WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin at a press conference after the BRICS Summit in China said he would instruct the Foreign Ministry to go to court after the US State Department seized three Russian diplomatic facilities in retaliation for Moscow’s decision to cut US diplomatic staff in Russia.
Russian diplomats left the Consulate General in San Francisco and two other diplomatic entities in New York City and Washington on Saturday, while US security agents entered the premises and conducted a search, which Moscow said violated the Vienna Convention.
US COURTS
On Saturday the Russian Foreign Ministry published videos of searches of Russian facilities in San Francisco and Washington noting that consulate materials were "under rummage by the FBI." The State Department, for its part, denied the allegations and said all of their actions were in full compliance with the Vienna Convention.
University of Illinois Professor of Law Francis Boyle told Sputnik that the Russian government had no chance of receiving justice from a US court of law on the issue.
"It would be a total waste of time, effort and money for Russia to sue in United States courts and an insult to the dignity of the Russian Republic and the Russian people to ask American courts to give them justice. This is not going to happen here," Boyle said.
Ohio State University Professor Emeritus of International Law Professor John Quigley told Sputnik that no US court would allow the United States government to be legally exposed to such a lawsuit instigated by Moscow.
"Suits against the United States in a US court would be barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity, which would not allow a suit against the United States," Quigley maintained.
Lawyer Alexei Tarasov told Sputnik earlier on Tuesday that if a US court decides that the Vienna Convention is not binding on American territory, than any diplomatic object in the United States and perhaps globally may be revoked of immunity.
INTERNATIONAL COURTS
The Russian Foreign Ministry said US actions constituted a violation of international law, including the Vienna convention on diplomatic and consular relations. However, analysts have said Moscow will face hurdles trying to resolve the case in an international court as well.
"As for a lawsuit in the International Court of Justice, regretfully the United States has shamefully and cravenly withdrawn from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations that would have given Russia the ability to sue the United States in the World Court," Boyle said.
Russian constitutional lawyers also had the option to seek other legal processes to utilize through the ICJ, Boyle acknowledged.
"As for other means to sue the United States in the International Court of Justice, this will require substantial research by the Russian lawyers assigned to handle this matter by President Putin. But again… I am not overly optimistic," Boyle said.
Ohio State’s Quigley also agreed that Russia could not hope for a judgment by turning to the ICJ if its legal efforts failed in US courts.
"Russia cannot sue the United States in the International Court of Justice, because Russia is not a party to an optional protocol relating to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, nor a party to an optional protocol relating to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations," he explained.
Washington’s move to shut down the compounds came after Moscow announced in July that the diplomatic presence of the United States in Russia would be scaled down by 755 people to 455, the same number of diplomatic personnel Russia has in the United States since late 2016, when 35 Russian diplomats were expelled from the United States.
