by Johannes Koch
I was watching the news this morning and caught the tail end of an interview with some British government offical who said something like; 'and that is why Iran is in violation of international law'. No doubt he was referring to the current diplomatic row over the captured British soldiers in Iran.
Fine, being the former student of international law that I am, I pounced on (what I considered to be) a polemic statement and found two interesting answers to the question of legality in the case between the UK and Iran:
First of all, maritime delimitation between Iran and Iraq is not regulated by an international treaty and to say that there is a clearly defined maritime boundary is nonsense. The maritime boundaries are disputed. So, to make the case that the UK soldiers were on either Iranian or Iraqi waters is bogus. Both sides are in actual fact entrenched in their respective positions and both can proclaim to be right. Until we get the 'real' coordinates of where these soldiers were captured anybody can claim anything about the legality of the soldiers' actions.
In this case my government official is wrong because no legal premise actually exists to make a legal claim. While tensions have eased slightly today there is one legal issue that I have not seen raised extensively yet.
If the UK soldiers were in fact captured in Iranian waters they should have been given access to the consular support under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations (see article 36(1) to see where I get my legal premise). So far they haven't been given this right and are in violation of said treaty. I am certain about this treaty's applicability for civilians but unsure about its applicability for soldiers and granted, here other treaties might have something else to say (maybe in one of the Geneva conventions?).
In any case, my 'government official' was right i.e. Iran is in breach of international law but I can hardly believe he used the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations to make his case. Whilst I'm sure there are more nuanced interpretations of the legal premises that I have presented here you might want to consider this analysis by Julian Ku:
"My impression is that the British government is studiously avoiding any legal claims or arguments in their protests to Iran. Tony Blair has called the seizure "unjustified and wrong" but he has not said it was illegal. Nor has he challenged the legality of the conditions of the UK sailors' detention, even though it would seem relevant. This is probably because the UK believes it has a diplomatic angle here and that drawing legal lines in the sand, so to speak, would be an obstacle to the diplomatic solution."
