[D66] America’s Vassal Acts Decisively and Illegally

[Antid Oto]

http://wsws.org/articles/2012/aug2012/assa-a17.shtml

On 17-8-2012 9:31, Antid Oto wrote:
> http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/08/americas-vassal-acts-decisively-and-illegally/
>
> by craig on August 16, 2012 11:30 am in Uncategorized
>
> I returned to the UK today to be astonished by private confirmation from within
> the FCO that the UK government has indeed decided – after immense pressure from
> the Obama administration – to enter the Ecuadorean Embassy and seize Julian Assange.
>
> This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of
> 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes the
> centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which have enabled diplomatic
> relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most subscribed single
> international treaty in the world.
>
> The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises are
> expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or
> qualification elsewhere in the treaty.
>
> Article 22
>
> 1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving
> State may not enter
> them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
> 2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to
> protect the premises
> of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of
> the peace of the
> mission or impairment of its dignity.
> 3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and
> the means of
> transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or
> execution.
>
> Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the
> Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War,
> defectors or dissidents were never seized from each other’s embassies. Murder in
> Samarkand relates in detail my attempts in the British Embassy to help Uzbek
> dissidents. This terrible breach of international law will result in British
> Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.
>
> The government’s calculation is that, unlike Ecuador, Britain is a strong enough
> power to deter such intrusions. This is yet another symptom of the “might is
> right” principle in international relations, in the era of the neo-conservative
> abandonment of the idea of the rule of international law.
>
> The British Government bases its argument on domestic British legislation. But
> the domestic legislation of a country cannot counter its obligations in
> international law, unless it chooses to withdraw from them. If the government
> does not wish to follow the obligations imposed on it by the Vienna Convention,
> it has the right to resile from it – which would leave British diplomats with no
> protection worldwide.
>
> I hope to have more information soon on the threats used by the US
> administration. William Hague had been supporting the move against the concerted
> advice of his own officials; Ken Clarke has been opposing the move against the
> advice of his. I gather the decision to act has been taken in Number 10.
>
> There appears to have been no input of any kind from the Liberal Democrats. That
> opens a wider question – there appears to be no “liberal” impact now in any
> question of coalition policy. It is amazing how government salaries and
> privileges and ministerial limousines are worth far more than any belief to
> these people. I cannot now conceive how I was a member of that party for over
> thirty years, deluded into a genuine belief that they had principles.
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