Topic:
Country: Poland
Delegate Name: Lucy Claire White
Poland believes that limits on diplomatic immunity are very important. Diplomatic immunity is crucial to Poland in order to help them keep peace with their neighboring countries especially Russia. Diplomatic immunity is a “free pass” given to foreign ambassadors making them exempt from the law under most circumstances. While limits on diplomatic immunity should be regulated in order to stop the abuse of power they are also necessary in order to keep peace between all countries.
Poland began using diplomatic immunity in 1919, as a result, these Polish officials are exempt from the law. Poland’s diplomats have used this system to their advantage including an incident involving a Polish diplomat attempting to smuggle Alcohol illegally back to Poland. Poland also has had to expel diplomats from their country the delegates diplomatic immunity has helped to keep peace and avoid unnecessary tensions between Poland and other countries, or at least helped to lesser the tensions. As Russia and Poland are consistently walking on shaky ground diplomatic immunity is necessary but does need to have firmer guidelines.
The UN has not established many firm guidelines on what people with diplomatic immunity can and cannot do and Poland believes that we should be improving and creating firmer guidelines. In order to do this we must establish what laws diplomats can and can not be exempt from. For example, would smuggling drugs go unpunished or would only small things be exempt like illegally parking or speeding. These are all things that need to be discussed in order to update the previous laws and regulations and to stop people from abusing their power. Obviously we cannot eliminate diplomatic immunity but we can clarify and regulate diplomatic immunity. Poland is prepared to do whatever it takes in order to maintain peace.
