Austrian Law as a Safe Haven for Foreign Spies? An Analysis on the Basis of the Recent Phenomenon of ‘Embassy Espionage’

Abstract

This article aims to assess, from a legal point of view, the repeated allegation of Austria being a safe haven for foreign espionage and interception, based on the assumption that only such activities detrimental to Austria were criminalized under its laws. A comparison with German and Swiss law shows that the requirement of the presence of a detriment to the prosecuting state is rather common than an exemption. In fact, among those three countries only the Austrian and Swiss laws criminalize espionage against foreign states based on their neutrality statuses. In particular, a comparison of the statistics draws further attention to the striking imbalance of convictions for espionage against foreign states between Switzerland and Austria, despite the repeated claim of Austria being a hot spot of international espionage activities. Although no final answer can be reached, the article seeks to give possible responses to this contradiction.