Norway, Canada, Germany continues to violate Vienna Convention, says Int’l Law Professor

The heads of the Canadian High Commission, the Norwegian and German embassies in Colombo are directly violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, a former judicial officer of the European Court of Law yesterday pointed out,judicial officer and Law Professor Dinesh K Gunasekera said.

“The heads of missions from these sending States have acted in a manner ignoring their obligations under the Vienna Convention not to interfere in the domestic affairs of the receiving country. Some diplomatic agents were seen hooting in the Sri Lanka’s Parliament recently,” he said.

Prof. Gunasekera said the first such instance related to the Canadian High Commissioner violating the Vienna Convention was he started tweeting about MP Namal Rajapaksa’s doings.

“The Canadian High Commission has run the gamut of violating the diplomatic relations by criticizing a statement made by the President of Sri Lanka to its nation,” he explained.

“This diplomatic agent did not stop there,” he said, “He had taken the liberty to visit a mass grave in a formerly terrorist held area and acted in the most unfitting way to a diplomat.”

”The heads of German and Norwegian mission in Sri Lanka acted in a similar fashion,” he said.

“However, some countries like France did not act like this interfering in the internal matters of the country,” Law Prof. Gunasekerasaid said.

He asked why that Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretaries do not seem to call those diplomats for questioning.
“I do not know whether theses diplomats were ignoring their duties as the heads of diplomatic mission to their receiving states because they had thought of this country as a colony that they once controlled?” he asked.

“This should not be tolerated and allowed as the previous government under Ranil Wickremesinghe has allowed,” he said.
“Ranil Wickremesinghe’s habit of running into foreign embassies to speak out his predicament whenever there is a problem, has created this climate of vulnerability to other nations,” Prof. Gunasekera said.

“A sovereign nation is expected to act against the diplomats who violate the Vienna Convention,” he stressed

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