0:00

Brought to you by the all neween Toyota

0:02

Corolla. Welcome to

0:05

Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff

0:07

Works dot com.

0:14

Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh

0:16

Clark and Charles W. Chuck Bryant's with

0:18

me. Jerry's here, so it's the

0:20

whole gang. It's stuff you should know. What's

0:25

that? It's our dude little theme

0:28

song that was good? Thank you? Can

0:30

you hear like trumpet's going? Doc Severnson

0:34

baseline on that Doc Severnson? That

0:37

dates us. People

0:39

are like, who's our senior halls guy? Doc

0:43

Severnson For people who don't know, was Johnny

0:45

Carson's band leader on the Tonight Show? And

0:48

I don't remember Arsenio was a band at

0:50

all? Oh wait, it

0:52

was a dude. They're always

0:55

the weirdest flakes with

0:57

band leaders. Yeah, like, um,

1:00

Paul Shaffer, he's a little odd. I love

1:02

the guy, but here it's had odd. Didn't

1:05

this guy wear like tales

1:07

like tuxedo? Remember

1:10

with Tales and News for that matter? Who

1:12

was Chevy Chases and Magic Johnson's bands

1:15

man? Remember those ships? No?

1:18

Yeah, short lived and that's

1:20

why I don't remember them. Uh, it's a chuck.

1:22

Yes, Um,

1:25

I wonder, have

1:27

you ever heard of diplomatic community?

1:30

I have, because I've seen Lethal Weapon two.

1:33

What do you what is that? That was the

1:36

basically the premise of that whole movie. Diplomatic

1:39

Community was this South African diplomat

1:41

who was I think

1:43

he was. He's just doing bad

1:46

stuff. Oh yeah, well that was

1:48

the apartheid era, yeah, and it was all under

1:50

you know. He even said at one point like I have diplomatic

1:52

community. And that's when spoiler

1:55

alert, that's when Gibson

1:57

shot him in the face. I

1:59

don't know about the face, but I think he killed him and

2:02

said something like immunity revoked. Man,

2:06

I don't think he said that, yeah,

2:08

exactly, wow, and said

2:10

I don't like Jewish people. I'm

2:14

mel Gibson what

2:17

a jerk? Wow? Yeah

2:20

yeah, yeah you

2:22

did. I'm calling him out as an anti Semite

2:24

right here, Jenish you put like an echo?

2:27

Yeah? Um, so

2:29

uh sorry about

2:32

that. I have heard of diplomatic community, okay,

2:34

um. I've seen Lethal Weapon

2:37

too, I think, and I don't

2:39

remember any of that. Yeah, I think it was part

2:41

two. Maybe I've just seen the one, which one is Joe Pesci.

2:45

I don't remember. You're thinking loaded weapon.

2:48

That was good. Actually, as far as

2:50

Sposco, that one was pretty good. Yeah. Uh

2:52

yeah, it was like hotshots level

2:55

good. Anyway, Chuck.

2:58

A lot of people on Twitter, I want

3:00

to know what diplomatic community was or how it

3:02

worked. Howd that come up? I just asked.

3:04

I was trying to think of stuff to write about, so I was like,

3:07

oh, that's the people of Twitter. Um

3:09

and a couple of people said diplomatic community.

3:12

So I was like, oh, that's a good idea. So I would did

3:14

a little research and wrote a post and like, here

3:17

we are, like diplomatic community.

3:19

We're about to explain it. It's like one of those things that

3:21

everybody knows about, but it

3:23

doesn't really know the nuts and bolts of it.

3:26

I thought it was very interesting and it's pretty

3:28

easy to understand too, especially if

3:30

you take out my terrible sentences.

3:33

They're not terrible. The structure. You

3:36

just like to write, man, you like words, Yeah,

3:38

you like to get those fingers a little too much.

3:41

It's like short sentence. What is that? I'll take

3:44

three of those things and put them together. I

3:47

like it, though, you man, why aren't you a novelist?

3:50

I don't know, work on that okay,

3:53

okay, so um,

3:55

we're talking diplomatic community. It ain't

3:57

anything new if

4:00

at least four thousand

4:02

years old at least.

4:05

And we know this because remember Hammurabi.

4:08

He was the first guy to come up with

4:11

a set of laws, the Code of Hammurabi.

4:14

And it was like, remember this thing. I don't remember what we

4:16

talked about it in but it was like, if you

4:18

see someone burning their

4:20

house burning and you go to help

4:22

them get their stuff out of their house, but you steal

4:25

something, you're put to death. There's

4:27

a lot of smiting. If you covet your neighbor's

4:29

goat, you're put to death. And he

4:31

came up with the eye for an eye here, um,

4:34

and it was the first set of laws. Hammurabi

4:37

also has the distinction of being the first

4:39

person who is documented to have broken

4:41

the spirit of diplomatic community.

4:43

Yeah, he may be responsible for the phrase

4:46

kill the messenger. Yeah,

4:48

I don't think he killed anybody. He didn't know

4:50

shun smite the messenger, don't

4:53

protect the messenger if

4:55

you don't like his news exactly. That's kind

4:58

of what it came down to. But his his basically,

5:00

some someone sent an

5:03

envoy and I don't know what

5:05

the message was or who sent the envoy.

5:08

There was probably like only two or three other

5:10

civilizations at the time, so it had to be one

5:12

of them. Um. But they

5:14

they he didn't like what they had to say, so

5:17

he said, you know what, I'm not providing your

5:19

protection back to your homeland. Good luck

5:22

because and he was essentially a

5:24

diplomat being set loose

5:26

without protection, right, which is in violation

5:29

of the diplomatic community

5:31

of one part of it. That's Um.

5:35

Thomas Jefferson didn't like the idea so much.

5:37

He thought, well, this doesn't make

5:39

any sense. You're basically just giving permission for

5:42

spies to get in there and do what the heck they want.

5:45

Yeah, and he he Um.

5:47

That was also the sentiment of the French Revolution,

5:50

the people who ran the French Revolution and the

5:52

post revolution government, And

5:55

which is kind of funny because Thomas Jefferson

5:57

was the ambassador to France during that time

6:00

and he was saying, diplomatic community doesn't make

6:02

any sense, even though I enjoy it, Yeah,

6:04

exactly. Yeah. Uh,

6:06

and you point out that it's really kind

6:09

of the same over the years, and in fact,

6:12

um almost wrongly, has not

6:14

changed much over the years. Yeah.

6:16

Like it's it was one of those things that was

6:19

perfected pretty early on, I

6:21

mean around the time of Hamma Rabbi, and

6:23

then it was added to in the Renaissance, and

6:26

yeah, it hasn't changed. And now it's kind of the point where yeah,

6:28

it probably should change. Yeah, they should

6:30

maybe look into the nuts and bolts of it a

6:32

little bit. So the first concept,

6:35

the one that Hamma Rabbi violated, is

6:38

this concept, this principle of

6:40

personal and viold inviolable.

6:42

Oh, man, I knew I was going to have a problem with this

6:44

one. Inviolability.

6:46

Yeah, it's a mouthful. You can't

6:48

violate the person of

6:51

a diplomat as part of diplomatic

6:53

community, that's right. And you make a very good

6:55

point in here that um it's

6:58

it's a great concept, but it

7:00

is only a strong concept

7:03

if people observe it, because if they

7:05

don't, then you know, there

7:07

it goes right out the window. It's almost

7:09

like an honor code, it is. It's it's

7:11

saying, like you, this diplomat

7:13

is untouchable, but also

7:15

your diplomat is untouchable when they come to my

7:18

country. Don't kill mine and won't kill yours,

7:20

right, And it works the other way too. If I kill

7:22

yours, you're gonna kill mine. So it's this

7:24

kind of um truce

7:27

between nations that have um

7:29

diplomatic missions within

7:32

one another that you don't touch our people,

7:34

we don't touch your people. To diplomat

7:36

it is sacra saying yeah, but a tenuous

7:39

one. Back in the day, it sounds like it sounds like it

7:41

could go go south and turn into

7:43

you killed mine, I'll kill yours. It could.

7:45

Um. There was Genghis

7:48

Khan. Actually Um was

7:50

a an incredibly progressive

7:52

ruler. You mean ginge hiss Jengis

7:55

That's right, Jengis is

7:57

it? Jingis? Yes? Okay, that's

8:00

I mean at least at firm bank. How

8:02

was that where we learned that? Yeah, Jengis

8:04

Khan um he uh. He

8:07

was very much an observer of diplomatic

8:10

community, and he sent an

8:12

envoy to the a mirror

8:14

of Kara's Charasaman.

8:18

I believe it was in modern day

8:21

Iran. It was in modern

8:23

day Iran, uh in parts

8:25

of Afghanistan. He said this envoy saying

8:28

like, hey, I'm the ruler of

8:30

the land where the sun rises. You're the

8:32

ruler of the land where the sun sets. Let's

8:34

establish a friendly peace treaty

8:37

and trade relations. Yea. And

8:39

he took it really seriously, like if you messed

8:41

around with that with him, it would it was

8:43

bad news for you. Right. Well, the Amir did

8:45

mess around with it. He had the

8:48

envoy, the five hundred Muslim

8:51

strong envoy from the Mongols

8:53

killed and had two Mongol

8:56

representatives shaved and sent

8:59

back to Genghisa on Jengis Khan, and

9:01

Jengis con said say goodbye to your empire

9:04

and I'm going to utterly destroy And he

9:06

didn't because specifically

9:09

because the diplomatic community

9:11

of his people was violated by the ruler.

9:14

So before we move on, I think it's a good time

9:16

for a message break. Where

9:22

were we? So there were lots of envoys,

9:25

some respect in some violation

9:28

early on, right, But even when it

9:30

was violated, some rulers have said

9:32

no, still not going to do anything about it. Like Darius

9:34

the first movie the three hundred. Uh

9:38

yeah, not there. It's not the

9:40

three hundred, No, it's just three hundred. But

9:43

yeah, I saw it. It's like Edie brick Hell

9:45

and New Bohemians. It's like it wasn't

9:50

look at her now, all right, So why is it

9:53

the three hundred. Yeah,

9:55

it's just three d Well. Anyway, that actually

9:58

happened at the beginning, you know where he kick the

10:00

envoy into the pit. Oh yeah, I

10:02

don't know if he actually kicked him into a pit. But

10:05

the Spartans did killed two

10:07

envoys from Darius the first and

10:10

he had some Spartan nobles with him when

10:12

he learned the news, and he refused

10:14

to harm them

10:17

because he said, quote, it would

10:19

wreak havoc of all human law. Yeah,

10:21

basically, it would send us down this path

10:24

of retribution back and forth.

10:27

And and you know it might

10:29

not even be a law anymore. You

10:32

don't touch diplomats, don't touch him. And again,

10:34

this thing has been so ingrained chuck for so

10:36

long that, um, there was

10:38

a power vacuum that was left after Rome

10:41

fell, and uh,

10:43

there were a couple of hundred years before Charlemagne

10:46

was pronounced the ruler of the Holy Roman

10:48

Empire. And during this time

10:50

in between those two, in this power

10:53

vacuum, it was so well

10:55

established that you didn't mess with a diplomat

10:57

that to kill a diplomat would have been

10:59

like a greater crime than killing a king in

11:02

many cases. Yeah, and the you

11:04

know it should be obvious why you need

11:06

to protect diplomats, but I

11:09

guess we should just state diplomats. It's

11:11

rooted in the word diplomacy. They are there to be

11:14

brokers of peace between nations, or at

11:16

the very least, ah,

11:19

brokers of messages of

11:22

peace and trying to avoid war.

11:24

Like they're not like negotiating peace. But they're

11:27

they're almost well they are in some cases, but

11:30

almost said they're neutral. They're not neutral, but there

11:33

is a certain neutrality to being

11:36

a messenger. I think, yeah, and

11:38

and yes some of them. It's and it

11:40

isn't just messages, it's part of it, but it is

11:43

brokering peace, attempting to bring

11:45

peace or maintain peace between two

11:47

countries. And so this

11:49

is kind of a special talent.

11:52

It's a special job and

11:54

as such it must be afforded special

11:56

protection because if they weren't protected, they would

11:59

be killed, and if they were killed, no one would want

12:01

to do it. If no one would want to do it, then

12:03

there would be more war. Right plus speaking

12:05

of war, if since a

12:09

diplomat is often the

12:11

last person in a country

12:14

trying to broke her peace between that

12:16

country and the diplomats country, if

12:18

the peace negotiations fall through, the

12:20

diplomat has to be able to get out of that country.

12:23

Yeah, usually or hopefully

12:26

with the assistance of the

12:28

host country. Yeah. And that still

12:30

happens today. As you point out, you go to New York

12:32

City and you might on

12:34

any given day see the New York Police Department

12:37

escorting diplomat cars

12:39

back and forth between the U N and the

12:41

W hotel, right or wherever

12:44

they like to stay. Um,

12:46

So it's still still very

12:48

much, very much

12:51

the same, like, you know, not only

12:53

protection, but like safe

12:55

passage. In World War Two, apparently

12:58

the Nazis um

13:00

gave safe passage to the diplomats,

13:03

the Allied diplomats in the country

13:05

when war was declared. Yeah,

13:08

all right, which is kind of surprising. And

13:11

then Benghazi was a big deal in part

13:13

because the Libyan government

13:16

was expected to protect

13:19

the people who populate

13:21

the embassies in that country. Yeah, and Christopher

13:23

Stevens was killed. Yeah.

13:26

US ambassador is it an

13:28

ambassador the same thing as a diplomat. It's

13:30

a type of diplomat, but a diplomat

13:32

isn't necessarily an ambassador. That's right, because

13:34

we'll find out there are lots of people who have

13:37

diplomatic status. Yeah, you can be an antiche

13:39

and emissary, you all. There's all sorts of

13:41

things a company typically, Yeah,

13:44

in the US, the diplomat or the

13:46

head diplomat is the ambassador. And

13:48

it also applies to UM, to

13:51

the family and the

13:53

domestic workers. Yeah, people that work for you.

13:55

Um, if you have a driver, if you have a

13:58

made your car, housekeeper, your car.

14:00

It's all protected under

14:02

diplomatic community. And you know what, my friend John,

14:05

I wonder if you ever wrote this. My friend John in l

14:07

A wrote a book

14:10

about called Embassy

14:12

Kids that I don't think he ever got

14:14

published. That sounded really good to me, and it was

14:16

about diplomat kids in New

14:18

York City in the eighties. Just raising Hell.

14:22

Yeah, I need to call him and ask

14:24

him about that, because I always thought it was a great idea for a book.

14:26

Call him right now. We have fine, that's

14:29

right. UM, So you just brought up

14:31

the second principle. There's two principles

14:33

that um. Modern diplomacy

14:36

and diplomatic community is based on personal

14:39

and violability and

14:41

extra territoriality. Yeah,

14:44

that one's kind of neat, and that's what we just touched on

14:46

it. It is the house, you live in, the car,

14:49

you drive everywhere you are.

14:51

Basically it might as well be your homeland.

14:53

Yeah, it's considered to be situated

14:56

on your home soil. So therefore

14:58

the cops have about as much right

15:01

uh to rating those places, are

15:03

entering those places unbidden as

15:06

they would your house in

15:08

your native country. And that's

15:10

the type of legal fiction like

15:12

I'm in my car, I'm gonna smoke some

15:14

weed and blow it in your face cop. Yeah,

15:17

and you can't do anything about it. Okay, So

15:19

here's here's here's

15:21

part of a misconception. Technically, the

15:24

cop can very much do something about it. They can arrest

15:26

you, They can take you to jail,

15:29

they can hold you until you have a hearing, and

15:31

then once you have a hearing, then

15:34

you're going to come face to face with the brick while

15:36

a diplomatic community, because the court

15:38

is going to say, we have zero jurisdiction

15:41

over this person and you have

15:44

to let them go and drop all charges. So basically,

15:46

they can disrupt your life. Um,

15:48

which they probably would if you blew pot smoke

15:50

in their face. Yeah, but they might

15:52

not if it was something else because they're like, it's

15:55

not worth the trouble. Right, So I've

15:58

got I have a whole um a little

16:00

scene here that displays

16:02

all this. Right, let's

16:04

do it. Okay,

16:07

we're in England, very nice. Uh,

16:09

And there's a Russian diplomat who

16:12

is leaving the country

16:14

to go back to Russia. He's drunk on

16:16

vodka. He's drunk on something because

16:19

he's racked up quite a bit of debt at

16:21

this particular pub. Well,

16:23

the public owner finds out that he's about to leave

16:25

and stiff him and he grabs

16:27

the guy has him grabbed and is holding

16:30

him, jailing him at his

16:32

pub. At the time, this

16:34

is perfectly legal, like there

16:37

were debtors prisons, Like if you're a debtor,

16:39

you had not that many rights, right, Yeah,

16:41

he got he wanted his rubles, yeah,

16:45

from the Russian. So um

16:47

Peter the Great finds out about this and it's contexts

16:50

um Elizabeth the First and says,

16:53

hey, just wrang her up. Yeah, Liz,

16:55

Well, you can imagine like how long this

16:58

correspondence is taking. This guy was being held

17:00

in the pub. So um

17:02

Peter the Great asked for his envoys

17:04

release and Elizabeth the First said, yes, of course,

17:06

we'll release him. And not only that you

17:08

too, who are legally holding

17:11

this man in your pub You're

17:13

going to jail? Like, what do we do? And

17:15

she's like just shut up, um,

17:17

And then England passed an act I think the following

17:20

year that said foreign embassies are

17:22

untouchable and outside the jurisdiction

17:24

in the law, including debt. Cod

17:26

Yes, so what your codified personal

17:29

and violability and extra territoriality

17:32

in this act? And it does it?

17:35

It reveals something else about diplomatic

17:37

community corruption. Yeah, but

17:39

what's the deal with debt is that can't still

17:41

be true? Right? Like? You can't come

17:44

over here and rack up a bunch of debt and then just

17:46

leave it, can you? As far as I know,

17:48

as far as I could tell you can. The

17:50

problem is it's very hard to do because

17:52

if somebody finds out you have diplomatic community,

17:54

they're not going to extend your line of credit because you

17:57

can legally walk out. Yeah,

17:59

and you're well,

18:02

I guess it depends on who you are and how a corruptive

18:04

a person you are. But if you're interested in remaining

18:06

a diplomat, you're gonna keep your nose clean and

18:08

not do stuff like that. Sure, Now, I don't think that's

18:11

too much trouble for

18:13

a diplomat to get credit. But the line

18:15

of credits coming from their home country, like they

18:17

have their credit card or whatever from

18:19

their home country, so they don't they don't

18:21

need to establish the line of credit the local tailor

18:24

that they can just get spindy with their own rubles

18:27

um. But that does illustrate

18:29

a big problem like corruption still remains.

18:32

It might not be in racking up debt and leaving, which

18:34

it could still, but there's

18:36

corruption all over the place. Because when you

18:38

send a diplomat to a foreign country,

18:40

you're saying you can't be prosecuted. Yeah,

18:43

yeah, and it's that's a very tantalizing

18:46

situation. Like you said, I think if you're a career diplomat,

18:48

you're gonna keep your nose clean. Yeah, but I

18:50

bet you prostitution

18:54

happens. I bet you

18:57

illegal drugs happen more

18:59

than you would think. Apparently,

19:01

drinking and driving is an enormous thing. Drinking

19:04

and driving, And we'll get to the traffic tickets,

19:06

but that's obviously a big one. Because you can just park wherever

19:08

the heck you want. It doesn't matter, so

19:10

technically you're still under when

19:13

you're in a foreign country

19:15

with diplomatic community, you're subject to

19:17

the laws of your homeland then, um

19:20

and the courts and all that jurisdiction. And

19:22

that has happened here and there

19:25

over the years, Like people have been

19:27

recalled and prosecuted for

19:30

crimes they committed in another country with

19:32

diplomatic community. They've been tried and prosecuted

19:35

for it back in their home countries or that

19:37

law. As we'll see with some of these UH

19:40

instances, sometimes it's a hand

19:42

slap and removal of your

19:44

credentials as a diplomat, like you

19:47

can't do this anymore. You're fired essentially,

19:50

but we're not going to like prosecute you. But the

19:52

the depending on the

19:54

crime, depending on the person too, um,

19:57

the sending government, the

20:00

that the diplomats home

20:03

country is ruled by

20:05

might very well just look the other way.

20:09

Traffic tickets, like you said, it depends on what it

20:11

is. Let's talk traffic tickets. In

20:14

two thousand eleven July

20:16

of two thousand eleven, the city

20:18

of New York, which is where the u N

20:20

is situated, so there's tons of diplomats running

20:22

around, they were owed it was sixteen

20:25

point seven million dollars and unpaid

20:27

traffic tickets from people with diplomatic

20:30

community in that month. Now

20:32

not just that month, but in that month, if

20:35

you took a snapshot of how much money was the

20:37

total that was owed. Yeah, we found a great

20:40

cracked um article the

20:42

sixth and most Ridiculous

20:44

Abuses of Diplomatic Community, and

20:46

they did cover the parking tickets and between

20:50

and two thousand two foreign diplomats

20:53

got more than a hundred and fifty thousand

20:56

parking tickets, not fines,

20:59

a hundred and fifty thousand tickets. And

21:01

they broke it down that is seventy parking tickets

21:03

a day. And they're like, you would almost

21:06

literally have to try hard

21:10

to do illegal things in

21:12

your car to wrack up that many parking tickets.

21:15

And that is

21:17

what accrued eventually to like close to seventeen

21:19

million bucks. They said the biggest defender

21:21

was Russia with thirty two thousand unpaid

21:24

parking tickets. That's awesome. Yeah,

21:27

that's really justlike thumbing your nose.

21:29

And you know, if you ever been in driving in New York

21:31

and you see people, if you see a diplomat

21:33

double park, I

21:36

don't know how to finish that sentence. I was gonna recommend

21:38

something, but I don't know what to do. Yell

21:40

and scream. Yeah, I mean anything. If

21:42

you slash the tires on their car, that's

21:44

you're You're in trouble. You don't have diplomatic

21:47

community. Just pick up that condom off the sidewalk

21:49

and throw it at him. So there's a

21:53

what is a Coney Island white face? Yeah,

21:55

don't pick those up. Actually, Um,

21:57

that's good advice, chuck. Uh.

22:00

So you are required

22:03

to follow the laws of your host

22:05

country as per the

22:07

u N Convention on Diplomatic

22:09

Community. From h

22:11

They don't just say go do anything you want. They

22:14

say you can't be prosecuted. Yes, Um,

22:16

I'm supposed to be a good boy. And there are cases,

22:18

like you said, there's there's people who have

22:20

been prosecuted. For

22:23

the most part, though it's it's looked the other way,

22:26

especially on things like speeding, traffic tickets,

22:28

parking tickets, driving drunk

22:31

um. And because

22:34

this extends to

22:37

the person's home and to their workers,

22:39

their employees um,

22:41

some people have been accused

22:43

lately, especially of human trafficking.

22:47

Because your house is considered sovereign

22:49

soil um,

22:52

it's outside of American labor laws.

22:54

So you can write a contract with

22:56

somebody in your home country and say, come work for

22:58

us. We'll work you forty hours

23:01

a week and you get Sundays off and

23:03

you only have to prepare three meals a day,

23:05

and um, it's gonna be easy.

23:07

It will pay you X amount of dollars and

23:09

when they get to your house, you can literally

23:12

tear the contract up in front of them,

23:14

lock the doors to keep them from leaving,

23:17

and work them like a dog.

23:20

Um. The thing is is this violates

23:22

not just American law, but international

23:25

law. That's human trafficking.

23:27

And it's apparently like

23:31

unnervingly frequent. How often

23:33

this happens. Maybe not in lock

23:35

the door and work you for no

23:37

money for a hundred and fifty hours a

23:39

week, but to some degree.

23:43

Anytime there's somebody who feels like they're

23:45

not free to come and go as they please,

23:48

they're not being paid what they were told they were going

23:50

to be paid, that's a violation. Um.

23:52

And so yeah, they're starting to call it what it is,

23:54

which is human trafficking, which I predict will

23:57

mean that it drops off dramatically. It's

23:59

kidnap thing. Yeah, it's false imprisonment,

24:01

forced labor. So

24:04

let's say these are well that's

24:06

not minor offense, but speeding

24:08

and things like that, or minor offenses. They're willing

24:10

to look the other way if

24:13

they do something really bad, Um,

24:16

then sometimes you can't look the other way, and you actually

24:18

have to address it. If

24:20

you're the country that sent them,

24:22

boy, who's in trouble, well, you gotta address it between

24:25

the two countries, Like we got a situation here

24:27

this this dude did something really bad and

24:30

we really need to like settle this. We can't turn

24:32

the other cheek. This thing going away. It's not going

24:34

away. Um. And that

24:36

means you can recall a person,

24:39

declare them persona non grata, and

24:41

say I want them out of here. Yes, that's

24:43

if you're the host country. You you're

24:45

the one who declares them persona non grata.

24:48

Exactly, I want them to be expelled,

24:50

basically go back to where you came from.

24:52

Persona non grata apparently literally

24:55

means um unwelcome person. That's

24:58

right. And if you're declared persona non grata,

25:00

especially if you're a career diplomat, that's a big

25:02

deal because you

25:04

have X amount of hours

25:07

or days to leave that country

25:10

or else that country saying you don't have diplomatic

25:13

community anymore, and we're gonna prosecute

25:15

you. The best thing your government

25:17

can do in that situation is recall you,

25:20

hopefully before you're officially declared persona

25:22

on grata um. If you

25:24

are declared persona on grata they basically

25:27

have to recall you. And if they don't

25:29

recall you, that means your government has

25:31

just left you twisting in the wind because

25:34

you're you're you're gonna have to leave on

25:36

your own accord, pay for your own ticket,

25:38

and your government is not backing you up any longer.

25:40

They're not recalling you. They're

25:43

just saying, yeah, go ahead and prosecute this person.

25:45

Yeah, but that can the recall thing can open up a

25:47

big can of worms. Um. Like

25:49

in two thousand eleven, this contractor,

25:52

defense contractor named Raymond Davis

25:54

killed a couple of would be assassins you remember

25:56

that, Yeah and um

26:00

in Pakistan, And basically

26:03

he was he was not a diplomat, but he was under

26:05

their under diplomatic community. He was a

26:07

like a CIA contractor. Yeah and

26:09

um. So basically they had to break a

26:11

broker a deal between the United States and Pakistan,

26:15

in which Pakistan said, you know what we

26:18

want to We have a list of three thirty

26:20

one Americans now that we think are

26:23

shy in some way, so we want

26:25

all of them recalled. And the US

26:27

was sort of like, I really,

26:30

you know, their hands were kind of tied, probably because

26:32

this Davis guy had killed two people. So

26:36

did all those people get recalled in the end? All

26:40

yeah, And as far as they know that, the

26:42

deal was that they didn't. Um, they

26:44

weren't declared persona on grata, which

26:46

means that they could come back and

26:49

try again, I guess or whatever. But um,

26:51

that that's the can of worms. Like you could potentially

26:54

it could be a good thing for a country like Pakistan

26:56

and be like, oh, this is our chance to get all

26:59

these people recalled exactly, and that's what

27:01

they did. They used diplomatic

27:03

community. There were the tenants

27:05

of it to basically rid the country

27:07

of spies or

27:10

contractors who whatever they were doing.

27:13

I guess Pakistan just thought they were shady folks.

27:16

So um, there's also

27:18

you're not supposed to take declaring

27:21

somebody persona on grata lightly some

27:24

countries to some countries are just like,

27:26

oh you're criticizing me publicly, your

27:28

persona on grata, get out of here, and

27:30

like that's how they deal with dissent among

27:33

foreign ambassadors is just by declaring him persona

27:35

on grata and um, under international

27:37

law, the the host country doesn't

27:39

have to give any reason why they declared him persona

27:42

not really, Yeah, that's just you're gonna never

27:44

coming back exactly. Yes.

27:47

Um, you also make a good point. We talked

27:49

earlier about how it might should be changing these days.

27:52

It was created at a time where things

27:55

were a lot different back then, Uh

27:57

kings like you couldn't even prosecut

28:00

uh the ruling class back

28:03

then. Yeah, you couldn't even raise

28:06

a dissent. Yeah, you had

28:08

to overthrow them. That's how you handle

28:10

that. But then that change, Yet diplomatic

28:12

community stayed firmly entrenched. Right, you

28:14

can sue a government, you can see the

28:16

government's leaders typically, Um,

28:20

there's you have. The average person has

28:22

recourse. As difficult as it

28:24

may be, the people who

28:26

are running the show aren't totally untouchable

28:28

like they were when personal and viability

28:31

was established. Um,

28:34

it doesn't take weeks to get

28:36

back to your homeland and along

28:38

bandit ridden caravan lines

28:41

or that you need the same passage. Yeah. So there's

28:43

there's all these what are now kind of quaint

28:46

rules that are associated with diplomacy

28:49

and diplomatic community. And then what's more,

28:51

there's a lot more people who have diplomatic

28:54

community than used to, especially

28:56

following World War one and two. Yeah,

29:00

and I didn't realize this. International organizations,

29:03

um, that don't have borders, they

29:05

generally all operate with diplomatic

29:07

community. And even you

29:09

pointed out the Inter American Tropical

29:12

Tunic Commission operates

29:14

in their family and everyone they work with operates

29:16

with diplomatic community. So it's

29:18

not just diplomats, like, not even close.

29:21

Right, there was a run on diplomatic community

29:23

after the first two world wars, and um,

29:26

yeah, it's all over the place, so a lot of people

29:28

have it, and these um

29:31

the immunity is way more sweeping

29:33

and broad than is necessary. Yeah.

29:36

So there's this this third principle that's

29:38

part of the u N Convention from nineteen

29:40

sixty one that a lot of people,

29:43

especially career diplomats, are

29:45

calling for to be exercises called

29:48

functional necessity. Yeah, and

29:51

it's in there, but it's just not uh

29:53

No one pays much attention to it. It's like the

29:56

the wet blanket principle

29:58

of diplomatic community. Yes, it basically

30:00

says you, uh, it's

30:03

just whatever you

30:05

need to do to function in your job

30:08

is what's protected. Yes, so

30:11

if you want to go out and get hookers and

30:13

and have a card game, but it's not an official

30:15

function, it's not an official function, and you should

30:17

not be protected for that, and that's in there. But

30:20

just it just sounds like no one pays attention to it, right

30:22

And well, the reason, one of the reasons,

30:24

one of the very good reasons why people don't pay

30:26

attention to it is because it's kind of subjective.

30:29

It's like, okay, so you should have to

30:31

pay your parking ticket or else you get in trouble

30:33

or something like that. But what if

30:35

the diplomat has a really important

30:37

message that has to be delivered right

30:40

then in person they don't have

30:42

time to get wouldn't

30:44

that be considered like an official function,

30:47

like not like double parking right then?

30:50

Um, or that prostitute was

30:52

really attractive. I mean, there's definitely a

30:54

line obviously, but but

30:56

um, no one's very much interested

30:58

in exploring or not enough people are

31:00

interested in exploring it. And it's not like you

31:02

can go to the u N and say, you guys

31:05

need to carry out functional necessity

31:07

and that's it. Because the u N as recently

31:09

as two UM

31:11

invoked diplomatic community

31:13

again for itself. Uh.

31:16

After the Haitian earthquake, a

31:18

bunch of Nepalese soldiers were

31:21

sent down there to help like

31:24

rebuild the country stabilize it, and

31:27

um they weren't screened for cholera, and

31:29

there was a cholera outbreak uh

31:31

and eight thousand Haitians died as a result.

31:34

And the u N s a diplomatic community.

31:36

So they're not interested in digging in too much, right

31:39

because they

31:41

use it themselves. So the

31:43

other reason why it's probably not going

31:45

to change very much is because this same

31:48

structure that like allows

31:51

a little diplomats, you

31:53

know, Brady kid driving

31:56

his Ferrari like a hundred and fifty

31:58

down a residential street, keeps

32:01

him from going to jail, is also the same

32:03

system that keeps this global

32:06

spycraft agreement that

32:09

everybody has alive. Yeah,

32:11

it's very interesting. Nobody's going to give that

32:13

up. So that's diplomatic community.

32:16

Man, do you you said you have some this

32:18

cracked article with some egregious Yeah,

32:21

these are true stories. Um, six most ridiculous

32:23

abuses. Um.

32:26

One of them was pretty good. A Mexican attache

32:28

apparently when you go into meetings at and I love

32:30

this, when you go into meetings at the White House, everyone

32:33

has to leave their cell phone outside, uh

32:36

to be cared for, like you don't care

32:39

to be watered and yeah, well

32:41

know, but um,

32:43

you know you can't carry yourself phones into meetings, which I think

32:45

is awesome. Um. And

32:47

in uh two thousand eight Mexican

32:50

press at at a Raphael

32:53

Cantaro Curial um

32:55

took a big took all those phones, like

32:59

just nicked the bun of blackberries. Uh.

33:01

They literally got on a plane and stopped

33:04

him after they saw security camera footage

33:06

of him doing it. And he was like,

33:08

I don't know what it's talking about. I didn't do this on the plane,

33:11

and they showed him the footage and he went like, oh,

33:14

I did do that, he said, UM,

33:17

actually it was an accident. I just found all those

33:19

that bag of phones and I thought

33:21

they were lost, and I was going to give him to the driver of the

33:24

car and I just forgot And

33:26

that's why I have all of them, and um,

33:29

then he waved this diplomatic community pass

33:31

and they had to let him go. They got the phones back.

33:33

So that that flies in the

33:36

face of something I learned, like, I don't think

33:38

they can. I don't think a diplomat, an individual

33:41

can wave their own immunity. It's up to the host

33:43

nation to wave diplomatic community for

33:45

a person. Well they eventually

33:47

did. Um yeah

33:49

that he no, not waved, he waved

33:52

as in like invoked invoked. I

33:54

mean he waved in their face, like waved

33:57

without the eye. Yeah. Um, so

34:00

they had to let him go. They got the phones back when he got

34:02

back home. Um, he was fired

34:04

of course, and didn't get much like

34:06

a punishment or what would you steal a bunch

34:08

of phones? It's so dumb. I guess

34:10

blake berries are worth a lot. It's funny you can't take

34:12

your phone into meetings in the White House. I

34:14

wonder how many times they've tried to figure out

34:17

who was in the star of that hockey

34:19

movie young Blood, and no one could

34:21

figure it out because no one had a phone roblo.

34:24

Yeah. Uh. And then

34:26

they have number one on the list a murder

34:29

um in nineteen seventy nine, a Burmese ambassador

34:31

to Sri Lanka found out his wife

34:33

was having an affair, killed her, built

34:36

a funeral pyre in his front

34:38

yard, which again

34:41

is legally Burmese soil, and

34:44

burned her body in full view

34:46

of the press and the police, and they

34:48

were unable to do anything. And

34:51

he remained ambassador. Wow,

34:55

burned shot and killed his wife, burned her alive in

34:57

front of the cops. Well, if there's uh, if

34:59

it's fall owing the law custom

35:01

in his home country, then that's a pretty

35:04

perfect example in diplomatic

35:06

community. Man, that's crazy.

35:09

And then just this week in the news, this last

35:11

thing. Um in mid

35:13

July, Joshua Wald, he's

35:16

an officer at the American embassy

35:18

in Nairobi, he was driving

35:20

too fast in his suv um

35:22

hit a little minibus and

35:25

killed a man and injured eight people. And

35:27

then immediately after that he was questioned by

35:29

the cops. He left, his statement,

35:31

invoked diplomatic community, got

35:33

his family and got the heck out of there the next day.

35:36

And there are a lot of angry people saying, hold

35:39

on, this guy's needs to answer for this somehow.

35:42

Um, you can't just evacuate him and protect

35:44

him although they

35:46

definitely can. So there

35:49

are people on you know, Facebook of course and

35:51

social media trying to get some attention for this,

35:54

and we'll see what happens. I don't know how that one's gonna play

35:56

out. What when was that July?

35:59

Wow? Yeah, yeah, he's like,

36:01

see you later, yep to

36:03

the Memories of America, Smell you later. Jerry

36:06

does say that, doesn't she? Yeah? Does that

36:08

bug you? He acted lucky? Didn't like it. It's

36:11

just so juvenile.

36:16

So I got nothing else. Diplomatic Community

36:18

is done. We did it. Uh.

36:21

If you want to learn more about it, you're gonna have to go onto

36:23

our website. Cans how stuff works. Doesn't have an article,

36:25

friends, we have the article on

36:27

it. Just go to stuff you Should Know

36:29

dot com and type Diplomatic

36:32

Community in the search bar. We have one of those

36:34

two. And since I said we have one of those

36:36

two, it's time for Yeah.

36:41

Uh, I'm gonna call this objection

36:44

seat stuff. Hey, guys,

36:46

been listening for a while a couple

36:48

of years now. It's become my favorite mental

36:50

escape while I perform menial tasks of life.

36:53

Just listen to the Ejection Seat podcast

36:56

and was inspired to write I've been a fan

36:58

of aviation since I was a kid, and

37:00

they've learned a lot in the past forty years.

37:02

Listening to the ramblings about ejection

37:05

seats, thanks for that, UH,

37:08

reminded me of a story I heard a few years ago. It's

37:10

about a U. S. Navy navigator, Lieutenant

37:12

Keith Gallagher, who survived Did you hear about

37:14

that? Okay?

37:16

He survived a misfire of his ejection seat.

37:19

Basically, he was the second guy in a two man

37:21

crew flying in an A six intruder.

37:23

One day, while flying a routine mission, his seat

37:25

misfired, blasted him through the canopy,

37:28

then stopped. He was still attached

37:30

to the seat lower body in the cockpit,

37:32

but his upper body was hanging out a jacket

37:35

hole with like one arm sticking up. You

37:37

think there was a picture of it. The

37:39

pilot incredibly remained calm and in control and

37:41

managed to land the aircraft back on the carrier with

37:44

Gallagher still flailing around in the slip stream.

37:47

If you check out this link, there are first hand accounts

37:49

from the crew, photos and even a video

37:51

of the landing. And that is at UH

37:54

www dot gallagher dot

37:56

com. Slash ejection underscore

37:58

seat and pretty amazing

38:00

stuff. Had I been in that situation, my

38:03

first response would have been to soil myself and

38:05

start crying, not necessarily in

38:07

that order. Keep up the awesomeness

38:09

that is from Matt in Bristow v

38:12

A. Thanks Matt. Yeah,

38:15

did you check out those photos? Yeah, dude

38:17

was hanging out. The link went to this long

38:20

post on it. Pretty

38:22

detailed stuff that sneake, but the guys

38:25

like alive and well, good for him, like

38:27

a massive limb floyl suffered

38:31

massive limployel. Yeah, if

38:33

you've read something that has something to do with

38:35

something we said something, Uh,

38:37

we want to know about it, like we love stuff like that.

38:40

Like that's how we found out. Do you remember seem Ohia

38:43

the White Death for Finland. We

38:45

had no idea about him, but we did an episode

38:47

on the Japanese stragglers and somebody wrote

38:50

in and says, you thought this guy was bad.

38:52

I can't remember his name, Lieutenant something.

38:55

Oh, yeah, I can't remember was Auti Murphy?

38:58

No, No, he was on the list. We

39:00

Yeah, we had like a contest to find like the

39:02

baddest dude of World War Two, and we

39:04

put up the Japanese straggler who fought

39:06

the war for another thirty years. Up

39:09

there, somebody put up body Murphy,

39:11

and then somebody else put up seam Ohia, who

39:14

we may never have come across. Have we

39:16

not heard from a listener

39:18

like Matt who told us about this guy

39:21

suffering massive bloom flail from an

39:23

injection seat malfunction. My

39:26

point is we like hearing

39:28

about stuff that we don't know about, and

39:30

if we didn't mention in the podcast, the

39:33

chances aren't we didn't hear about it um

39:35

and we do want to know about it, so let us know. You

39:38

can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.

39:40

You can join us on Facebook dot com slash

39:42

Stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email

39:45

with this info to Stuff Podcast

39:47

at discovery dot com. And you

39:49

should check out our website because we got

39:51

stuff you don't know that we want you to know

39:53

about. Right that

39:55

made sense. Our website is

39:57

called Stuff you Should Know dot com

40:00

m for

40:05

more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

40:07

it how stuff works dot com

40:14

M Brought to you by the all newteen

40:17

Toyota Corolla