Why Diplomats Can't Be Prosecuted Abroad: The Legal Framework
- IJLLR Journal
- Aug 17
- 1 min read
Aayushman Nepal, Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad
ABSTRACT
This paper studies the legal framework, the extent, and the limitations of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961)-based diplomatic immunity as one of the primary legal instruments in international law. The work points out that diplomatic immunity is not one of the human rights, but it is a privilege granted by the sending state to the diplomats to avoid any kind of obstruction during diplomatic tasks while being based on the principles of sovereign equality, reciprocity, and functional necessity. The research also provides the differences between those agents who have the most absolute immunities, such as diplomatic agents, and those officers who have only functional in this respect, such as consular officials. At the same time, the paper underlines that immunity aims at the protection of the activity of the diplomats and not at the provision of possible crimes or offenses. The essay further dissects main elements of the VCDR, namely, arts. 9, 27, 29, 31, and 39, along with the present-day challenges and the respective solutions to these matters by way of examples such as consent to prosecution, declaration of persona non grata, and cessation of assignment. The paper, by invoking the problems of Anne Sacoolas, Devyani Khobragade, and Grace Mugabe, among others, deals with the contradictions that result from the need for the functional necessity principle to be closely related to the issue of accountability, thus the problems of finding a just balance over the matters of diplomatic protection and the seeking of justice.
Keywords: Diplomatic immunity, Vienna Convention, reciprocity, persona non grata, international law.
