Responding to Libyan ‘diplomacy’

Press, 19 May 1984, Page 16

Responding to Libyan ‘diplomacy’

From ‘The Economist,’ London

Can the accepted rules about diplomatic immunity survive the abuse of them by men like Colonel Gadaffi? Only if governments that genuinely respect the rules become much more choosy about who shall enjoy immunity, and where, and when.

The matter is urgent. The British Foreign Secretary, Sir Geoffrey Howe, is raising it when the E.E.C. council meets in Brussels. The United Nations international law commission is meeting in Geneva this month. The N.A.T.O. foreign ministers will confer in Washington; and in early June London will be the scene of the annual summit meeting of the seven main noncommunist nations.

Each of these gatherings will have to consider the questions, along with the machine-gun bullets, that Libya’s ruler has spat into the world’s face from an “inviolable” building in a London square.

Far from disowning his machine-gunner, Colonel Gadaffi gave a hero’s welcome home on April 28 to this murderer of a British policewoman and to those who had helped him get away with it. The colonel has, predictably, played the injured innocent, and his spokesmen have been profuse in quotations from the 1961 Vienna convention on diplomatic relations which their behaviour has brought into disrepute. Calls for that convention’s revision are easier said than done.

Its original drafting required seven years of work. To reach agreement on a revision could take many years, if it could be done at all. (Moscow broadcasters have already indicated that Russia will flatly oppose any such move.)

Moreover, the convention merely codified what was, for most states, long-established practice; and even gross abuse of the privileges it provides does not alter the fact that they are normally regarded as necessary —

although some would call them necessary evils.

Only once in 400 years have the British broken into a foreign diplomat's house, searched it and arrested him. (In 1717 Count Karl Gyllenborg was deep in a somewhat Gadaffish pro-Jacobite plot hatched by his king. Charles XII of Sweden, who planned to land in Britain with 12,000 soldiers, oust George I and restore the Stuarts.)

British governments, anxious to protect Britons working abroad, have usually been reluctant to sever relations with even the most provocative or turbulent of regimes. But now Sir Geoffrey Howe has promised an immediate strengthening of “control over the operations of foreign missions in this country.” His suggestions nod in a good direction: Sir Geoffrey spoke of limiting the numbers of diplomatic missions’ staffs and of their privi-

leged buildings. Such proposals do not go far enough. What is needed now (and can be done now, with the Vienna convention as it stands) is a switch to "positive vetting” procedures. Only when there is no suspicion of involvement in planned or perpetrated violence on British territory should persons, bags or buildings be given diplomatic status: and it should be promptly cancelled if suspicion arises later. If. in a few cases, this makes the maintenance of diplomatic relations impossible, so be it. Countries can manage without. What often deters a government from taking such a firm stand against state-sponsored international terrorism is fear that other countries will gain commerical advantages by placating the offender. When the Americans broke with Libya in 1981, they saw others, including the British, move into lucrative niches there in their stead. Short-sighted grabbing for short-term economic gains having led to disasters, the British are now angry enough to press hard for action to be "taken collectively by the major countries.” 'if they fail to get it before they cool down, all that is valuable in the present system of diplomatic privileges will be jeopardised. The chief cause will not be a few maverick rulers’ outrageous abuse of the system, but the limply ineffective reaction of the world’s majority.

Copyright — “The Economist."