Vattel, IV. §§ 65-67—Hall, § 98—Phillimore, II. §§ 133-139—Twiss, I. §§ 202-203—Taylor, §§ 285-290—Moore, IV. §§ 635, 637-638—Martens, II. § 8—Calvo, III. §§ 1353-1356—Pradier-Fodéré, III. §§ 1253-1260—Fiore, II. Nos. 1118-1120—Rivier, I. pp. 455-457.
Duty to receive Diplomatic Envoys.
§ 374. Every member of the Family of Nations that possesses the passive right of legation is under ordinary circumstances bound to receive diplomatic envoys accredited to itself from other States for the purpose of negotiation. But the duty extends neither to the reception of permanent envoys nor to the reception of temporary envoys under all circumstances.
(1) As regards permanent envoys, it is a generally recognised fact that a State is as little bound to receive them as it is to send them. Practically, however, every full-Sovereign State which desires its voice to be heard among the States receives and sends permanent envoys, as without such it would, under present circumstances, be impossible for a State to have any influence whatever in international affairs. It is for this reason that Switzerland, which in former times abstained entirely from sending permanent envoys, has abandoned her former practice and nowadays sends and receives several. The insignificant Principality of Lichtenstein is, as far as I know, the only full-Sovereign State which neither sends nor receives one single permanent legation.
But a State may receive a permanent legation from one State and refuse to do so from another. Thus the Protestant States never received a permanent legation from the Popes, even when the latter were heads of a State, and they still observe this rule, although one or another of them, such as Prussia for example, keeps a permanent legation at the Vatican.
(2) As regards temporary envoys, it is likewise a generally recognised fact among those writers who assert the duty of a State to receive under ordinary circumstances temporary envoys that there are exceptions to that rule. Thus, for example, a State which knows beforehand the object of a mission and does not wish to negotiate thereon can refuse to receive the mission. Thus, further, a belligerent can refuse[725] to receive a legation from the other belligerent, as war involves the rupture of all peaceable relations.
[725] But this is not generally recognised. See Vattel, IV. § 67; Phillimore, II. § 138; and Pradier-Fodéré, III. No. 1255.
Refusal to receive a certain Individual.
§ 375. But the refusal to receive an envoy must not be confounded with the refusal to receive a certain individual as envoy. A State may be ready to receive a permanent or temporary envoy, but may object to the individual selected for that purpose. International Law gives no right to a State to insist upon the reception of an individual appointed by it as diplomatic envoy. Every State can refuse to receive as envoy a person objectionable to itself. And a State refusing an individual envoy is neither compelled to specify what kind of objection it has, nor to justify its objection. Thus, for example, most States refuse to receive one of their own subjects as an envoy from a foreign State.[726] Thus, again, the King of Hanover refused in 1847 to receive a minister appointed by Prussia, because the individual was of the Roman Catholic faith. Italy refused in 1885 to receive Mr. Keiley as ambassador of the United States of America because he had in 1871 protested against the annexation of the Papal States. And when the United States sent the same gentleman as ambassador to Austria, the latter refused him reception on the ground that his wife was said to be a Jewess. Although, as is apparent from these examples, no State has a right to insist upon the reception of a certain individual as envoy, in practice States are often offended when reception is refused. Thus, in 1832 England did not cancel for three years the appointment of Sir Stratford Canning as ambassador to Russia, although the latter refused reception, and the post was practically vacant. In 1885, when, as above mentioned, Austria refused reception to Mr. Keiley as ambassador of the United States, the latter did not appoint another, although Mr. Keiley resigned, and the legation was for several years left to the care of a Chargé d'Affaires.[727] To avoid such conflicts it is a good practice of many States never to appoint an individual as envoy without having ascertained beforehand whether the individual would be persona grata. And it is a customary rule of International Law that a State which does not object to the appointment of a certain individual, when its opinion has been asked beforehand, is bound to receive such individual.[728]
[726] In case a State receives one of its own subjects as diplomatic envoy of a foreign State, it has to grant him all the privileges of such envoys, including exterritoriality. Thus in the case of Macartney v. Garbutt and others (1890, L.R. 24 Q.B. 368) it was decided that a British subject accredited to Great Britain by the Chinese Government as a Secretary of its embassy and received by Great Britain in that capacity without an express condition that he should remain subject to British jurisdiction, was exempt from British jurisdiction. See, however, article 15 of the Règlement sur les Immunités Diplomatiques, adopted in 1895 by the Institute of International Law (see Annuaire, XIV. p. 244), which denies to such an individual exemption from jurisdiction. See also Phillimore, II. § 135, and Twiss, I. § 203.