DIRCO to provide diplomatic immunity to BRICS meetings

The BRICS is a group of emerging markets — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) announced on Tuesday that it will provide diplomatic immunity to all attendees of the two meetings involving BRICS.

This comes after the department issued a notice in the government gazette on Monday in terms of the Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act for the upcoming BRICS Foreign Ministers meeting in Cape Town in June and BRICS Summit to be held in Johannesburg in August.

The BRICS is a group of emerging markets — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

"This is a standard conferment of immunities that we do for all international conferences and summits held in South Africa irrespective of the level of participation.

"The immunities are for the conference and not for specific individuals. They are meant to protect the conference and its attendees from the jurisdiction of the host country for the duration of the conference.

These immunities do not override any warranty that may have been issued by any international tribunal against any attendee of the conference," the department explained.

According to BRICS, the mid-term meeting is an opportunity for BRICS Foreign Ministers to reflect on regional and global developments.

(With Inputs from South African Government Press Release)