Immunities of diplomatic agents

International customary law grants a host of privileges and immunities to diplomatic agents. They are laid down in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, of 1961; most provisions of this Convention are to a large extent declaratory of customary law or have turned into general law. All these rules envisage two classes of privileges and immunities, which supplement the functional immunities diplomats enjoy as State officials for acts and transactions performed in their official capacity.

One class encompasses immunities that attach to the premises and assets used by the foreign State official for accomplishing his or her mission (these are immunities relating to property); the other class embraces immunities covering the personal activities of that official (personal immunities). These immunities are intended to shelter foreign officials from any interference with their private life that might jeopardize the accomplishment of their official function (traditionally the underlying rationale of these immunities was expressed with the dictum ne impediatur legatio, thatis, they are granted in order to save the official mission from beings hampered in its work).

Personal immunities differ from functional immunities in various respects: (1) In contradistinction to the latter, they cover private acts and transactions. (2) They do not consist of exemptions from the substantive law of the receiving or host State, but only of exemption from the jurisdiction of their courts and enforcement of their enforcement agencies.²⁸ (3) They only apply in the relations between the sending and the receiving State (as well as towards the State through which a diplomatic agent is passing on his or her way to or from the receiving State). In contrast, the immunity enjoyed by the foreign State official for acts performed in his official capacity, besidesbeing absolute (with the only exception relating to international crimes, see infra, 12.2), may be invoked towards any other State, that is, is erga omnes. (4) They cease with the cessation of the function (whereas functional immunities are permanent).

1. In what documents are privileges and immunities of diplomatic agents laid down?

2. What are the two classes of privileges and immunities which diplomatic agents enjoy?

3. In which respects do personal Immunities differ from functional ones?

X. Read the text “Immunities of consular agents” and say what activities consular agents perform and what immunities consular agents enjoy.