Forthcoming in the Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (27) Most significantly, the proper territorial scope of the right of asylum, which was applied unevenly across the world, remained a contentious issue. The inviolability of diplomatic premises and the immunities enjoyed by warships and military vessels14 made these spaces particularly attractive for individuals fleeing persecution. However, if territorial asylum was but an aspect of states’ unfettered control over the admission of non-nationals, its extraterritorial variations represented at times a limitation of the territorial sovereignty and independence of other states.15 In Latin America, for instance, individuals often sought asylum in embassies, consulates, or other places controlled by one of the organs of a foreign state.16 While some regional treaties regulated this form of extraterritorial state protection,17 whether a customary right to grant asylum extraterritorially actually existed beyond – or even within – the region remained deeply contested.18 In short, the position of international law on asylum was marked by a great degree of uncertainty. B. Diplomatic Asylum and the Early Discussions at the Commission See e.g., the ‘Brussels Convention on the Immunity of State-Owned Vessels’ (adopted 10 April 1926, entered into force 8 January 1937) 176 LNTS 199 and Art. 8(1) of the ‘Convention on the High Seas’ (adopted 29 April 1958, entered into force 30 September 1962) 450 UNTS 11, which codifies customary international law. On this latter, see UN ILC, ‘Draft Articles on the Law of the Sea, with Commentaries’ in Yearbook of the International Law Commission 1979, vol. II (Part Two) UN Doc. A/CN.4/97, at 280. These rules were later reaffirmed in Arts 32, 95, 96 of the Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 397. 15 As the ICJ pointed out in the Asylum case, ‘a decision to grant diplomatic asylum involves a derogation from the sovereignty of that state. It withdraws the offender from the jurisdiction of the territorial state and constitutes an intervention in matters which are exclusively within the competence of that state. Such a derogation from the territorial sovereignty cannot be recognized unless its legal basis is established in each particular case’. In Asylum (Colombia/Peru) (Counterclaims) [1950] ICJ Rep. 266 (‘Asylum Case’), at 274. 16 The practice can be traced back to the 1865 Peruvian Civil War, when the deposed cabinet had sought protection in the French legation which, on the instructions of the Government of Napoleon III, had refused to hand them over. See e.g., F. Villagran Kramer, L’asile diplomatique d’après la pratique des Etats latino-américains (Impr., Amibel 1958); C.N. Ronning, Diplomatic Asylum: Legal Norms and Political Reality in Latin American Relations (Nijhoff 1965). 17 Such as the ‘Havana Convention on Asylum’ (adopted 20 February 1928) 132 LNTS 323, the ‘Montevideo Convention on Political Asylum’ (adopted 26 December 1933, entered into force 28 March 1935) OAS TS 34; the ‘Convention on Diplomatic Asylum’ (adopted 28 March 1954, entered into force 29 December 1954) OAS TS 18. 18 See A. Grahl-Madsen, The Status of Refugees in International Law, vol. II (A.W. Sijthoff 1972), at 50–54. 14 6 Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4816199