International Law and Justice Working Papers - IILJ

excommunication or severe monetary penalties. But whom did this right protect? Often those
who had violated the right of the others. But those upon who was inflicted injustice, it did not
protect. And what punishment did the right to give asylum inflict upon the fugitive who was a
criminal?” 72 So the State that was consolidating power and authority took the right to asylum
back from the Church: “The person in danger does not need to take refuge in order to find
protection in front of the altar of God, he finds the protection in normal court proceedings.” 73
Bulmerincq then claimed that the era of the diplomatic asylum in international law had ended. It
would have amounted to the violation of international law to grant such asylum. 74 In the worst
case and if such asylum was still illegally granted, the host State of the diplomatic representation
was entitled to go after the person, while showing due respect to the diplomats’ premises. 75 Thus,
the last expression of the right to asylum – the diplomatic asylum – had disappeared from
international law.
And the culmination of Bulmerincq’s argument is again presented in a historical-teleological –
and paradoxically, quasi-theological - fashion:
“Through the misuses of the right of asylum the State became conscious of its authority. By
establishing itself and granting to the unhappy ones protection, and to the violator punishment
according to its laws, the State has broken the power of the right to asylum. The State is now
itself the asylum but not the one of the deliberate asylum but the one of the application of the
existing laws. In its asylum, the law is applied and the violation of law prosecuted. He is the
haven against any unlaw and who fleas to him, finds protection when he is looking for his right.
72 P. 104.
73 P. 105.
74 P. 125-132.
75 P. 134.