Diplomacy

Inviolability involved the placing of a protective ring around the ambassador, the embassy, and its archives and documents which neither the receiving state nor the courts of the receiving state might lawfully penetrate. However, if a relevant document had found its way into the hands of a third party, even in consequence of a breach of inviolability, it was prima facie admissible in evidence. The concept of inviolability had no relevance where no attempt was being made to exercise compulsion against the embassy. Inviolability, like other diplomatic immunities, was a defence against an attempt to exercise state power and nothing more. The universal definition of “inviolability” was freedom from any aspect of interference on the part of the receiving state. None of the definitions contained any reference to inadmissibility.