Diplomatic Asylum

Matthew Happold is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Luxembourg and an associate tenant at 3 Hare Court, London . In taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, Julian Assange joins a long list of individuals who have sought asylum in foreign embassies.  Recent examples include Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun in the US consulate in Chengdu, and blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng in the US embassy in Beijing.  However, although embassy premises are legally inviolable, general international law does not recognise a right of diplomatic asylum.  Even if Ecuador does grant Assange asylum, the UK will not be obliged to grant him safe passage out of the country. In 1949, Victor Raúl Haya de la Torre, leader of the Peruvian APRA movement, sought refuge in the Colombian embassy in Lima.  The dispute between Colombia and Peru as to whether he could be granted diplomatic asylum went twice to the International Court of Justice in The Hague. In its judgment in the…