The Growth of Purpose in the Law of Diplomatic Immunity

Abstract

The protection of unhampered and free exercise of the diplomatic function was recognized as one of the fundamental purposes of the law of diplomatic immunity in the Havana Convention of 1928, and in the Draft Convention of the Harvard Research Committee, 1932. The idea is not a new one—it has long been considered necessary that the channels of intercourse between States be made secure. Even before the political institutions of man began to play an important role in the life of peoples, nations or tribes recognized that it was necessary to treat with each other and guarantee security to messengers in order to advance their mutual interests. The history of the juristic philosophy of diplomatic immunity indicates that there are three periods of development in which the protection of the diplomatic function was deemed to be the purpose of the law, viz., (a) in antiquity, particularly in the universal law of Greece and Rome; (b) in the philosophy of the law-of-nature school, from the twelfth century to the seventeenth; (c) in the precedents of the modern Statessystem and the views of positivist writers, especially since the seventeenth century