to be the highest ranking official of the embassy present. What do you do?”
Then : “You’ve five seconds to answer”.