Geoff Berridge Emeritus Professor of International Politics at the University of Leicester and Senior Fellow, DiploFoundation
The Sacoolas affair: Diplomatic immunity or special immunity? First published on DiploFoundation Blog, 10 June When the abuse of diplomatic immunity is alleged to have occurred, it usually refers to diplomatic officers taking advantage of their special status under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) to avoid penalties for misdemeanours, such as ignoring parking regulations, shoplifting, and so on; occasionally for more serious offences. But governments that, in return for favours, grant diplomatic immunity to those who manifestly do not discharge diplomatic functions, or discharge some in abnormal circumstances and might be adequately protected by other legal means, also abuse diplomatic immunity. Both forms of abuse bring a vital principle into disrepute and thereby threaten its application in circumstances when it is properly needed. A current case in point of the latter kind is provided by a revelation prised by the press from the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) about Royal Air Force (RAF) Croughton in the English Midlands, and subsequently confirmed in a statement by the foreign secretary in the House of Commons on 21 October 2019. Despite its name, RAF Croughton is a large US intelligence communications hub, an important cog in the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and operates under the aegis of the US Air Force’s 501st Combat Support Wing. Under a special UK-USA agreement sealed in 1995, diplomatic immunity was extended to intelligence officers, among others, on RAF Croughton staff. And it is for this reason that Anne Sacoolas has so far escaped what could have been a prison term of up to five years for killing young British motorcyclist Harry Dunn while at the wheel of a car (reportedly carrying diplomatic plates) being driven on the wrong side of the road in late August. For she is the wife of Jonathan Sacoolas, a US intelligence officer based at RAF Croughton, and the VCDR provides that members of the immediate family of a ‘diplomat’ enjoy privileges and immunities identical to those of the diplomatic officer. Although Anne Sacoolas initially co-operated with the police investigation, she was swiftly flown back to the United States. Back home, obviously she no longer has diplomatic immunity; neither, perhaps less obviously, does her diplomatic immunity at the time free her of criminal responsibility for the killing of Harry Dunn, since diplomatic immunity is only procedural in nature (Denza, Diplomatic Law, 2008, pp. 311-312 ).
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