The contemporary allocative function of diplomatic protection

The final chapter in Part III deals with the question of the extent to which, within the municipal legal systems of the Commonwealth, the individual may exert a legal right to have his state consider the exercise of diplomatic protection on his behalf in respect of a wrong done to him by a foreign state. This topic therefore bridges the preoccupations of Part III on the protection of the individual with the questions addressed in Part IV, which concerns the treatment of the foreign state within Anglo-Commonwealth legal systems. It is concerned with the redress which the individual may lawfully seek from his home state, but in respect of wrongs done to him not by that state directly, but by a foreign state from which he seeks protection.

In the context of the system of foreign relations law presented in this work, the availability of diplomatic protection plays a pivotal role. It was seen in Chapter 7 that it has long been recognised in English law that, if the Crown were to deny a foreigner a right of redress in its courts for injury as a result of actions which it had taken or adopted, the consequence is that the claim may validly be pursued on an inter-state basis at international law. In other words, the claim would be allocated to the plane of international law.