Why is there diplomatic immunity and what determines who gets it?

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It seems bizarre to me that a person with diplomatic immunity could commit a crime, even kill someone in the U.S. and not be prosecuted.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Diplomatic immunity isn’t some new fangled idea, it has existed for basically as long as governments and countries. Almost all societies since ancient times agree that killing or detaining an envoy or messenger sent from another country is a stupid move, it encourages the other country to detain or kill their own envoys, and generally prevents any kind of meaningful diplomacy if your messages can’t even get through.

The idea is not that diplomats are allowed to commit crimes or murder people with no consequences, its that they won’t be arrested based on some arbitrary law the host country has, so they can actually do their job. If you send a diplomat to a foreign country, and they’re sitting in jail because they got arrested, then it kind of defeats the whole point of sending a diplomat.

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