Are embassies off-limits? Ecuadorian and Israeli actions suggest otherwise − and that sets a dangerous diplomatic precedent
The Conversation, 9 April 2024
Jorge Heine
It has long been held that embassies
should be treated as “off-limits” to other nations. Yet in a single
week, two governments – both long-established democracies – stand
accused of violating, in different ways, the laws surrounding foreign
diplomatic missions.
First, on April 1, 2024, Iran’s
embassy in Damascus was bombed, presumably by Israel, killing several
high-ranking commanders of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps. Then, on April 5, Ecuadorian police forced
their way into the Mexican Embassy in Quito to arrest a former vice
president of Ecuador who was seeking political asylum.
Both actions have led to claims of
international law violations and accusations that the Vienna Convention,
which establishes the immunity of diplomatic missions, was contravened.
As someone with a fair amount of
knowledge of embassy life – I have served as Chile’s head of mission in
China, India and South Africa and coedited The Oxford Handbook of Modern
Diplomacy – I believe the two incidents are of greater concern than
much of the international community appears to be viewing them.
Contrary to the famous quip from late
businessman and presidential candidate Ross Perot, embassies are not
just “relics of the days of sailing ships.” Rather, in an increasingly
complex world where geopolitical conflict, mass migrations, pandemics
and climate change require careful and stable diplomatic management, any
incidents that erode the sanctity of embassy rules could have serious
negative consequences. In short, they make for a more dangerous world.
Curious indifference to embassy attack
Of the two recent incidents, the
Iranian embassy bombing is the more serious, as it involved the loss of
life and resulted in warnings of retaliatory attacks.
Yet, Western countries, leaders of
which often voice concern over upholding the so-called “rules-based
order,” have been reluctant to condemn the act.
It was notable that the three liberal
democracies on the U.N. Security Council – the United States, the United
Kingdom and France – all refused to condemn the strike on Iran’s
embassy when the issue came up before them.
Israel, while not officially
acknowledging responsibility, argued that the Iranian ambassador’s
residence was not really a diplomatic venue but “a military building …
disguised as a civilian building.” As such, to Israel it was a perfectly
legitimate target.
But by this logic, nearly all embassies would be seen as fair game.
Almost by definition, the vast
majority of embassies – particularly of the larger countries – are
populated with significant numbers of military and intelligence
personnel. To suggest that for that reason embassies should lose their
diplomatic immunity and become legitimate targets for armed attacks
would bring the whole edifice of the Vienna Convention crashing down.
And with it would come the structure on which worldwide formal
diplomatic interactions are based.
Bedrock diplomatic principles
The case of Ecuador, though less
serious because it did not involve loss of life, is a bit more complex
and demands some unpacking.
At the center of the diplomatic spat
between Ecuador and Mexico is former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge
Glas, who served four years behind bars following a 2017 conviction on
corruption charges.
Glas is now facing trial on different
charges, prompting his December 2023 application for asylum at the
Mexican Embassy. Mexico accepted the request and conveyed this to the
Ecuadorian government.
The latter justified its decision to
send police into the Mexican embassy on the grounds that it believes
Glas cannot be granted political asylum as he is a convicted felon.
There is some basis to this claim:
Under the Organization of American States’ Convention on the Right to
Asylum of 1954, political asylum cannot be given to convicted felons
unless the charges behind such conviction are of a political nature.
But at the same time, Article 21 of
the Vienna Convention states that diplomatic missions enjoy full
immunity and extraterritoriality, meaning the host government does not
have the right to enter an embassy without the authorization of the head
of mission.
Ecuador argues that Mexico abused its diplomatic immunity, leaving it no option other than to send police in.
Yet, here a crucial distinction needs to be made.
Diplomatic immunity and the
extraterritoriality of foreign missions are bedrock principles of the
Vienna Convention. Political asylum is a separate matter that should be
handled on its own.
As such, if the Ecuadorian government
considered Glas not to qualify for political asylum, it could have
attempted to legally block the move or refuse safe passage for the
asylum-seeker to exit the embassy and leave the country. Mexico would
have strong grounds to counter such measures, however, as according to
the Convention on the Right to Asylum of 1954, it is up to the
asylum-granting state to decide whether the case is politically
motivated.
Implications for the future
Regardless of the merits of the asylum
case, sending in the equivalent of a SWAT team to storm the embassy
represents a deliberate violation of diplomatic norms.
There is a long history of Latin
America politicians seeking asylum who spent many years holed up in
embassy buildings because governments would not grant them safe passage –
the most notable being Peruvian leader Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre,
who spent five years at the Colombian Embassy in Lima.
Yet, with a few exceptions, not even
in the darkest hour of Latin America’s military dictatorships in the
1960s and 1970s were police permitted to storm into embassy buildings to
arrest asylum-seekers.
And this highlights what makes Ecuador’s actions especially worrisome.
Precisely because of Latin America’s
problems with political instability and a tradition of military coup,
the laws surrounding political asylum and diplomatic immunity are
necessary.
Undermining the Vienna Convention in
the way Ecuador has risks setting a precedent that other governments
might be tempted to follow.
Political asylum in Latin America has
traditionally worked as a safety valve, allowing deposed leaders to get
themselves out of harm’s way.
Weakening the diplomatic structures in
place supporting asylum will make the handling of democratic breakdowns
more difficult. It also risks exacerbating regional disagreements. We
are already seeing this with Mexico breaking relations with Ecuador as a
result of the embassy raid.
Making diplomacy more difficult
Of course, embassy violations are not
unprecedented. Guatemala’s dictatorship attacked the Spanish Embassy in
Guatemala City in 1980, killing several asylum-seekers, including a
former vice president. And Uruguay’s military government sent security
forces into the Venezuelan Embassy in Montevideo in 1976 to arrest a
left-wing militant who had sought asylum, leading to the breakdown of
diplomatic relations between the two countries.
But those events in the relatively
distant past were widely and rightly condemned at the time as the
product of authoritarian regimes with little regard for international
conventions.
The comparatively relaxed
international attitude to the embassy violations by Israel and Ecuador
reflects, I believe, a failure to grasp the significance of eroding
diplomatic immunity and norms.
As global challenges increase, embassies and their representatives become more important, not less so.
If the takeaway from the two latest
embassy incidents is that the protection of diplomatic premises can be
secondary to whatever is politically expedient on any given day, then it
will be of great detriment to the management of international
relations. Diplomacy will become much more difficult.
And given the enormity of the challenges the world faces today, that is the last thing any country needs.
Jorge Heine is Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future, Boston University