The Receiving State is Under a Special Duty to Protect the Mission Premises from Intrusion or Damage or Impairment of its Dignity (Essay Sample)

The receiving state is under a special duty to protect the mission premises from intrusion or damage or impairment of its dignity
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Introduction
A receiving state is one that hosts diplomatic missions sent by their respective countries or by international nongovernmental organizations such as the United Nations to serve a certain purpose. When these diplomatic missions arrive at the host country, there are several laws that have been put in place that govern how they are handled and treated during the entire time of their assignment. In most cases, diplomatic missions will put up in the capital cities of the host countries. These are referred to as resident missions. There is a different group that may not necessarily have been permanently situated in the host countries and are referred to as non-resident missions. Using these definitions, this paper analyses the responsibility of the receiving state towards the missions, such as protecting their premises from intrusions or damage or any activities and occurrences that may strip them of or impair their dignity.[Nierop, Tom. Systems and regions in Global politics: An empirical Study of diplomacy, international organization and trade 1950-1991. John Wiley & Sons Incorporated, 1994.]
Diplomatic Missions
In order to better analyze the question, it is essential to first completely understand diplomatic missions, their roles in the receiving states and al that pertains to their existence within these countries. Generally, the role of diplomatic missions in the receiving state is to represent the sending state in the former. They are also tasked with protecting the interests of the sending states in the countries that they are sent to. They are also supposed to protect and look out for the welfare of the national of the sending state who are residents of the receiving sates, although this comes with the requirement that it be done within the boundaries of the international law, which will be discussed further later in this paper.[Deak, Francis. "Immunity of a Foreign Mission's Premises From Local Jurisdiction." The American Journal of International Law 23, no. 3 (1929): 582-594.]
Diplomatic missions are also tasked with maintaining good relations between the sending and receiving states, which sometimes may call for negotiations between the two parties. They also look out for any developments in the receiving states and report them to the sending state. They are also to take part in any other activities that will bring good relations and developments of the sending state without harm to the receiving state.
Diplomatic missions put up in offices located in the capital cities of the receiving states. These premises are often referred to as embassies, except in cases where the sending and receiving states are both members of the commonwealth, in which case the premises are called High Commissions. The reason is that there are certain special relationships that exist between them that may not be enjoyed by those that are not members. For example, members of commonwealth are supposed to look after and protect one another. A commonwealth member would be expected to look out for citizens of other member countries when they do not have offices in the receiving states.
There are times where one city may host more than one embassy from the same country or from the same organizations. A good example of this is the United Nations in many countries. In Kenya, the United Nations has its High Commission based in Nairobi. However, there are also premises within the same city that belong to branch organs of the united nations such as the United Nations high commission for refugees. The same case is in Rome where the UN has offices both in Italy and in the Holy See which has located inside Rome. In such instances, the two are under no obligation to occupy one premise. They thus have different premises and are headed by different ambassadors.
There are times that certain countries may have offices within a receiving state but are not recognized. These are countries whose situation was not stipulated in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and at times they may not have made any claim to them being sovereign states. In these instances they may serve some of the functions of diplomatic missions such as looking out for the welfare and interests of their citizens. It is important to note that they are thus not seen as diplomatic missions and their members are not accorded diplomat visas. There are certain privileges that they may however enjoy that may be similar to those accorded diplomatic missions. All the rules and regulations that govern receiving and sending states in the issue of diplomatic missions are given in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations
This is an international treaty that was signed in the year 1961 and gives the structure regarding how diplomatic relations are supposed to take place between independent countries. The document outlines and explains the privileges of diplomatic missions while they are in the receiving countries that enable them carry out their work effectively without fear of intimidation, interruption and coercion by the receiving countries. The rules given in the document are used as the general guideline for all the participating countries, which as of 2014 were 190.
The document contains a total of 53 articles, but for the sake of this paper, only three are relevant. They are as follows (as documented in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations).
* Article 22: The premises of a diplomatic mission, such as an embassy, are inviolate and must not be entered by the host country except by permission of the head of the mission. Furthermore, the host country must protect the mission from intrusion or damage. The host country must never search the premises, nor seize its documents or property. Article 30 extends this provision to the private residence of the diplomats.["Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations".United Nations Treaty Collection. United Nations. ]
* Article 30 (1): The private residence of a diplomatic agent shall enjoy the same inviolability and protection as the premises of the mission.["Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations".Audiovisual Library of International Law. United Nations. ]
* Article 45 which gives guideline on the course of action in the event that relations between two member countries ceases to exist. It states that the receiving country is expected to still respect the property of the sending country, which included its premises. The sending country may also, upon its wish, entrust its property, including premise, to a third country of its choice.
These are just some of the immunities that are enjoyed by diplomats and their families while they are in the host country. It is however important to note that the same document says that while diplomat premises are protected as such, they too should ensure that the premises are used only for the purpose for which they are intended.
Article 22
This is the article that talks about the protection that is given to the protection that the receiving country should give to the premises of the diplomatic mission. There are two important points that are contained in this article. The first one is that the receiving country is not supposed to enter these premises, without express permission from the head of the embassy. Entering may be for many reasons, among them searching for any illegal activities, documents, persons and so forth. The second one is that the sending country should do all that is within its power to protect these premises and ensure that the diplomats are safe and comfortable enough to effectively carry out the functions for which they were sent to these countries.[This rule was previously to protect the head of the mission only, but was later expanded to protect the entire premise. Details of this are available in the Yearbook of the International Law Commission. Vol. II. New York: United Nations 1958, p. 95.] [Denza, Eileen. Diplomatic Law 4E: Commentary on the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Oxford University Press, 2015.]
Being a very serious and important part of the document, there are no exceptions given to the rule about prohibition of host entering the embassies. This therefore means that they are not to enter even when the actions they would carry out in there would be of the benefit of the diplomats. For example, if a fire was to erupt within the premises, the fire fighters can only enter to stop it after obtaining permission from the head of the mission. Initially, the document was to allow for the host country to enter mission premises in cases of extreme emergencies such as protection of lives. However, it was later left out since it would have given a chance for breaking of the original rule. It would have also brought complication since the term ‘extreme emergencies' would have had to be defined in full. If they the police were chasing a criminal of some sort and he entered the premises, the pursuit would end at that point until permission is sort for them to continue. The host is even not allowed to enter these premises when they suspect that there may be illegal activities taking place in the premise.[This is further discussed in Yearbook of the International Law Commission. Vol. I. New York: United Nations 1957, p. 56] [Article 41 (3) prohibits using the premises for any other functions that are not availed in the convention document, are not allowed according to the international law and are not in any agreement between the two countries in question.]
When this law was put in place, the main reason was so that the diplomats feel safe enough to carry out their functions. However, on some o...