In the circumstances, it's pretty hard to see how that would *not* be the outcome. And surely no one could argue that international law doesn't allow countries decide who they have diplomatic relations with. If Britain was really serious about getting Assange out of there (and at the moment it doesn't look as though they are) they could probably circumvent this whole debate just by breaking those relations off, and then the Embassy would clearly cease to be a mission within the meaning of the Convention. Nuclear option though.
> Even if they did that, they'd be obliged to let Embassy personnel
> leave without molestation, wouldn't they? Of course Assange's status
> would be ambiguous in that case.
I'm not sure exactly what status Assange has in the Embassy (has Ecuador actually formally appointed him to something?) but as I said in the last email to Gar, the host country can compel the revocation of a person's status at any time anyway.
> Has any country ever done anything like what is apparently
> being contemplated here?
I don't know of any exact parallels, but there have certainly been cases where embassy inviolability has been breached even without a prior revocation of its status, and countries have unilaterally shut down foreign embassies on their territory and expelled their staff. Britain did it to Iran just last year. Totally different circumstances of course.