A Cornerstone of Modern Diplomacy: Britain and the Negotiation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations by Kai Bruns (review)

Kai Bruns's analysis of the genesis of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations is fascinating and enlightening. It offers a highly readable and substantial contribution to the history of international law and diplomacy in four ways.

First, Bruns gives an accurate and balanced account of how the Vienna Convention codified, built on, and developed customary international law. In the key areas of difficulty—the right to free communication between diplomatic missions and their home governments, the privileges and immunities to be given to junior staff of a mission, and the need for special rules to govern intra-Commonwealth and French Communauté diplomacy—Bruns explains how constructive and ultimately acceptable compromises were formulated and negotiated. It seems strange that the United Kingdom long opposed a convention as the best outcome of the careful preparatory work done by the International Law Commission (ILC) when the book so clearly shows how skillfully and successfully the UK worked to achieve its core objectives. Even when provisions emerged that were more restrictive than those favored by the British, subsequent developments strengthened the backlash against immunities and privileges and the resentment of their abuse, so that the narrowing achieved by the Vienna Conference was ultimately beneficial to the major sending states.

Second, the book describes in depth what later came to be seen as a model for the making of international law. The subject was indeed ripe for codification; it was prepared not only with scholarly accuracy by the ILC but with careful account being taken throughout of what was realistic from the perspective of later ratification by the majority—and ultimately by almost all—states. Furthermore, the conference was dominated by a chairman and by key negotiators who avoided political controversy as far as was possible and worked throughout for consensus on substance.

Third, Bruns shows how even at the height of the Cold War agreements could be reached on important matters of common concern. There were indeed set-piece demonstrations on issues such as the "all States" question; that is, whether parties to the convention should be limited to members of the United Nations (UN) or its specialized agencies or should be open to entities not then generally recognized, such as North Korea, North Vietnam, and Communist China in order to make it a truly universal treaty. But these issues were not allowed to dominate discussion to the exclusion of proper debate on the substance of the convention. Sir Francis Vallat, leader of the UK delegation, and Grigorii Tunkin, leader of the Soviet delegation, were both first-rate lawyers and skilled negotiators and frequently collaborated to win general support for constructive outcomes. The United States, by contrast, was preoccupied by political issues and failed to make much impact on the eventual text. Great Britain and the Soviet Union had a powerful practical interest in unqualified immunities for embassy premises, for diplomats, and for their supporting staff and also in free and secret communication between missions and sending states.

This was the first major law-making international conference at which the Afro-Asian bloc, for the most part former colonies, were in a majority, and they deployed their new power effectively to win the right to veto the installation of diplomatic wireless transmitters in mission premises. Although the major powers regarded the right to use diplomatic wireless as inherent in the right to free communication, the newer states lacked the resources to install transmitters and were nervous about their potential use by missions for propaganda purposes during periods of civil disturbance. Britain had never sought permission for installation of transmitters either in London or abroad and regarded the eventual outcome in Article 27 of the Convention as a defeat—mitigated only by the understanding that if transmitters were already operating they might be regarded as doing so under implied consent. In later codification exercises when the Afro-Asian majority sought to exercise...