![]() There was a tacit assumption that the receiving state could ensure public order and the protection of diplomats from criminal and similar activities. The main spirit of the Vienna Convention was to ensure that a diplomat is not disturbed in his work, by the authorities of the receiving state. What is the appropriate level of protection of diplomats in a city with a high crime rate, such as Caracas? Article 29 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations states that the host state ‘ shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person (the diplomat’s), freedom or dignity.’ The negotiators of the Vienna Convention spent months negotiating the level of protection, dismissing other proposals, such as ‘all necessary’, and ‘all required’, and agreeing to accept the vaguest formulation ‘all appropriate’. In all, around a dozen cases have been reported publicly in the past two years.Īlthough the Economist article focuses on the security situation in Venezuela, it opens the broader issue of diplomatic immunity in modern times. Two months earlier, the Chilean consul was shot and wounded by kidnappers. In January Mexico’s ambassador and his wife were abducted. On April 8th Guillermo Cholele, a Costa Rican attaché, was kidnapped for ransom. The Economist, in the article “ No immunity here”, discusses problems in protecting diplomats in Venezuela: In its modern form, diplomatic immunities are codified in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Granting immunity to envoys is at least as old as written history, mentioned in some of the oldest texts ( Amarna letters) and holy writings.
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