[Sondre Torp Helmersen is an LLM candidate at the University of Cambridge, teaches at the University of Oslo, and is an editor at the Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law.]
The recent nuclear deal between Iran and the “P5+1” may potentially bookend a long period of intermittent diplomatic troubles for Iran. The mutual distrust and hostile rhetoric that have accompanied (and obstructed) the negotiations are traceable to the fallout over the taking of US diplomats in Tehran as hostages in 1979, in what is usually called the Iran hostage crisis. The diplomatic breakthrough that the deal represents provides an opportunity to revisit the impact of that crisis on the current state of diplomatic law. Some parts of its legacy are widely appreciated, while others are less well understood. This post will focus on a somewhat overlooked distinction, namely that between countermeasures against abuses of diplomatic immunity and violations of diplomatic immunity as countermeasures.
1. Background: The Tehran case and self-contained regimes
The hostage crisis led to a judgment by the International Court of Justice (the
Tehran case,
[1980] ICJ Rep 3). The Court found that actions attributable to Iran had violated the diplomats’ immunity. Iran argued, among other things, that the hostage takings could be seen as countermeasures against foregoing abuses of diplomatic immunity by the diplomats. Responding to this, the Court pronounced as follows:
“... diplomatic law itself provides the necessary means of defence against, and sanction for, illicit activities by members of diplomatic or consular missions.” (para 83)
“The rules of diplomatic law, in short, constitute a self-contained regime which, on the one hand, lays down the receiving State’s obligations regarding the facilities, privileges and immunities to be accorded to diplomatic missions and, on the other, foresees their possible abuse by members of the mission and specifies the means at the disposal of the receiving States to counter any such abuse. These means are, by their nature, entirely efficacious, for unless the sending State recalls the member of the mission objected to forthwith, the prospect of the almost immediate loss of his privileges and immunities, because of the withdrawal by the receiving State of his recognition as a member of the mission, will in practice compel that person, in his own interest, to depart at once.” (para 86)
The interpretation and ramifications of these passages are still debated. There are (at least) four possible readings.
