Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

the presence of the great Officers of the Court, with the same honours which would be paid to the Sovereign, if present, whom he represents. The Ambassador then reads a Speech of Audience in which he refers to his Letters of Credence, which he thereupon. takes from the hands of his Secretary of Embassy, who attends him on such occasions, and presents to the Sovereign, who hands them to the Minister or Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. The Sovereign then reads an answer to the speech of the Ambassador, who thereupon retires from the presence of the Sovereign with the same forms with which he entered the Presence-Chamber. The Ceremony of a Public Audience has of late been frequently dispensed with at the Court of St. James' on occasions of the reception of an Ambassador from an European Sovereign, and on such occasions a Private Audience has been substituted of a similar kind to that which is accorded to a Foreign Minister of the second or third class. Such an audience, however, is not altogether free from Ceremony. The Sovereign receives the Ambassador in the presence of the Minister or Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and the Introducer of Ambassadors, or the Master of the Ceremonies, attends to present in due form the Ambassador, who makes a short speech explanatory of his Mission, and having presented his Letters of Credence to the Sovereign, retires.

Character

§199. It being necessary that Nations should treat The Sacred and hold intercourse with one another in order to of an Amadjust disputes and maintain relations of amity, and bassador. it being impossible for a Nation collectively to treat with another Nation, there results a necessity for Nations to delegate Agents on their behalf, and to furnish them with full Powers to negociate and settle

His Extraterritoriality.

the matters which may be at issue. The Right of Embassy being thus established, the inviolability of the person of the Ambassador is a necessary consequence; for if the person of the Ambassador is not secure from violence of every kind, the Right of Embassy becomes precarious and the channels of International Reconciliation will be closed. Vattel 55 accordingly derives the independence and inviolability of the Ambassadorial character from the Natural and Necessary principles of the Law of Nations. This attribute of inviolability is so absolute, that the person of an Ambassador is held to be sacred. "Sanctum inter gentes jus legationum, sancta corpora legatorum. Bynkershoek 57 accounts for the peculiar sacredness of the person of the Ambassador on the ground that an Ambassador represents his Sovereign, and that he is the Minister of peace and alliance, and that without his agency the Society and Repose of Nations could not be maintained.

"56

§ 200. The inviolability of the person of an Ambassador entails, as a necessary incident, his entire exemption from the Territorial Jurisdiction of the Sovereign to whom he is accredited. This exemption, which applies to the civil as well as the criminal law of the Territory, is founded upon considerations not of mere convenience but of necessity; for an Ambassador ought to be protected from every kind of compulsion, as well from that which relates to things necessary to him, as from that which touches his person, in order that his security may be complete. The fiction of Extra-territoriality has been

55 Droit des Gens, L. VII. § 81, 103. Klüber, § 103. Hefter,

§ 205.

56 Grotius de Jure Belli et

Pacis, L. I. c. 18. § 1.

57 De Foro Legatorum, c. 5. 58 Nam omnis coactio abesse a legato debet, tam quæ res ei

accordingly introduced with a view to express in the most forcible manner the completeness of this exemption. According to this fiction the Public Minister, although de facto resident in a foreign country, is regarded as de jure resident within the territory of the Nation which he represents, and he continues to be subject to the Laws of his own country in all matters which concern his Personal Status and Property 59.

The Right of Personal Inviolability attaches to a Public Minister from the time when he enters the territory of the State to which he is accredited, if notice of his Mission has been previously communicated to it, to the time when he quits the territory, although war should have actually broken out between his own Nation and the State to which he is accredited before he has taken his departure. The Ottoman Porte in this respect has conformed its practice to that of the Christian Powers of Europe. It was formerly the rule of the Porte, if war broke out between it and a Christian Power, to imprison the Diplomatic Agent of that Power in the Castle called the Seven Towers, until peace was reestablished. The Porte first waived this practice when the war broke out with Russia, which was terminated by the peace of Bucharest (28 May, 1812). In the course of the conferences which preceded the departure of the Ambassadors of France, Great Britain and Russia,

necessarias, quam quæ personam tangit, quo plena ei sit securitas. Grotius De Jure Belli et Pacis, L. II. c. 18. § 9.

59 Quare omnino ita censeo, placuisse gentibus ut communis mos, qui quemvis in alieno territorio existentem ejus loci territorio subjicit, exceptionem pate

PART I.

retur in legatis, ut qui sicut fictione quadam habentur pro personis mittentium, ita etiam fictione simili constituerentur quasi extra territorium; unde et civili jure populi, apud quem vivunt, non tenentur. Grotius de Jure Belli et Pacis, L. II. c. 18. § 4, 5.

X

Extra-territoriality

Hotel, and

in the year 1827, the Porte formally declared to the Ministers of Austria and Prussia that the Seven Towers no longer existed.

62

201. The same reasons which warrant the Inof the Am- dependence and Personal Inviolability of an Ambasbassador's sador, concur likewise in securing the sanctity of his of his Suite. abode. The general consent of Nations has accordingly extended in practice the fiction of Extra-territoriality to the Hotel of the Ambassador; which is not merely protected by the positive Law of Nations from all lawless outrage, but is inaccessible to the ordinary officers of Justice or of Revenue 61. The Extra-territoriality of the Ambassador's Hotel is however not so absolute as to constitute it an asylum for others than those, who form the suite of the Ambassador himself. Bynkershoek 2 has discussed the Right of Asylum for all who take refuge in the Hotel of an Ambassador, which Grotius has pronounced to be a privilege depending upon the concession of the State wherein the Ambassador resides, and not to be a part of the Law of Nations; and Bynkershoek has correctly pointed out, that all the privileges of Ambassadors have one and the same object in view; namely, to enable them to discharge the duties of their office without impediment or restraint; and that it is not necessary for the discharge of their duties that they should afford shelter from justice to third parties, who are not connected with the end and objects of the Mission. The limits, within which an Ambassador may claim the privilege of Extra-territoriality, in regard to his own Personal Suite, are

60 Ch. de Martens, Guide Diplomatique, § 23.

61 Vattel, Droit des Gens, L. IV. c. 9. § 117.

63

62 Bynkershoek, De Foro Legatorum, c. 21.

63 Grotius, De Jure Belli et Pacis, L. II. c. 18. § 8.

within the discretion of the Ambassador, the privilege in regard to his own Personal Suite being granted for the convenience of the Ambassador himself; but an Ambassador cannot waive, at his discretion, the privilege of extra-territoriality in regard to any members of his Official Suite; that is, of any officer of his Household appointed by the Sovereign himself. The Chief of the State alone may waive the privilege of Extra-territoriality on behalf of the Ambassador and the personnel of the Embassy. It is not even competent for any of these individuals to waive at their own pleasure this privilege, for it is not their personal privilege, but the privilege of the Independent State or Nation which they represent. Difficulties have occasionally arisen, from persons claiming without sufficient warranty, to belong to the Suite of a foreign Minister, and the usage of most Nations now requires, that an official list of all the members of the suite of a Foreign Minister shall be transmitted to the Minister or Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at fixed periods 65.

bassador's

the per

the Em

§ 202. It follows from the principle of Extra-terri- The Amtoriality, that a Foreign Minister is at liberty to exer- Jurisdiccise Criminal and Civil jurisdiction over the personnel tion over of the Embassy, if he be so empowered by his own sonnel of Nation. It rests accordingly with the discretion of bassy. the Sovereign Power, which accredits an Ambassador, to invest him with such Jurisdiction. It is customary in Civil matters for a Foreign Minister to be invested with, and to exercise, jurisdiction in all questions which may arise amongst the members of his Official Suite, or between them and the citizens or subjects of

64 Vattel, L. IV. c. 8. § 3. Bynkershoek, De Foro Legato

rum, c. 23.

65 Wheaton's Elements, Part III. c. 1. § 16. Phillimore's Commentaries, T. II. § 188.

« ForrigeFortsett »