CYIL vol. 8 (2017)

PETR VÁLEK CYIL 8 ȍ2017Ȏ it should be a real “office” with a seat and a flag, as envisaged in Articles 17 and 19 of the Convention, not just a delegation coming and leaving a State in a short time period. Although future application of this provision will probably be limited, it might be an option worth considering in certain conditions. Czechoslovakia established such a mission only once and in a multilateral context; the Czech Republic has not done this yet. The last type of “representative office” is called a “liaison office or bureau” (in Czech: “styčný úřad nebo kancelář”) and constitutes an office sui generis . The Czech Republic maintains relations – albeit non-diplomatic ones – with some entities that may not fulfill the criteria of statehood under the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States 10 (hereinafter, the “Montevideo Convention”, which is commonly accepted as reflecting the requirements of statehood under customary international law 11 ) and that were not recognized as States by the Czech Government. Therefore, if one of the objectives of the Act on Foreign Service was to put all “representative offices” of the Czech Republic abroad on a legal basis, then the question had to be asked how to legally qualify the Liaison Office of the Czech Republic in Ramallah and the Czech Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei. In this context, the drafters of the Act on Foreign Service had two ways on how to proceed: The first one was to leave this issue unregulated. This would mean, however, that the Foreign Ministry would continue to run these two “representative offices” without any legal basis and most likely ultra vires , in spite of the fact that their day-to-day business is comparable to the one of an “embassy” or a “consular post”. Consequently, the Act would cover only the relations of the Czech Republic with States and international organizations, strictly adhering to the definition of “foreign service” under § 2 a) of the Act (“an activity focused on establishing, maintaining and developing relations with other States and other subjects of international law…”). The second approach was to attempt to create a legal framework that would cover these two scenarios and possibly similar ones in the future, if there should be a need. This solution had some support in international law doctrine, e.g. , by J. Crawford, who stated in relation to Taiwan that: “The conclusion must be that Taiwan is not a State… But this does not mean that Taiwan has no status whatever in international law.” 12 In fact, the relations of the Czech Republic with entities like Palestine or Taiwan may sometimes resemble those with other subjects of international law. Occasionally, within these relations, legally non-binding documents can be signed, such as the Joint Declaration between the Foreign Ministries on the Establishment of the Joint Czech-Palestinian Ministerial Committee, signed on June 17, 2015, 13 or the Memorandum of Understanding between the Czech Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Prague on Working Holidays, signed on December 28, 2015. 14 The Czech Republic, however, has not concluded 10 The Convention on the Rights and Duties of States (done at Montevideo, December 26, 1933), Article 1: “The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other States.” 11 HARRIS, D. J., Cases and Materials on International Law , Fifth Edition, London 1998, p. 102.

12 CRAWFORD, J., The Creation of States in International Law , Oxford 2007, p. 219. 13 Available at: http://www.mzv.cz/jnp/cz/udalosti_a_media/archiv_zprav/rok_2015/. 14 Available at: http://www.mzv.cz/taipei/cz/viza_a_konzularni_informace/.

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