Dear Editor,
In joining the debate on what Dr Roger Luncheon has described as Ms Priya Manickchand’s “feral blast” of former US Ambassador to Guyana Brent Hardt, former Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice Professor Duke Pollard in a compendious formulation, drew attention to the relevance of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to the debate on the appropriateness of a diplomat commenting on political matters in his host country (‘Hardt spat should be examined with reference to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,’ Stabroek News, July 7).
In a number of private exchanges following Professor Pollard’s letter, I engaged him, my senior as a faculty member of the Law Department of the University of Guyana, with a view to offering my own comments on the matter. After initially welcoming my intended intervention but after reading the draft of my letter, Professor Pollard indicated to me that he no longer wished to be drawn into a public debate. Out of respect for the privacy of our exchanges I therefore shelved my letter since it made many references to matters he and I had discussed.
Now, following a letter by Senior Counsel Bryn Pollard on the legal question, Professor Pollard has re-engaged publicly to respond to the former. I therefore feel less constrained even as I continue to respect the private nature of my exchange with Professor Pollard, including avoiding any clarification or comments made by him in respect of his July 7 letter. Readers will recall that Professor Pollard had stated the relevant law as he understood it, quoting Oppenheim, an authoritative publicist on international law, noting that “a line must, however, be drawn between functions which it is proper that a diplomatic mission may exercise, and those which it may not…”
It is a matter of public record that the PPP, not as government but as a political party in opposition, had invited the US to join it and the rest of Guyana in fighting for the restoration of democracy after a span of twenty-four years of rigged national elections by the PNC. Now in government, the PPP considers comments by the same US on its blatant violation of the human right of citizens to participate in elections for seventeen years, as interventionist, improper and deserving of the crudest of responses.
Of course whether the USA could regard a development more than twenty years ago as a waiver for a current issue is debatable, but that is certainly not the only relevant consideration. Even if Oppenheim did not say it, diplomatic relations are also governed by civility, mutual respect and common decency.
Let us return to the Vienna Convention which is recognised as the formal framework for the conduct of diplomatic relations among states. That convention was adopted in 1961 following the disintegration of the colonial empires and the rejection of eurocentrism and imposed Western values on the former colonies. Among the newly independent states, sovereignty, equality of states and the principles of non-aggression and non-intervention became the guiding principles for the conduct of international relations.
Professor Pollard was careful not to suggest that the convention is either the first or the last word on the principle surrounding non-intervention. Law lives, grows and develops.
The International Court of Justice in the Corfu Channel case, the first of any case brought before it, pointed out in its judgment that “between independent states, respect for territorial sovereignty is an essential foundation of international relations.” It is perhaps not irrelevant to point out that in support of its decision in the Corfu case, the court noted that “…. intervention [was] the manifestation of a policy of force, such as has, in the past, given rise to the most serious abuses and such as cannot …find a place in international law.” In the Corfu Channel case the principle was invoked to prevent abuse while it is being used to Guyana to conceal abuse, namely the violation of the constitution and international treaties with respect to the holding of local government elections.
Other instances of the principle prior to the Vienna Convention was the formulation by the USSR and China of the doctrine of ‘peaceful co-existence’; the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence between India and China in 1954; and the final communiqué of the Bandung Conference in 1955.
As originally conceived, the principle of sovereignty of states makes each state supreme within its own territory but with no power or jurisdiction over any other state. However, customary rules of international law continue to extend and expand well beyond the Vienna Convention and the development of international law now includes several matters which intrude on the state’s hitherto exclusive jurisdiction, if ever there was such an absolute concept. Indeed, Guyana’s constitution which describes itself as the country’s supreme law explicitly recognises seven conventions and requires the executive, legislature, judiciary and all organs and agencies of government to respect and uphold the human rights enshrined in those conventions.
It is clear, therefore, that Guyana’s very constitution places local government elections outside of a straightforward domestic issue. It is interesting to note too that in Nationality Decrees in Tunis and Morocco case, PCIJ, Series B, No. 4 1923, the court ruled that whether or not a matter is a domestic issue is one to be decided on the basis of international law!
One of the seven conventions listed in the Fourth Schedule to the Guyana Constitution is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 19, 1966, five years after the Vienna Convention. Article 25 of that convention provides, inter alia: “Every citizen shall have the right and the opportunity, without …unreasonable restrictions:
(a) to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;
(b) to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections …
The careful observer will note that the requirement in Article 25 (a) is not dissimilar to Articles 13 and 149 C of the Guyana Constitution. The democratic rights of the people are too vital to be subsumed or avoided by any abstract debate, however eminent the protagonists. Indeed the greater their eminence, the heavier their corresponding duty to society.
Yours faithfully,
Christopher Ram
