I saw a more detailed article a bit ago on it and it said that Ecuador gave him citizenship on December 12th and then sent a request on December 20th for the UK to treat Assange as an Ecuadorian diplomat and all of the protections that entails. UK rejected that a day later.
In a legal manner (and not because I'm a UK citizen) I presume the host nation can decline and then the proposing nation can find another one or send them anyway but risk that he falls foul of the law and the host country does not recognise any diplomatic immunity. In this case though, if the UK declines then he is still stuck in there with no way out.
I think its kind of strange really that we have spent all this money pursuing this guy for what was a minor warrant (that they wanted to speak to him) which has since been cancelled and think that we (the UK) should just say enough already and turn a blind eye to him leaving on a jet plane. Oh yeah, but the strange part is that it really seems as if its important to somebody that that doesn't happen.
Normally a country can reject a diplomat's entry into the country. Which makes sense, given the extent of diplomatic immunity. Therefore it does make sense that one cannot willy nilly change a person's diplomatic status while in country.
Not really, embassy’s are not the sovereign territory of the foreign country, the land still belongs to the host county, so officially he’s still in Britain, but is protected under the Vienna treaty
This sounds like you know more about the situation than I do. I just assumed it was considered foreign territory for all intents and purposes. (Maybe due to that treaty).
The other nation doesn’t get to decide what happens in the UK because the UK is also a sovereign nation.
Although it would be unusual, impolite and probably unwise, if the UK decides to enter the embassy by force and just take Assange, there isn’t a whole lot Ecuador could do about it, apart from making a big fuss. Ultimately it is the UK who decides to allow Ecuador the right to have an embassy on their soil in the first place and they can come back on that decision whenever they want.
Then of course you could argue Ecuador could abduct people from, for example, the British Embassy if they saw fit. It would set an incredibly unwise precedent.
think that's the norm, really. Usually it is more a rubber stamping formality (Russia / Trump's US-to-Russia diplomat pick), but I imagine a country could reject a diplomat, especially if said the host country has a previous issue with the diplomat in question.
I'm a bit shocked at how brazen it is, honestly. Perhaps, if anything, it implies that Britain doesn't view Assange as a big issue anymore as doing what Ecuador did last month would almost certainly be viewed as a diplomatic slap in the face otherwise. It almost reads like their response was "haha--no"
I think the UK tried to pretend Assange isn’t a big issue anymore and Ecuador called their bluff. It’s an easily dismissed abuse of diplomatic process though.
I know there's not much more to say, but I think it's pretty funny that the title is also the contents of the 'article'.
Is this someones tweet that was published as an article?
How much longer can the UK threaten him with arrest for breach of bail triggered by a closed procedure in a foreign country for a now-deemed-non-existent crime? is there a limitation period -- 10, 15, 20 years, or will he be hounded in perpetuity?
edit: article in question - https://www.yahoo.com/news/ecuador-grants-citizenship-wikile...