The Law of Nations

Chapter IX - Of the Embassador’s House and Domestics

chapter ix 737 them. How then are those different interests—the service of the state and the administration of justice—to be reconciled? All privatepersons, whether citizens or foreigners, who have any demands against a minister —if they cannot obtain satisfaction from himself—should apply to his master, who is obliged to do them justice in such manner as may be most consistent with the public service. It rests with the prince to determine whether it be most proper to recall his minister, to appoint a tribunal before which he may be sued, or to order an adjournment of the cause, &c. In a word, the good of the state does not allow that any person whatever should have it in his power to disturb the minister in his functions, or to divert his attention from them, without the sovereign ’s permission; and the sovereign, whose duty it is to distribute impartial and universal justice, ought not to countenance his minister in refusing it, or wearying out his adversaries by unjust delays. chapter ix Of the Embassador’s House and Domestics. The independency of the embassador would be very imperfect, and his security very precarious, if the house in which he lives were not to enjoy a perfect immunity, and to be inaccessible to the ordinary officers of justice. The embassador might be molested under a thousand pretexts; his secrets might be discovered by searching his papers, and his person exposed to insults. Thus all the reasons which establishhisindependence and inviolability, concur likewise in securing the freedom of his house. In all civilised nations, this right is acknowledged as annexed to the embassadorial character: and an embassador’s house, at least in all the ordinary affairs of life, is, equally with his person, considered as being out of the country. Of this, a remarkable instance occurred, not many years ago, at Petersburg. On the third of April, 1752, thirty soldiers, with an officer at their head, entered the house of baron Greiffenheim the Swedish minister, and carried off two of his domestics, whom they conducted to prison, under a pretence that those two men had clandes-§117. The embassador’s house. 738 book iv: restoration of peace; embassies tinely sold liquors which the imperial farm alone has the privilege of selling. The court, incensed at such a proceeding, caused the authors of this act of violence to be immediately taken into custody, and the empress ordered satisfaction to be made to the offended minister; she likewise sent to him and to all the other foreign ministers, a declaration, in which she expressed her concern and resentment at what had happened, and communicated the orders which she had given to the senate to institute a prosecution against the commissioner of the office established for the prevention of the clandestine sale of liquors,—he beingthechief delinquent. The house of an embassador ought to be safe from all outrage, being under the particular protection of the law of nations, and that of the country: to insult it, is a crime both against the state and against all other nations. But the immunity and freedom of the embassador’s house is established only in favour of the minister and his household; as is evident from the very reasons upon which it is grounded. Can he take advantage of the privilege, in order to convert his house into an asylum, to afford shelter and protection to the enemies of the prince, and to malefactors of every kind, and thus screen them from the punishments which they have deserved? Such proceedings would be contrary to all the duties of an embassador, to the spirit by which he ought to be animated, and to the lawful purposes for which he has been admitted into the country. This is what nobody will presume to deny. But I proceed farther, and lay it down as a certain truth, that a sovereign is not obliged to tolerate an abuse so pernicious to his state, and so detrimental to society. I grant, indeed, that when there is question only of certain ordinary transgressions , and these committed by persons who often prove to be rather unfortunate than criminal, or whose punishment is of no great importance to the peace of society, the house of an embassador may well serve as an asylum for such offenders; and it is better that the sovereignshould suffer them to escape, than expose the embassador to frequent molestation under pretence of a search after them, and thus involve the...