BIRT viewer should respect the locale attribute in an xhtml embedded report

I have a simple report, using *.properties files for localization. When using the <b:birt/> tag to integrate the report in a .xhtml file (designType="embed"), the locale attribute is ignored. The documentation states that when using the "embed" parameter, only the designName and masterpage attributes may be used. However, this way the report always defaults to the JVM locale, and there is no - apparent - way to change the locale to match the user's preference. This behaviour does not apply when designType is "run" or "frameset".