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20 - Diplomacy in Old Regime Europe

from Part II - International Law in Old Regime Europe (1660–1775)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2025

By
Linda S. Frey  and
Marsha Frey
General editor
Randall Lesaffer
Randall Lesaffer
Affiliation:
KU Leuven and Tilburg University
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Summary

The Old Regime period in which war proved the norm and peace the exception witnessed the development of the modern law of nations. Questions of international law assumed a new urgency as did the status of diplomatic agents. By this time the existence of permanent embassies could still be deplored but no longer questioned, and diplomatic immunity could not be disputed, reinforced as it was by a body of precedent and tradition. This period witnessed first the expansion and later the contraction of diplomatic privilege. European aristocratic society reinforced diplomatic privilege, for the status of the ambassador was inextricably intertwined with that of the ruler. The explosive expansion of diplomats and their staff led many theorists, such as Grotius and Vattel, to analyse the evolving conventions, such as the importance of the civil immunity of the ambassador and the liability of the embassy staff. Practice tended to reinforce privileges identified as personal, that is, attached to the ambassador himself. Of these the exemption from criminal liability was perhaps the most important. Among territorially defined privileges, the right of asylum and the notorious right of quarter were first expanded and later either limited or eliminated.

Keywords

Old Regime Europelaw of nationsdiplomacydiplomatic lawjurisprudenceimmunityceremony
Type
Chapter
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The Cambridge History of International Law , pp. 656 - 681
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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References

Further Reading

Adair, E. R., The Extraterritoriality of Ambassadors in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York: Longmans, Green 1929).Google Scholar
Armitage, David, Foundations of Modern International Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013).Google Scholar
Bély, Lucien, Espions et ambassadeurs au temps de Louis XIV (Paris: Fayard 1990).Google Scholar
Bély, Lucien, ‘Souveraineté et souverains: la question du cérémonial dans les relations internationales à l’époque moderne’, Annuaire-bulletin de la Société de l’histoire de France, 130 (1993) 27–43.Google Scholar
Bély, Lucien, L’art de la paix en Europe. Naissance de la diplomatie moderne XVI–XVIIe siècle (Paris: Presses universitaires de France 2007).Google Scholar
Bolesta-Koziebrodzki, Léopold, Le droit d’asile (Leiden: Sijthoff 1962).Google Scholar
Frey, Linda S., and Frey, Marsha, The History of Diplomatic Immunity (Columbus: Ohio State University Press 1999).Google Scholar
Heyking, Alphonse, L’exterritorialité (Paris: Rousseau 1926).Google Scholar
Hochstrasser, T. J., Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2000).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holtzendorff, Franz de, and River, Alphonse, Introduction au droit des gens (Paris: Fischbacher 1889).Google Scholar
Krieger, Leonard, The Politics of Discretion. Pufendorf and the Acceptance of Natural Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1965).Google Scholar
Lesaffer, Randall, ‘The Grotian tradition revisited: change and continuity in the history of international law’, British Yearbook of International Law, 71 (2002) 103–39.Google Scholar
Lesaffer, Randall, European Legal History. A Cultural and Political Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2009).Google Scholar
Neff, Stephen C., Justice among Nations. A History of International Law (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press 2014).Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Frederick, A Concise History of the Law of Nations (New York: Macmillan 1947).Google Scholar
Ogdon, Montell, Juridical Bases of Diplomatic Immunity. A Study in the Origin, Growth and Purpose of the Law (Washington, DC: John Byrne 1936).Google Scholar
Pietri, François, Étude critique sur la fiction d’exterritorialité (Paris: Arthur Rousseau 1895).Google Scholar
Ruddy, Stephen, International Law in the Enlightenment. The Background of Emmerich de Vattel’s Le Droit des Gens (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications 1978).Google Scholar
Satow, Ernest, A Guide to Diplomatic Practice, 2 vols. (London: Longmans, Green 1917).Google Scholar
Tobar y Borgoño, C. M., L’asile interne devant le droit international (Barcelona: Carbonell y Esteva 1911).Google Scholar
Wheaton, Henry, Elements of International Law (text of 1866, The Classics of International Law, Oxford and London: Clarendon Press/Humphrey Milford 1936).Google Scholar

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