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24 | NEW STATESMAN | 20 SEPTEMBER 2010

At Westminster Hall in London, on the veryspot where Englands last absolute monarch wasconvicted of torture and tyranny, the worldsmost absolute dictator presumes to lecture ourpresent leaders on the sins of the democraticsociety that has evolved in the centuries sincethe overthrow of Charles I. We are paying forthis privilege, because the monarch of the HolySee is here on a state visit from 16-19 September.But the Holy See is a Santa Claus state nomatter how many believe in it, it does not exist .

The Vatican, as any tourist can tell, is not astate at all: it is a palace, surrounded by gardens,about the size of a large golf course. In law (the1933 Montevideo Convention), a state musthave a people and there are no Vaticanians. Inthis Roman enclave of celibates, no citizen is

born other than by accident. It has no terri-tory another statehood requirement otherthan the 108 acres conveyed inviolably to it byMussolini in 1929 as part of a sordid deal withthe pro-fascist Pius XI to destroy democracy inItaly. This is described as the Lateran Treatyalthough it is not, as a matter of law, a treaty (anagreement between sovereign states) at all. It isa deal between Italy and its Church, and obvi-ously has no legal effect on the UK, which has

never been a party to it . Nonetheless, it is on thisdubious document that the Vatican today pinsits claim to statehood. Its most recent sover-eignty statement to the United Nations reads:

The Holy See exercises its sovereigntyover the territory of the Vatican City State,established in 1929 to ensure the Holy Seesabsolute and evident independence andsovereignty for the accomplishment of itsworldwide mission, including all actionsrelating to international relations, cf: Laterantreaty, preamble and articles 2-3.

Separate powersSo when Henry Bellingham MP, a junior minis-ter at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

(FCO), stated in a letter to the New Statesmanlast week: It is not the case that Britain recog-nises the Vatican because of the Lateran Treaty,nor could it be, he spoke with forked tongue.The UK resumed diplomatic relations in 1914with the Holy See as an international entity, butnot as a state. It then had no territory becausethe Risorgimento had extinguished the papalstates in 1870, and even the Italian courts have

recognised that the Vatican could make no claimagain to statehood until its deal with Mussoliniin 1929, because until then it possessed not asquare inch of land.

So Bellingham is playing with words: theLateran treaty is crucial to recognition of theHoly See as a state, and to the governments in-vitation to the Pope as a head of state, for thesimple reason that it is the only basis on whichthe Holy See claims to be a state. But the ForeignOffice appears unaware, either of its history orof its terms. When I made a Freedom of Infor-mation (FoI) request for documents relatingto the expensive decision to keep separate UKembassies for the Vatican and for Italy, a ForeignOffice official wrote:

the Lateran pact guaranteed the fullsovereign independence of the Vatican Cityin international law . . . under the terms ofthis treaty, it is not possible for ambassadorsto Italy to be representative simultaneouslyto the Holy See hence the need to maintaintwo separate embassies in Rome . . . underthe Lateran pact it is impossible for any stateto merge its embassies to Italy and the HolySee . . . they are in separate buildings . . . inaccordance with the Lateran Pacts, the twoambassadors residences remain located inseparate parts of Rome.

This is all nonsense there is nothing at all inthe Lateran Treaty that requires this separation.Importantly, Bellingham now admits that thisconfident assertion by the Foreign Office wasa mistake. Instead, he tells us that the FCOdeferred to the practice of the Holy See. Vati-can practice has no meaning or effect in law,and by kowtowing to it, the FCO has caused thetaxpayer to fund an entirely unnecessary em-

bassy and ambassadorial residence in Rome.

Curious bluffThe matter was raised in 2004, after the UK re-linquished its luxurious villa near the Appian

Way which had served as its embassy to theHoly See. It proposed to save money on rent,security, gardeners and assorted flunkies by re-locating it to our embassy in Italy. Cardinal An-gelo Sodano, then secretary of state to Pope JohnPaul II, protested that this would be a breach ofthe Lateran Treaty. Incredibly, the UK capitu-lated. It is astonishing that the FCO shouldhave been such a pushover on this matter, con-ceding a claim that was wrong in law and basedon a treaty to which the UK was not a party.

Although the Foreign Office website claimsthat the embassy to the Vatican conducts a

valuable dialogue on human rights, it refusesto divulge what is said. Another FoI request hasbeen refused, on the grounds that disclosurewould be likely to prejudice effective relations

between the UK and the Holy See. Decoded,this probably means that exposure would causeembarrassment to the FCO perhaps by re-vealing that there has been no dialogue at all onsuch important issues as Vatican responsibilityfor the rape of thousands of children, or for pro-moting homophobia by denouncing gay peopleas evil, or for objecting to condom use to pre-vent HIV/Aids in Latin America and Africa.

If there is to be such dialogue and for anywestern government that takes human rightsseriously, there certainly should be there is no

reason why it cannot go on within the concretewalls of the UK embassy to Italy. William Hagueshould call the Curias bluff and merge the twoUK embassies in Rome.lGeoffrey Robertson, QC is the author ofThe Case of the Pope (Penguin Special, 5.99)Read an extended version of this piece and viewthe Freedom of Information correspondence at:newstatesman.com/subjects/religion

Acurious tale of two embassies

The Guest ColumnGeoffrey Robertson

ALBERTOPIZZOLI/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

A cross to bear: St Peters Square, Rome

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