Last Friday, the 16th of May, I (Simon Tasker), was privileged to form part of the GSA Global delegation attending the Embassy organised event at the Park Lane Intercontinental Hotel, in London. This event, popular with the diplomatic community in London, featured some excellent focus sessions, with security being a central theme. Scotland Yard’s Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command gave some useful insight and advice to the assembled London mission-based diplomats. I was able to meet personally with embassy senior managers and staff from many nations and had the opportunity to discuss some of the security themes, challenges and concerns that they have.
Tragically, the issue of embassy security has been brought into sharp focus with the killing of two Israeli Embassy workers, gunned down outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC. Yaron Lischinsky and his partner, Sarah Milgrim had left the Capital Jewish Museum event at around 9:15pm when they were shot by a man, named locally, as Elias Rodriguez. On arrest, Rodriguez had allegedly shouted, “free Palestine.”
The protection of diplomatic agents, staff, their families and the buildings they occupy is complex and challenging. The parameters on which category of diplomatic agent or staff receives protection is defined, and enshrined, in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Rights (VCDR 1961). Signatory nations to the convention have certain obligations. ‘Receiving states’ are obligated to protect diplomatic agents and staff from a ‘sending state’. The receiving state ‘shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack’, thereby affording the ‘inviolability’ of the diplomatic agent or staff, as laid out in the Vienna Convention. To be clear though, this is not an easy ask for the receiving state, and there is a balance to be struck.
Diplomatic agents and staff, like everybody else, move about; they use public transport, they drive cars, they exercise, they make plans, they go to dinner, they have young children, they change plans, they visit places, and they want private space and time. So, what would “all appropriate steps” have looked like in the scenarios I reference above? Would it be appropriate for an armed protection team to be deployed in all the scenarios I have just referenced? Probably not. How do I know? As a former Metropolitan Police Royalty and Specialist Protection officer, I had responsibility for providing protective security to visiting VIP’s to the UK. I have sat in cars with Prince’s, President’s and Ministers from many nations. I was routinely in Embassy premises and understand acutely how careful, precise and discreet the effective management of protective security around a diplomat needs to be.
The demands in the Vienna Convention for receiving states to “take all appropriate steps” and the application of exactly what security measures are “appropriate” will be open to interpretation. Factors to take into account would include where in the world the sending state are basing their staff, the threat and risk analysis of that place, previous incidents occurring in the receiving state, and much more. Responsibility to deliver the “appropriate steps” by the receiving state will inevitably fall to the police. The reality however is that law enforcement in most countries, as is the case in the UK, is stretched. Police face competing demands for their services, set against a finite number of resources.
And so, speculation will now take centre-stage, as questions will inevitably be asked about levels of security for not only Yaron and Sarah, but also for the event at which they were attending. Questions will rightly be asked about the wider safety of Jewish people, and of Israeli and other nation states security globally. I have been to Washington DC, and I have law enforcement friends working there. They are fine people, doing a difficult job. Comment on the reasons behind this crime are not mine to give, but I think it right to explain some of the context of the challenge of providing security to diplomatic staff. I do also lament the loss of young life, and love, taken in the most terrible way. What is clear is that the world of geopolitics is perhaps more volatile now than ever and those charged with delivering diplomatic security, quite rightly will have to be ever more vigilant and prepared to adapt and innovate to keep pace with the threats we are facing worldwide.
