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Old 08-16-12, 05:03 AM   #8
TarJak
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Not wanting to claim Wikipedia as the most reliable source, it is in fact correct in this instance: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diploma...territoriality

Quote:
Contrary to popular belief, diplomatic missions do not enjoy full extraterritorial status and are not sovereign territory of the represented state.[5][6] Rather, the premises of diplomatic missions remain under the jurisdiction of the host state while being afforded special privileges (such as immunity from most local laws) by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomats themselves still retain full diplomatic immunity, and (as an adherent to the Vienna Convention) the host country may not enter the premises of the mission without permission of the represented country. The term "extraterritoriality," therefore, is often used in this broader sense when applied to diplomatic missions.
As the host country may not enter the representing country's embassy without permission, embassies are sometimes used by refugees escaping from either the host country or a third country. For example, North Korean nationals, who would be arrested and deported from China upon discovery, have sought sanctuary at various third-country embassies in China. Once inside the embassy, diplomatic channels can be used to solve the issue and send the refugees to another country. Notable violations of embassy extraterritoriality include repeated invasions of the British Embassy, Beijing (1967)[7], the Iran hostage crisis (1979***8211;1981) and the Japanese embassy hostage crisis at the ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru during 1996.
The piece of law in Britain was introduced to allow actions such as the Iran hostage crisis to be "legal" in Britain, whilst there would still be an international law case that could be brought, the likelyhood of that proceeding and being successful would be small and is certainly no protection for the Ecuadorian embassy in this case.
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