The term “diplomatic immunity” has inundated the newspapers in India and the US recently, courtesy the alleged diplomatic inconsistency arising from arrest in the US of Indian diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, who was until recently part of the Indian diplomatic mission to the US. We can observe its impact and fallout in terms of the escalation of nationalistic fervor amongst the common people in India leading to protests and even acts of vandalism such as the one on a McDonald’s outlet in Maharashtra.
All of this vividly depicts how seriously the diplomats are seen to be representing their home countries’ prestige and honour on foreign soil. Even the diplomatic missions’ real estate assets in the host countries and treated like extensions of the territories of the respective missions’ home countries. Any affront to the persons of the diplomats or the properties of the diplomatic mission can be taken to be an offence to the home country itself. Despite this, throughout modern history we have witnessed cases of intentional and/or unintentional affronts to the diplomatic missions of other countries leading to major international crises. For instance, we had the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, involving the forcible detention of US diplomats by Iranian students supporting the Iranian Revolution in Iran. The gruesome assassination of the US Ambassador to Libya, in the wake of the nationwide Arab Spring upheaval, is still fresh in our minds.
All these indicate very clearly that, in addition to representing the home countries, the embassies are also like formalized ransom opportunities for the purpose of arm-twisting the home countries whenever the need arises. This makes life a lot riskier for the individual diplomats. Hence, comes into the scene, the need for diplomatic immunity.
This is certainly not a new phenomenon. The concept wherein an emissary or a herald should never be harmed, notwithstanding the disputes between the nations involved, was very much in vogue in ancient India and medieval Europe. But then again, there are examples of opposite situations too, such as the slaying and manhandling of Persian emissaries by Spartans and Athenians, which was in sharp contrast to the situation in contemporary India. So, we can see that the opinion on the sanctity of the emissaries’ persons has varied throughout history.
In the previous century, however, there has been an attempt to universalize this concept through the institution of the Vienna Convention. According to it, diplomats should be provided legal immunity so that they can function without fear of prosecution under foreign laws. The immunity can, however, be revoked by the home country if it is convinced that the individual under question should be made to undergo prosecution for the sake of justice. Also, an individual may nullify his/her own immunity rights. This is exactly what was done by the Italian Ambassador to India – by endorsing the promise of return on behalf of the two Italian marines, who were arrested in India and allowed to visit their home country on parole.