DIPLOMATIC ASYLUM: BETWEEN “TRADITION” AND CUSTOM A study on the foundations, denials and development of the Latin American regional institution in light of state practice and precedents of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the International Court of Justice
diplomatic asylum; asylum; political; regional custom; "Latin American tradition of asylum"
Diplomatic asylum is understood as the act of granting shelter to an individual who, while still within the territory of the State where he is persecuted, seeks protection in the premises of the diplomatic mission of another State, accredited in that country. Despite the progressive denial as a right in Europe, the institute is recognized as a typical legal category of a Latin American international law. This process, however, had several periods of affirmation, denial, contestation, until its consolidation in the mid-twentieth century. Its nature as a Latin American regional custom has been contested in judicial precedents of international tribunals which, by means of semantic subterfuges, do not recognize the customary legal nature of diplomatic asylum, using, on the other hand, non-legal categories such as "Latin American tradition of asylum". In this sense, the present thesis sought, through the analysis of the historical development of the institute in Latin America, to prove the existence of regional custom on diplomatic asylum in the continent. It was identified, through documentary and bibliographical research based on historical and comparative method, four key periods in which the institute had its debate driven, from the codifying Pan-Americanism (1888-1933), passing through the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the judgments of the International Court of Justice in the "Asylum" and "Haya de la Torre" cases (1950-1951), until reaching the controversy surrounding the diplomatic asylum granted to Julian Assange (2012) and the Advisory Opinion 25/18 (2018) of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. After analyzing the four periods, it was proven the existence of Latin American regional custom on diplomatic asylum, which points to the need to overcome the precedents of the ICJ and IACHR regarding the subject, as well as the proper qualification of what would be the "Latin American tradition of asylum".