The Kidnapping of Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson

Uruguay’s diplomatic response to the kidnapping, the debate over international protection, and the limits imposed by the rule of law.

The Kidnapping of Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson
Dr. Edison González Lapeyre

The excellent editorial referring to the kidnapping of British Ambassador Geoffrey Jackson 55 years ago has prompted me to describe what took place at the diplomatic level in connection with the case and the role I was called upon to play as an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
At a time when Ambassador Jackson and Aloysio Dias Gomide, Minister-Counsellor of the Brazilian Embassy, were being held hostage, the Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, Dr. José A. Mora Otero, summoned me to his office and had me read a file headed by a note from the diplomatic corps accredited to our country. It demanded that, pursuant to the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and Immunities, the authorities comply with the kidnappers’ demand to release MLN prisoners who had been prosecuted by the competent courts, in order thereby to secure the release of the two diplomats who remained in the so-called “people’s prison.”
The note was accompanied by an opinion from Professor Philippe Cahier, who categorically maintained that, pursuant to Article 29 of the aforementioned convention, our country was required to take “all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on the person, freedom or dignity” of persons protected by international law, which, in his view, included yielding to the extortion in question.
After I had reviewed the matter, Mora Otero told me: “González Lapeyre, you have to answer this note, starting from the premise that President Pacheco Areco does not negotiate with the Tupamaros.”
I replied: “Minister, I cannot do it. Every day, in the course I teach at the Faculty of Law, I refer to Philippe Cahier as the great master of Diplomatic Law. I cannot debate this issue with him; I am nowhere near his level.”
Mora Otero answered: “You are the right person because of your position as Professor of Diplomatic Law, and you must assume that responsibility.”
And so I did, with a report that was attached to the reply sent to the diplomatic corps. In essence, it acknowledged the existence of the obligation established by the Vienna Convention but stated that international law had a limit: the preservation of the rule of law. If the Uruguayan government accepted the MLN’s demand, the principle of separation of powers would be violated because those involved had been prosecuted and sentenced by the competent judiciary, and the Executive Branch did not have the authority to pardon them.
That response led to a personal note from Cahier insisting on his position, which gave rise to an exchange of several notes in French, in a very cordial tone, which I analyzed in a paper published in the Revista Uruguaya de Derecho Internacional (No. 1, Montevideo, 1972).
I would add that, in 1971, Foreign Minister Mora Otero appointed me to the Uruguayan delegation to the United Nations General Assembly, where I presented a draft convention concerning crimes against diplomats and persons entitled to special protection under international law. It was adopted, with some amendments, by the United Nations in 1973.
This convention, like the 1979 United Nations convention on the taking of hostages, was incorporated, with binding force, into the Inter-American Convention against Terrorism of June 3, 1992, in whose drafting I had the honor of participating as president of the Uruguayan delegation to the OAS Inter-American Conference against Terrorism, which approved it and which was ratified by the government of President Tabaré Vázquez in 2006.

International diplomatic protection
Rule of law
Terrorism and international law

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