Assange's refuge in Ecuador's embassy doesn't exempt him from UK law

UK authorities can arrest Julian Assange as soon as he exits the embassy, and Ecuador may be legally obliged to surrender him

Matthew Happold
Wednesday 20 June 2012 10.57 EDT

... 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. The court ruled that no general rule in international law existed permitting states to grant diplomatic asylum; a legal basis had to be established in each particular case. Dissatisfied with the results of the litigation, American countries joined together to adopt a convention on diplomatic asylum. This Latin American tradition might, at least partly, explain the attitude taken by Ecuador.

No such treaty, however, exists elsewhere. No general right of states to grant diplomatic asylum consequently exists, except, possibly, in cases where it is temporarily granted to preserve human life and in situations of civil and political unrest. Despite the hyperbolic claims made by some of his supporters, such an exception would not appear to cover Julian Assange's case.

International law is clear that diplomatic premises are inviolable, so Assange remains outside the reach of the UK authorities so long as he remains within the Ecuadorian embassy. In the past, some such stays have lasted years. Haya de La Torre remained in the Colombian embassy in Lima for five years; whilst Cardinal Mindszenty, who took refuge in the US embassy in Budapest following the suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956, was only permitted to leave the country in 1971. Once he leaves the embassy, however, Assange can be arrested and detained by the UK authorities under UK law, regardless of how Ecuador may have determined his request for asylum ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jun/20/julian-assange-not-exempt-uk-law