Take my life but not my privileges
“DIPLOMATIC immunity is like virginity. Either you have it or you haven't,” declared a Brazilian diplomat angered by New York city's latest attempt to force United Nations diplomats to pay their parking fines. American politicians disagree. Squeezing debts out of the “deadbeat diplomats”, said Bob Dole in 1995, was an extra reason for the United States to withhold its UN dues. And Rudolph Giuliani, New York's mayor, has now introduced regulations to confiscate the licence plates of recalcitrant envoys. A UN committee is currently meeting to consider what retaliatory measures can be taken.
This article appeared in the International section of the print edition under the headline “Take my life but not my privileges”
From the April 12th 1997 edition
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