Ecuador has announced that it is granting asylum to Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, who has taken refuge in Ecuador’s embassy in London. Assange sought refuge in the Embassy after the UK Supreme Court ruled a few weeks ago that he may be extradited to Sweden where he is wanted for trial on allegation of committing sexual offences. In this dispute there are some points in the UK’s favour. It is fairly clear that Assange is not covered by Refugee Convention and is therefore not entitled to asylum as a matter of international law. That Convention does not apply to persons in respect of which there are serious reasons to believe they have committed a serious non-political crime (Art. 1(F)(ii)). Furthermore, as Matthew Happold pointed out in …