International law; Natural law; War (International law)
Thus we find, in the first book of Livy, an ambassador styling himself
a public messenger of the Roman People; and, in the sixth book of the
same historian, we have a declaration of the senate, confining the
rights of embassies to the intercourse between foreign powers, and
excluding citizens from the same privileges in their transactions with
each other. Upon this topic, the authority of Cicero may be cited, who,
in order to shew the impropriety of sending ambassadors to Antony,
observes, that they are not dealing with a Hannibal or a foreign enemy,
but with one of their own citizens.
Now Virgil has so clearly explained WHO are to be reckoned FOREIGNERS,
that we need not have recourse to lawyers, to understand what is so
well expressed by the poet, who says, "I look upon every country as
foreign, which owns not the sway of our sceptre." Aen. vii. 369.
A state therefore connected with another though by an unequal treaty,
if it retain its independence, will have a right of sending embassies.
The Princes of Germany, who were in some respects subject to the
Emperor, as their head, being Sovereign Princes possessed the right of
sending ambassadors to foreign states. But Kings who have been entirely
subdued in just war, and stripped of their dominions, have, with all
their other sovereign rights, lost that of sending ambassadors. It was
for this reason, that Paulus Aemilius made prisoners of the messengers
sent to him by Perseus, whom he had conquered.
In civil wars necessity sometimes gives birth to new rights in
violation of former rules. When for instance, a kingdom is so equally
divided between two parties, that it is a matter of doubt which of
them constitutes the nation, or in a disputed succession between two
claimants of the crown; the kingdom may be considered as forming two
nations at the same time. Tacitus, considering each party in such
cases, as entitled to the rights of the law of nations, condemns the
Flavians for having, in the rage of civil dissensions, violated, in
the persons of the Vitellian ambassadors, those privileges, which
are respected even among FOREIGN nations. Pirates and robbers, as
they form no civil community, cannot rest any claim to protection
and support upon the law of nations. Tiberius, as we are informed by
Tacitus, when Tacfarinas sent ambassadors to him, spurned at the idea
of treating with a robber, as with a lawful enemy. Yet sometimes a
pledge of public faith, and the rights of embassy are allowed to men of
that description, which was done by Pompey to the fugitives from the
Pyrenean forest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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