A/HRC/39/45 already carried out an official visit to Bhutan, in October 1994 — the first country visit of the mandate. On 16 October 2017 the Permanent Mission responded, indicating that the request for a country visit was under consideration by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Government subsequently extended an invitation to the Working Group, by note verbale, to visit at a “mutually agreeable time”. 49. On 27 October 2017, the Government of Hungary responded that it would not be able to organize and coordinate the requested follow-up visit due to the parliamentary elections being held in April 2018. Moreover, it might subsequently take a considerable time for the Government to be formed. III. Thematic issues A. Consular assistance and diplomatic protection for persons deprived of liberty 50. The Working Group has been exploring the issue of consular assistance and diplomatic protection for persons deprived of liberty. 3 51. Consular assistance or consular protection 4 is primarily a preventive mechanism, which constitutes an important safeguard for individuals who are arrested and detained in a foreign State to ensure that international standards are being complied with. It provides detainees, as well as consular officials of the detainee’s nationality (of the sending State), with certain consular rights, such as the right for consular officials to freely communicate with and have access to their detained nationals and to be informed about the arrest without delay.5 52. Diplomatic protection, on the other hand, is only engaged in the event of an internationally wrongful act committed by the detaining State, for example one that has caused injury to a national of the sending State (i.e. the State of nationality). It is a remedial mechanism that can be invoked where there is an inter-State dispute surrounding the internationally wrongful act. It is a right of the State to exercise diplomatic protection on behalf of its nationals, rather than a duty. A State may, however, have a limited duty to consider whether or not to exercise diplomatic protection in any given case. Although diplomatic protection is not codified, it is a principle of customary international law and is vital for the protection of human rights. 6 53. Where dual nationals are detained by one State of nationality, it has been the general practice that one State of nationality only insists on consular assistance being provided to the dual national detained by the other State of nationality with the consent of the latter. However, nothing prohibits a State of nationality from exercising consular assistance. Similarly, the jurisprudence of international tribunals suggests that a State is not prohibited from exercising diplomatic protection in instances where dual nationals are subjected to injury by the other State of nationality. In such cases, consent from the other State of nationality is not required. 54. In its jurisprudence the Working Group has made specific findings regarding consular assistance and diplomatic protection where the detaining State has failed to 3 4 5 6 26 The Working Group would like to express its gratitude to REDRESS (see https://redress.org) for the support it provided for the organization of an expert meeting on 27 November 2017 on this important issue, for facilitating the participation of family members of victims of arbitrary detention abroad in the meeting, and for its contribution to the substantive discussions on this topic. See, for example, the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, arts. 5 and 36. See the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, art. 36. See also REDRESS, “Beyond discretion: the protection of British nationals abroad from torture and ill-treatment”, January 2018, pp.15–23, available at https://redress.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/3CADP-Report_FINAL.pdf. See REDRESS, “Beyond discretion”, pp. 55–61.