Is violation of an embassy violation of territory?
(BRUXELLES2) Without being a specialist in international law, this question can be answered quite easily: it is No. The embassy is not part of the national territory. And what has just happened in Syria, with very organized demonstrators trying to enter the French embassy and arriving there in that of the United States - does not constitute a violation of the national territory but a violation of the Convention of Vienna which prescribes inviolability of the embassy, duty of protection of the host State, unseizability of property, tax exemption, etc. (1). It is serious, very serious. But this is not a violation of territory as some media claim today. This confusion cleverly maintained by some media today. Violation of the Vienna Convention calls for diplomatic retaliation. While the violation of the national territory can bring into play the solidarity clauses of NATO or the EU just like a mission of force under mandate of the United Nations. We are not quite in the same class of play...
(1) Vienna Convention Article 221. The premises of the mission are inviolable. Agents of the receiving State are not permitted to enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.
2. The receiving State has a special obligation to take all appropriate measures to prevent the premises of the mission from being invaded or damaged, the peace of the mission disturbed or his dignity? diminished.
3. The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other objects found there, as well as the means of transport of the mission, may not be the object of any search, requisition, seizure or measure of execution.
In fact, the extraterritoriality of embassies was (more or less) the rule in customary law in the XNUMXth century. This fiction was abandoned with the First World War for lots of reasons.
As it is something found in “literature”, journalists (who are anything but experts in international law) use this expression.
Violation of territory implies war (in the legal sense) while violation of an embassy implies reparation. The International Court of Justice addressed these nuances at length in its USA v. Iran (cf. http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/index.php?p1=3&p2=3&k=c9&case=64&code=usir&p3=4).