Recently, Latin America has been caught in a diplomatic turmoil.
The reason is that after former Ecuadorian Vice President Grasse fled to the Mexican embassy in Ecuador to seek asylum, Ecuadorian police besieged the embassy and climbed over a metal fence to break into the embassy and arrest Grass, on suspicion of corruption.
The move sparked outrage in Mexico, which issued a statement saying that the act was a flagrant violation of international law and Mexico's sovereignty, and that Mexico had decided to suspend diplomatic relations with the Ecuadorian government.
At the same time, many governments in Latin America, including Brazil and Argentina, have criticized the Ecuadorian government's approach and expressed solidarity with Mexico, among which Nicaragua is the most radical and directly announced the severance of diplomatic relations with Ecuador in order to show solidarity with Mexico.
▲ Clashes between Mexican embassy personnel and police
Obviously, Ecuador has stabbed a hornet's nest this time, and many people feel that the Mexican embassy is Mexican territory, and Ecuador's intrusion into it is tantamount to invading Mexico? No wonder Mexico is so annoyed.
So, is this perception correct? Is the embassy really the territory of the sending country?
If we want to say whether an embassy is a territory or not, we have to start with the formation of the embassy.
In fact, the exchange of envoys between countries has been going on since the beginning of human diplomacy.
As early as the time of the Greek city-states, the city-states had accepted ambassadors in their respective territories and treated each other with courtesy. By the 5th century B.C., the exchange of special missions between city-states had become frequent, and a system similar to that of modern formal diplomatic exchanges had emerged.
The French scholar Pierre-Ezemand pointed out that "diplomacy has existed since the existence of international relations, and it can be said that diplomacy is born when a nation is willing to come into contact with its neighbors." "The practice of establishing relations through emissaries, cavalry officers, couriers, or other emissaries spread in many autonomous city-states of ancient Greece. From 500 BC to 400 BC, some form of organization was formed, such as the 'Foreigner's Inn', an official inn that welcomed and received foreign envoys. ”
This was the earliest prototype of the embassy in the West.
In China, in fact, diplomatic activities began very early, such as the very famous "Zhan Xi Rewarding Master" and "Combining Vertical and Horizontal", which are all famous cases of ancient Chinese diplomacy.
Later, in maintaining relations with other national regimes or countries, the Central Plains Dynasty often accepted or sent envoys to visit each other for various purposes, and most of the people who lived in post houses were also staying.
See, both in the East and the West, although there are post houses that receive foreign envoys, most of these envoys are not permanent but mobile, so the post houses only become diplomatic institutions when there are envoys, and when there are no envoys, they only serve as hotels.
▲ Foreign envoys to China to congratulate the Chinese emperor on his birthday
So when did the permanent embassy start? probably from the end of the Middle Ages.
The first permanent legation in Genoa, now recognized by diplomatic scholars, was the Genoa mission of Duke Francesco Sforza of Milan in 1455, and this practice quickly became popular. In 1496, for example, Venice appointed two merchants living in London as deputy ambassadors to avoid the hardships of travel. The royal families of London, Paris, and Charles V all accepted ambassadors from Italy and France, and other countries followed suit and began to establish permanent legations.
Since they were stationed, it was inconvenient to stay in a hotel all the time, so each country began to rent or buy a building in the capital of the other country for the office of the legation, and so the embassy was gradually formed.
Note that the embassy at this time is only an office space and does not have any special rights.
In 1648, the Thirty Years' War between the Habsburgs and their Catholic allies and France, on the one hand, and the Protestant powers and allies of France, ended with a series of treaties signed in the Westphalian region of Germany. These treaties are collectively known as the Treaty of Westphalia.
The Treaty of Westphalia is the de facto source of modern international law and a milestone in the history of international relations. Treaties define the principles of national sovereignty, national territory and national independence that should be observed in international relations, and play an important role in promoting the development of modern international law, including a series of international laws in the diplomatic system.
In the following hundreds of years, with the continuous maturity of the Vienna system, a series of principles and rules of international law, such as diplomatic immunity, were born and developed on the basis of the practice of sending envoys to various countries, especially the exchange of permanent envoys.
However, these rules are not uniform, and sometimes there is even an abuse of their own force to force other countries to enter into diplomatic terms that undermine their sovereignty.
For example, after the Boxer Rebellion, the foreign powers forced the Qing government to sign the Xinqiao Treaty in 1901, which designated Dongjiaomin Lane in Beijing as an embassy area, which was managed by foreign embassies and stationed in foreign troops, and Chinese were not allowed to live in the embassy area, and Chinese troops were not allowed to enter without the consent of foreign embassies, "forming a 'state within a state'".
▲The French Embassy in Dongjiaomin Lane
Therefore, in 1961, at the initiative of the United Nations, the countries of the world convened the United Nations Conference on Diplomatic Exchanges and Immunity in Vienna, the capital of Austria, and signed the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, with the Optional Protocol on the Acquisition of Nationality and the Optional Protocol on the Compulsory Settlement of Disputes.
This treaty has become the express basis for all modern diplomatic rights and the fundamental principle for the settlement of all diplomatic disputes, including the protection of embassies.
The main content of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is related to diplomatic privileges and immunities.
Articles 3 to 47 of the Convention divide diplomatic privileges and immunities into six sections, namely: the functions of the mission, the premises of the mission, the personnel of the mission, customs duties and inspections, archives and communications, and other provisions, among others.
Articles 22 and 30 concerning the premises of the mission stipulate that:
1. The premises of the embassy shall not be violated. Officials of the receiving State are not allowed to enter the premises of the embassy without the permission of the head of the mission.
2. The receiving State has a special responsibility to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the Mission from intrusion into or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace or dignity of the Mission.
3. The premises and equipment of the Embassy, as well as other property and means of transport of the Embassy, shall be protected from search, requisition, seizure or enforcement.
"Officials of the receiving State" generally means the military and police, judicial personnel, tax collectors and other personnel performing official duties stationed in the country who are not allowed to enter the private residence of the diplomatic mission or diplomatic personnel to perform any mission without the consent of the diplomatic envoy or the diplomatic personnel. The premises of diplomatic missions and the private residences of diplomatic agents, whether belonging to or leased by the Government of their own country or private persons, shall not be infringed upon.
In addition, the treaty stipulates that diplomats enjoy the same rights of inviolability in their private residences, documents and letters, and property.
Therefore, in order to ensure the safety of the premises of diplomatic missions and the private residences of diplomats, many countries have adopted the method of sending military and police guards at the gates to prevent gangsters from breaking in and causing trouble. There are also countries that have mobile posts patrolling the vicinity, and they are responsible for protecting the security of diplomatic missions and diplomatic personnel.
So the problem is, if the Ecuadorian police break into the Mexican embassy and arrest their former president according to this provision, it is obviously a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which is a huge violation of Mexico.
The reason is very simple, and the "Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations" also stipulates that the "Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations" still stipulates:
Missions may not be used for purposes that are inconsistent with these provisions or other provisions of general international law, or for purposes inconsistent with agreements concluded between the sending and receiving States.
How can we understand this sentence? We can simply understand that it is forbidden to engage in illegal activities that undermine the sovereignty of the host country in the premises.
For example, the right of detention (restriction of personal liberty) may not be exercised.
An embassy in the territory of the host State shall not have the right to detain any person in its premises, even in respect of its own nationals. In the event of a detainee, the host State has the right to request that the relevant embassy hand him over.
For example, in the famous Khashoggi case, Khashoggi is a well-known Saudi journalist who has long criticized Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Salman's domestic and foreign policies, which has aroused Salman's dissatisfaction.
On October 2, 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, to go through the formalities related to marriage, and "never came out again". Later, after investigation, Saudi agents completed the whole process of tying up Khashoggi, beating him, anesthetizing him, and dismembering him alive in just seven minutes.
Obviously, it was not the legitimate use of the embassy premises to kill people, so Saudi Arabia was disgraced by this incident, and the five people involved in the case were sentenced to death, and the sentence was finally commuted to 20 years in prison because Khashoggi's son signed a "letter of understanding".
Another example is that embassies do not have the right of diplomatic asylum.
Internationally, it is generally not permissible to grant asylum to persons wanted by local government decisions in embassies. When a criminal enters the embassy to take refuge, and the host country requests the surrender through diplomatic channels, the embassy generally cannot refuse. If the embassy refuses to hand over the offender, the host country will also use coercive measures to force the offender to hand him over.
For example, Assange, who founded WikiLeaks, is famous for exposing many behind-the-scenes deals in Western countries, especially the atrocities of the US military in Afghanistan.
In the face of the pursuit of the United States, Assange had no choice but to hide in the Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom, and Ecuador also accepted Assange's asylum application out of consideration for the United States.
But in the end, Ecuador was limited by its lack of strength, and under pressure from the United States and the lure of a loan from the IMF, it handed over Assange.
If you look at it from this point of view, Ecuador is really a double standard.
On the one hand, out of his own needs, Assange took refuge in his own embassy.
On the other hand, the Mexican embassy sheltered its former president, but it did not do it itself, so it had to let the military and police besiege the embassy and forcibly arrest its former president.
Therefore, although the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations has explicit provisions, because of the flexibility of its provisions, how to apply them depends entirely on how the countries concerned understand and interpret them.
So the question is, is the entry of the Ecuadorian military and police into the Mexican embassy an invasion of Mexico?
From the current perception of most countries, it does not count, because the embassy is not a territorial extension of the sending country at all.
The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations stipulates the principle of "inviolability of embassy premises", but it does not say that this is the territory of the sending country.
Strictly speaking, the embassies of various countries, the land generally belongs to the host country, and the host country provides this land and buildings to the other party for use, but it does not mean that the land is ceded to you, otherwise, this will not become a concession?
For example, in 1979, after the hostage incident at the U.S. Embassy in Iran, the United States sued Iran before the Nationality Court, and finally in the judgment of the International Court of Justice in the case concerning U.S. Diplomatic and Consular Personnel in Tehran, it was clear that "there is no more basic precondition for the conduct of state-to-state relations than the inviolability of diplomatic envoys and embassies," accusing Iran of violating diplomatic conventions, not U.S. territory.
Why, then, does an embassy have the impression that "the sending country's territory is extended"? It is because in the practice of international law, the sending country has jurisdiction within the embassy. In the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, it is stipulated that embassies and consulates of various countries abroad are not subject to the jurisdiction of the host country, but to the jurisdiction of their own country.
To put it simply, in the embassy, the law of the sending country must be followed, and even if a case occurs, it must be handled in accordance with the law of the sending country first.
For example, on July 29, 1982, a homicide occurred in the Chinese Embassy in Mozambique, where Tang Jiansheng, the interpreter of the embassy, borrowed the pistol of the captain of the guard battalion of the Mozambican presidential palace and killed nine people in a row in the embassy, and then walked out of the embassy to surrender to the Mozambican police. Tang Jiansheng was subsequently sentenced to death by the people's court and executed.
Of course, there are exceptions.
Let's assume that the American committed a crime and fled to the German embassy in Russia (if he can escape in), then at this time, the Russian police cannot go in and arrest people, and can only solve it through diplomatic channels, and only after obtaining the request of the top leadership of the embassy can they invite them to go in and arrest people, but if the Germans do not agree, the Russian police cannot forcibly arrest people.
Let's assume that if there is a murder in the US embassy in France, if the murderer and the person killed are American diplomats (with immunity), then the French embassy is also out of control, but if the murderer is an American diplomat and the embassy employee (French) is killed, then the French police have the right to ask the embassy to investigate the truth. If the murderers and the people who are killed are French, then the embassy will not bother to bother with this kind of matter, and it will be handed over to the French police for handling, and the French police can also enter the embassy for investigation after obtaining consent.
For another example, China bans guns, the United States does not ban guns, and American staff are allowed to carry guns in the embassy, but when they leave the embassy, they must respect Chinese laws, and if they bring guns, the Chinese police have the right to arrest people.
Therefore, it is precisely because of this delicate relationship between jurisdiction and the principle of territoriality that China has issued the "Reply to the Question of Whether the Public Security Organs of the Mainland Have Jurisdiction over Public Security Cases Occurring in Foreign Consulates in China".
The reply made it clear that after receiving the report from the embassy, it is necessary to first find out who is involved, and distinguish whether it is a Chinese, a foreigner or a stateless person; if it is a foreigner, it is necessary to find out whether he is permanently residing in the mainland and whether he is a consular officer, a consular administrative technician, or a consular service officer, a private service person, Consular courier, or the spouse or minor children of the above-mentioned persons (depending on whether they have immunity or not), then make a decision on whether to deal with it through diplomatic channels or criminal justice channels.
Therefore, although the embassy is not the territory of the sending country, as a symbolic area representing a country, it still has a strong particularity and sensitivity, which is why Ecuador's forced invasion of the Mexican embassy can cause such a big storm.
If Ecuador does not apologize, then the diplomatic turmoil in South America will only intensify.