A Cornerstone of Modern Diplomacy: Britain and the Negotiation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by Kai Bruns

Author:Kai Bruns [Bruns, Kai]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, International Relations, Diplomacy, General, Political Process, Treaties, Geopolitics
ISBN: 9781628921540
Google: RWc0BwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 19079361
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Published: 2014-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

5

Analysis of the 1961 Vienna Conference Negotiations

In the run-up to the United Nations Conference on Diplomatic Intercourse and Immunities (UNCDII), the media showed little interest and covered the subject only sporadically. The ‘penny press’ twisted intentions and mixed information to capture at least minimal reader attention for the issue, but the quality press did little more than anticipate Cold War issues that might arise at the Conference. The 1961 UNCDII coincided with a series of new attacks by the Soviet Union against the United Nations and its Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld. In the eyes of the Soviet Union Hammarskjöld interpreted his mandate too liberally, and he caused particular Soviet annoyance running the pro-Western interventions in the Republic of the Congo (Léopoldville, now Kinshasa) giving little support and protection to its first legally elected (and pro-Soviet) Prime Minister, Patrice Émery Lumumba. As a consequence of the pro-Western bias of the United Nation, the Soviet Union boycotted Hammarskjöld and pushed for their troika proposal, creating a collective and unbiased executive organ. From this angle, it was not surprising that the media depicted the UNCDII only as another temporary battlefield for ideological confrontations at the height of the Cold War. Experience had shown that regardless of the size of the conference and the issue under discussion (such as the 1959 conference on the elimination or reduction of statelessness, or the more complex Law of the Sea conferences in 1958 and 1960), East‒West issues could put an oppressive weight on successful negotiations.

Consequently, several weeks before the UNCDII, the Telegraph correspondent, Annelise Schulz, suspected the hot topics of the Conference would entail mainly East‒West brushes. On the top of her list were issues such as the right of legation (which according to Western doctrine did not exist) and the size of diplomatic missions (Soviet missions particularly had the reputation of being excessively inflated). But Schulz also pointed to other issues on which international customs differed or which were disputed, such as the extension of diplomatic privileges and immunities to administrative and technical staff, the right of asylum in embassy premises and the classification of heads of mission. Shortly after the Conference had started, The Times also published an article that not only touched on similar Cold War issues but also reported the Soviet protest (at the opening of the Conference) against the failure to invite its communist allies.1 Business as usual. However, as mentioned in a previous chapter, this intervention was, if looked at closer and compared to previous conferences, considerably less vigorously debated and took no one by surprise. However, the press made a story out of it as it fitted into previous experiences and the general media expectation that it was only the start of a couple of East‒West confrontations that were to be taken to the Conference floor at Vienna.

But there was also a historical fact that made the media suspicious about the probable success of the UNCDII. Annelise Schulz titled her Telegraph article a ‘Second Congress of Vienna’, drawing a parallel to

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