Diplomatic Immunity ?

It seems that the United Nations needs to establish a clear set of ground rules to determine just what is - and what is not - the legal parameters conferred by " Diplomatic Immunity ".   At the moment, interpretations seem to vary widely.

In Britain, we have Julian Assange holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy. He is safe from arrest while he remains on those premises, but Britain would arrest him if he was placed in an embassy car and transported to an embassy plane to fly him out of the country.

Britain claims that such vehicles are outside the protection of Diplomatic immunity - and yet years ago the entire staff of the Libyan embassy received such protection and were allowed to leave the country - to the fury of the British public - after a shot was fired from the embassy building that killed a young policewoman.

Controversy hangs over the protected status of " Transit Lounges " at International airports.   Passengers on planes making a refuelling stop are not deemed to have " entered " the host country - and are therefore safe from arrest while enjoying the comfort of these lounges.

We have the remarkable case of whistleblower Edward Snowden " living " in a Moscow transit lounge while he seeks asylum from various world countries, and now there has been what can only be termed  a " World International Incident " - which has seen the sovereign president of Bolivia refused permission to fly over several countries in an attempt to arrest Snowden.

There is suspicion that the United States used it's powers to coerce France, Portugal, Italy and Spain to withdraw entry rights to Bolivian President Evo Morale's plane when it was in the air, flying the president from Moscow to La Paz.   As a consequence, the plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Austria.

Edward Snowden was not a passenger on that aircraft - but it is mind boggling to even try to imagine the outcome if he had been and if he had been frog marched off to a gaol cell as a result of this clear breach of " Diplomatic Immunity " - which saw the rights of a president of a foreign country treated as some sort of criminal.

This is not a matter of achieving some sort of world consensus.   It is the job of the United Nations to spell out just exactly what are the terms of diplomatic immunity and require it's member nations to abide by that decision.   It is certainly not the right of individual nations to pick and choose what they will obey and make their own rules.

The very purpose of the United Nations was to bring stability into the management of world affairs.   Getting " Diplomatic Immunity " sorted out would seem to be one of the basic functions high on the list to be achieved !