Studies On The Issue On The Immunity Of State Officials From Foreign Criminal Jurisdiction

The communication between countries is mainly accomplished by state officials,and the behavior of the state officials can be attributed to the national behavior.Butwhen the behavior of the state officials constitutes a crime, whether other countriescan have jurisdiction over them is always been the focus issue in the internationalsociety. But until today, there isn’t any universal law to regulate the behavior of thestate officials. This paper aims to offer some advice to the Chinese government byanalyzing the legal basis, conditions and the scope of the immunity of the stateofficials from foreign criminal jurisdiction.This paper includes five parts. The first part analyzes the legal basis of theimmunity of the state officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction. This articleexpounds some theories about this issue and concluded the “par in parem nonhabetjurisdictionem” as the theoretical basis of the immunity of state officials fromforeign criminal jurisdiction.The second part studies the international basis of the immunity of the stateofficials from foreign criminal jurisdiction. This part mainly introduces thedevelopment ofthe issue under the framework of UN.The third part introduces the conditions of the immunity of the state officialsfrom foreign criminal jurisdiction. This part concludes that people who have the rightto have immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction include all the state officials, theordinary officials and special officials. To special officials, they have immunity overall of their behavior, but to ordinary state officials, they can only claim the immunityby official behavior.The forth part mainly discusses the exception of the state officials’ immunity.This article thinks that people who have committed the serious international crimesunder the international criminal court have to accept the jurisdiction, regardless oftheir position. What’s more, other serious international criminals, such as terrorismcrime and international spy crime should also be the exception of the immunity fromforeign criminal jurisdiction.The fifth part summarizes the Chinese government’s attitudes and solutions towards the state officials’ criminal immunity from foreign criminal jurisdiction.Firstly, China should improve the domestic legislation on the state officials’ criminalimmunity, setting up domestic laws or special organs to regulate the criminalimmunity. Then China should also cooperate with other countries to set up new lawsor rules between countries to regulate the criminal immunity. Lastly, the internationalorganizations such as the International Court of Justice may also set up some newrules or new organs about the criminal jurisdictional immunity on foreign stateofficials.