Ambassador Jorge Heine, the Interim Director of the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future and Research Professor at Boston University’s Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, wrote a piece for The Conversation recently headlined “Are embassies off-limits? The actions of Israel and Ecuador imply otherwise, which creates a risky diplomatic precedent.
Heine addresses recent instances of transgressions against diplomatic protocol and the sacredness of embassies in this column. Two examples of these episodes are the bombing of Iran’s embassy in Damascus and the forcible entry of Ecuadorian police into the Mexican mission in Quito. He makes the case that these acts create risky diplomatic precedents and stresses how crucial it is to preserve diplomatic immunity and standards in order to stop problems from getting worse.
International relations management would suffer greatly if the two most recent embassy crises teach us that protecting diplomatic properties can be subordinated to whatever political expediency prevails on any given day. Diplomacy is about to get a lot harder.
At Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies, Ambassador Jorge Heine teaches research. He has been a Cabinet Minister in the Chilean Government as well as Chile’s ambassador to China (2014-2017), India (2003-2007), and South Africa (1994-1999). Visit Ambassador Heine’s Pardee School faculty page to learn more about him.
