Diplomatic law today: Has the Vienna Convention met its expectations?

The last chapter examines the question whether the VCDR is indeed an unmitigated success story. It acknowledges the popularity of the instrument and the clarification it brought to several points of diplomatic law, but it also analyses difficulties that have arisen within its lifetime. These are based partly on the wording of the VCDR itself, but partly also on the need for a co-existence of diplomatic law and rules from other fields of international law, and partly also on technological and sociological developments which manifested themselves only after the entry into force of the Convention. The chapter concludes with a reflection on solutions which international law may offer to the current problems even today, but also on solutions whose adoption with effect for the future may protect some of the most important objectives of the VCDR, including the furthering of international peace and understanding.