7. Immunities

Abstract

Immunity is a procedural bar whereby the courts of a country are precluded, while the immunity persists, from entertaining a suit, civil or criminal, against a person or entity. This chapter distinguishes the personal from functional immunities and then goes on to demonstrate the difference between acts undertaken in a public capacity, which always attract immunity, and those undertaken in a private capacity, which do not, as a rule, attract immunity. The chapter shows that, in recent years, the characterization of an act as being of a public nature has been restricted by the practice of States and national courts.