[Maarten den Heijer is assistant professor of international law at the Amsterdam Center of International Law and member of the editorial board of the European Human Rights Cases (EHRC) and contributor to the Dutch Journal for Human Rights]
Praise is due to the collaboration between
Leiden Journal of International Law and
Opinio Juris in providing this platform for reflection and discussion – in this instance on my paper on diplomatic asylum and Julian Assange. I much enjoyed reading the responses of Gregor Noll and Roger O’Keefe and am greatly appreciative for their genuine and refreshing engagement with my arguments. I take the liberty to just briefly reflect on what I consider their most provocative points.
Although threading on different paths of reasoning, both Gregor and Roger caution against presenting the 1950
Asylum Case as still reflecting the international law on diplomatic asylum as it stands today. The primacy accorded to territorial sovereignty by the ICJ judges at that time and their framing of a grant of asylum to a fugitive from the authorities of the receiving state as necessarily constituting an intervention in the domestic affairs of that state, so they argue, beg further reflection at the least.
