Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 December 2023
The then ICJ Judge Awn Shawkat Al-Khasawneh defined immunity “[as] … an exception from the general rule that man is responsible legally and morally for his actions.”1 While it is widely acknowledged that serving high-ranking public officials enjoy immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign courts in most circumstances, there is an ongoing debate regarding how far the immunity entitlement extends and whether there are exceptions to it, particularly in cases of serious criminal wrongs. The present chapter reviews the conceptual, doctrinal, and theoretical foundations of the immunities of foreign officials, and their subjective, material, and temporal scopes. It also examines the rules that govern situations when foreign official immunity may not apply or may apply only to official acts, and the conditions for either of these outcomes. The chapter draws from recent developments in international criminal law, international human rights law, and transnational criminal law, and builds on the influential contribution of the ILC on the topic “Immunity of State Officials from Foreign Criminal Jurisdiction” included in the long-term program of work of the commission in 2006.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.