DIPLOMATIC COURIERS. — These are the individuals who are responsible for transporting the official correspondence of diplomatic agents (v.). They enjoy, by virtue of the rights accorded to these latter, the freedom to correspond with their own governments, as well as a reduced immunity, which essentially consists in the inviolability of the dispatches entrusted to them and exemption from the jurisdiction of the States through which they pass.
According to Article 12 of the Lateran Treaty, “couriers dispatched in the name of the Supreme Pontiff enjoy, on Italian territory, even in time of war, the same treatment due... to the couriers of the cabinets of other foreign governments, in accordance with the norms of international law.”
BIBL.: In addition to that indicated under the entry Agente diplomatico, see C. Hurst, Les immunités diplomatiques, in Recueil des cours de l'Acad. de droit international, 1926, II, pp. 227 ff.
Rodolfo Danieli