Diplomatic baggage
A specially marked shipment from a foreign ministry to a diplomatic mission abroad (or vice versa) is referred to as diplomatic baggage or diplomatic mail, which is not allowed to be opened, examined or withheld by the state authorities of the host country. According to the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1964, it may only contain diplomatic documents or objects intended for official use. The number of packages in a shipment, as well as their size and weight, are not limited. These circumstances favor the misuse of diplomatic luggage.
Description and provisions
The “Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations” of 1961, which came into force in 1964, contains regulations on diplomatic luggage.
Diplomatic baggage is usually a sealable bag made from a durable textile , often made of canvas , and is therefore called diplomatic bag or diplomatic pouch in English . Also, boxes and other larger containers can be declared for diplomatic pouches. Labeling is required in all cases .
The diplomatic courier , who can also be appointed ad hoc , must carry a confirmation letter with him as a document , which provides information about his position and the type of shipment. This courier must neither be stopped nor detained. A captain of a commercially operated aircraft or ship must also carry such a document with him in the event that he is entrusted with diplomatic baggage on a makeshift basis, but he is not considered a diplomatic courier as he is not primarily responsible for this task.
An X-ray fluoroscopy is considered an examination of the contents. However, some states insist on checking that these shipments only contain permitted items.
In contrast to diplomatic luggage, consular traffic can be stopped and sent back to the place of origin if the country of origin does not consent to a control.
Known incidents with diplomatic baggage
- In March 2015, the Ukrainian airline Antonov Airlines flew 150 tonnes of goods declared as "diplomatic mail" from Abu Dhabi to Bishkek on two flights , causing a stir due to the volume of the shipments. The unknown cargo was duly picked up by employees of the US embassy in Kyrgyzstan .
- In August 2012, 46 years after the plane crash of an Indian passenger plane on the Mont Blanc massif , the French government handed over a jute sack of diplomatic luggage to the Indian embassy in Paris , which two climbers had accidentally found in a crevasse and reported to the police.
- In February 2012 the Italian police found 40 kilograms of narcotic drugs hidden in theater props , which reached Italy via the Galapagos Islands as Ecuadorian diplomatic mail via a third country . At the request of Italy, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño had previously approved the control of the eight parcels and pointed out that the consignment had been checked by sniffer dogs, i.e. the drugs had to have entered the consignment in the third country not specified.
- In January 2012, South American drug smugglers used counterfeit diplomatic bags from an unspecified state to the UN in New York to import drugs . Because the national emblem of the sending state did not correspond to the real one, the shipment was discovered when it was imported into the USA and was confiscated .
- In December 2001, spores of the anthrax anthrax were discovered in a mailbag from the US Embassy in Vienna , which had been sent to Vienna on October 23, 2001 by the US State Department's post office in Washington, DC . A danger to the general public should not have existed, since the US diplomatic mail would not be transported together with the normal mail items; the sack was received at Vienna Airport by a messenger from the US mission and taken directly to the embassy.
- On July 12, 1984, Switzerland banned the entry of a Soviet truck at the German border near Basel . With nine tons of cargo, it was fully declared as diplomatic baggage. West German customs authorities did not object to the truck when it entered the Federal Republic of Germany. Switzerland arbitrarily capped diplomatic luggage at 450 pounds (204 kg). The USSR therefore allowed the West German authorities to inspect the contents: 207 boxes each contained correctly packed diplomatic canvas bags.
- Umaru Dikko , the Nigerian Minister of Transport at the time, was kidnapped on July 5, 1984 in exile in London , drugged and packed in a wooden box. He was then to be flown to Nigeria in a cargo plane provided . At the airport London Stansted Airport which alerted defeated police the kidnapping because the two cases - those with Dikko and a second with the two hijackers in - were not sealed and the transport managers were unable to identify them as diplomatic couriers.
- The spy Mordechai Luk , who worked for Egypt and probably for Israel and Germany , was supposed to be kidnapped in 1964 as diplomatic luggage in a suitcase that was opened by the police in Rome . Egypt used "suitcases" several times to kidnap people.
- In 1938, the left Franciscan Herman Van Breda the estate of Edmund Husserl as Belgian declare diplomatic pouch. So it could be brought from Germany to Belgium without the National Socialist authorities being able to do anything about it.
- After Howard Carter's death in 1939, there was a plan to send his private mementos from Tutankhamun's tomb to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo by diplomatic mail so that they would not fall into the hands of foreign powers during World War II , but the British Foreign Office rejected the proposal .
Movie
- In the film Projekt: Peacemaker (1997) a nuclear weapon is sent as diplomatic baggage.
- In the film From Paris with Love (2010), a bag with cans of an energy drink is carried as diplomatic baggage so that it can be imported.
Web links
- Text of the Vienna Convention, Article 27 on official correspondence
- A classy sack. In: NZZ Folio . 09/03
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c The Straight Dope - Is there such a thing as a diplomatic pouch? (engl.)
- ↑ Vienna Convention on Consular Relations , Art. 35 http://www.admin.ch/ch/d/sr/0_191_02/a35.html
- ↑ Report “Mysterious Freight: USA Sends 150 Tons of 'Diplomatic Mail' to Embassy in Kyrgyzstan” from April 15, 2015, accessed on March 30, 2018.
- ↑ France delivers 46 year old diplomatic mail to India. (No longer available online.) In: Online edition of the time . September 3, 2012, archived from the original ; accessed on March 30, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Article “40 kilos of cocaine in diplomatic luggage - diplomatic mail is normally not allowed to be opened. Italy asked Ecuador for an exception and confiscated 40 kilos of cocaine. ”From February 10, 2012, kurier.at , accessed on March 30, 2018.
- ↑ Article "Anthrax discovered in US diplomatic mail in Vienna" from December 13, 2001, accessed on March 30, 2018.
- ↑ a b NZZ Folio, 09/03 - "A noble sack"
- ↑ Time.com - Espionage: The Spy Who Came In from the Trunk
- ↑ Man in a suitcase. In: zeit.de. November 27, 1964, accessed December 2, 2014 .
- ↑ Time mirror. In: zeit.de. December 4, 1964, accessed December 2, 2014 .
- ^ MOC Döpfner: Kurzschrift des Gedankens. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung No. 254 of October 31, 1990.