The exchange of embassies and ambassadors has been a government tradition for hundreds of years. How does this tradition accord with the principles of Juristocracy? Does the exchange of embassies with either particular countries, or more generally, serve a valid purpose in protecting the individual rights of residents? And even if the overall answer is no, does an embassy abroad, or a foreign one here, provide any government-related benefit to our residents, that could justify its operation or hosting?
An embassy is a building owned (or leased) by a foreign country, in the host country’s territory. By convention and treaty, the building and its attached land is considered sovereign territory of the foreign country; as such, it is not subject to the laws and legal forces of the host country. In addition to this, some of the high-level personnel of the embassy, are also accorded “diplomatic immunity”, meaning they are not subject to the host country’s laws, even when they are outside the embassy, on otherwise host country territory. (A consulate, is an “embassy-lite”; it provides a subset of services, but still enjoys a strong degree of “inviolability” of its extent. Consulates are located in other major cities of the host country.)
Embassies are a bilateral exchange; each country hosts the embassy of the other. The staff of an embassy are typically a mix of locals and foreign nationals; senior diplomatic positions are of course held by foreign nationals.
What is the purpose of an embassy?
An embassy serves several stated purposes, principally the following:
- the ambassador is an official representative of the foreign country, who liases with officials in the host nation, on issues of concern to both, such as treaties, concerns over the behavior of either nation, and so on;
- depending on the countries, lower-level diplomatic staff may regularly liase with assigned local government officials, for purposes of joint interest to both countries
- provides consular services to both nationals of the embassy country, as well as locals, in areas such as passport services, visa applications, and so on
- acts to represent the interests of embassy nationals in matters such as criminal or legal proceedings, government “red tape”, and so on
- hosts trade missions and functions, to promote trade with the foreign country
- “promotes friendly relations” such as sponsoring cultural exchanges, encouraging tourism, and so on
Beyond the stated purposes, are the nefarious ones, and these not just conducted by “enemy” countries, but just as often by supposed allies:
- military espionage
- industrial espionage, such as stealing or buying trade secrets
- recruiting locals to be spies
Under Juristocracy, all government agencies and operations have to pass a strict test of whether they are necessary, or at least valuable, in protecting the rights of the country’s residents.
Resident Travel or Residence Outside the Country
Before examining embassies and their services, it will help to make clear just what is and isn’t a responsibility of a country, and what is and isn’t reasonable to expect by a resident who travels or lives abroad.
The government of a free country has jurisdiction over its own territory, and only that territory. It cannot be held morally or practically responsible for protecting residents who leave the country and travel to foreign jurisdictions. A resident who travels abroad must accept the risks of placing themselves within another jurisdiction, with its own laws and legal system.
If a resident becomes involved in criminal or legal issues abroad, it would not be wrong for their home country government to try to be helpful in insuring the resident’s universal individual rights are being upheld, but the practical power of the home country to influence matters is typically low; sovereign countries have their own legal system, which will apply to the traveller. But to be clear, although providing support for the traveller is not wrong, it is not a service to which a resident is entitled by any right.
Extraterritoriality
Before examining any particular embassy function, we have to ask if the attribute of extraterritoriality is even acceptable in principle, or if it might be, if a case could be made it was a necessary concession to support a beneficial function.
In principle, the idea that a free country would submit to abdicating its jurisdiction within the borders of its own country, for almost any conceivable purpose, is hard to fathom. And related concepts such as “diplomatic immunity”, which shields some embassy officials from jurisdiction of the host country, even if they commit crimes, is equally unfathomable.
How could either let alone both of these conditions contribute in any meaningful way to protecting the rights of host residents? It is clearly evident how these conditions represent a threat to resident rights, by shielding officials from responsibility for commiting crimes, or harboring persons within the embassy who are engaging in criminal activity like political or commercial espiongage, putting them beyond the ability of the host government to arrest and try.
Unless we can find an overwhelmingly necessary function of the host country’s embassy in protecting host resident rights, these jurisdictional accommodations cannot be agreed. And remember, these are bilateral, so if we don’t agree, we won’t get the converse benefit in the foreign country.
“Ally, Friend, or Enemy?”
The answers to our investigations may be conditioned on the type of relationship held by the two countries. Allies are countries with close military and trade relations. The relationship is assumed to be benevolent, not hostile. Particularly with military allies, they may regularly exchange things like intelligence briefings, threat analyses and so forth.
Friends are countries with generally benevolent relations, and typically both under relatively civilized governments, that protect basic individual rights, and don’t seek to undermine each other.
Enemies are countries typically with incompatible political systems, one based at least principally on freedom and rights, the other an autocracy or dictatorship of one form or another. An enemy country of a free country cannot be trusted. A government that enslaves and oppresses its own people, can’t possibly be trusted to maintain honorable, honest foreign relations. In any type of exchange, whether trade, treaties, or otherwise, it will try to gain values for itself, greater than the other party receives in exchange.
Let us examine the stated purposes of an embassy, and in each case, consider both a foreign embassy, and a local country embassy hosted abroad
Ambassadors
Ambassadors are largely theatre and show. An ambassador is typically not empowered to make any claims or take any official actions that have not been fully directed by their government. Ambassadors make and receive claims of grievance, that especially with enemy countries, are filled with lies and denials. Summoning an ambassador to a meeting with top government officials is an act of symbolic theatre, to communicate to the foreign nation, and the world, that the host nation is upset about something. A public statement by a government official does the same thing.
There is absolutely nothing about ambassadorial communication that cannot be handled probably more directly and efficiently by bilateral communication involving actual government officials.
There is no evident way that hosting an ambassador, or sending one, protects or upholds citizen rights in any meaningful way.
Protection of interests and nationals
“Protecting the interests of the sending state and its nationals” is one of those vague claims that is hard to reconcile in action.
Companies or organizations that choose to locate some operations in a foreign state, must do so with full knowledge and acceptance of the laws and legal procedures of that state. In practice, there is not much substantive that agents of a foreign government can do, to affect those procedures.
As mentioned, individuals travelling to a foreign country accept a risk, sometimes a substantial one, of becoming the subject of criminal proceedings, in some cases within a system that has very few civil rights protections that we enjoy in a free country. An agent of our own country can provide adjunct assistance, with things like translation, helping the defendant get a lawyer, monitoring the treatment of the person, and similar support. This support can help protect the rights of the person. However this is not a core nor necessary function of a government.
A free country applies the same standards of civil rights to both legal visitors and residents. It is difficult to conceive how allowing agents of foreign governments to provide this support, in any way supports the rights of residents.
Consular Services
Having foreign consular services available to foreign nationals in the host country is not a benefit to host residents, and does not affect their rights. Having such services may offer some convenience to host residents intending to travel or possibly even emmigrate to the foreign nation. This provides a benefit to some host residents, but likewise does not support or affect their rights.
Having host consular services available to host nationals in the foreign country is a convenience, but is arguably unnecessary to protect those persons’ rights. In the “travel” section, it is made clear that the host government has no legal or moral responsibility to provide support services to someone who travels abroad.
Having host consular services available to foreign nationals in the foreign country is a convenience to them, but is arguably not related to protecting the rights of host nationals. Mail, couriers, and electronic video meetings can provide the same services as offered locally in the foreign country. Even in cases involving host nationals, such as trying to facilitate obtaining a visa for a friend, loved one, prospective spouse, relatives, etc. or for commercial employment purposes, it still seems evident that the necessary procedures and document exchanges can take place without an embassy or consulate.
Once again, there seems to be no evident protection of host resident rights that are protected by either side of these services.
Economic promotion, trade missions, etc.
The government of a free society plays no role in production or trade. It does not, and is not allowed, to engage in activities such as “trade promotion”, “trade missions” or similar. All these things ultimately boil down to the government promoting the interests of specific firms and parties, most typically those with political “pull” or influence. Such things don’t exist under Juristocracy.
Further, it would be completely improper for a free country government to facilitate or officially sponsor such trade actions coordinated by a foreign government.
“Promoting friendly relations”, “cultural exchanges”
This is nonsensical fluff. As with economic promotions, a free country government is not and cannot be involved in such activities. It has nothing to do with protecting individual rights, and is completely a department of action for private individuals and organizations, if they wish.
Who pays for all this???
A Grok query circa 2/2026 suggests that FY2025 State Department documents put the cost of running America’s embassies at about $12B [1]. Who is going to pay for this? How are you going to devise a method of voluntary funding for a gargantuan budget that provides virtually no demonstrable selfish benefit to us, yet due to the reciprocal foreign embassies here, leads to demonstrable violations of our citizens’ rights?
Analysis
While some embassy and consular services do provide some benefit to residents, and in some cases aid in protecting their rights abroad, none of these services are obligatory for a free government to provide.
By contrast, all the pomp and theater associated with embassies cloud the fact that in most cases, particularly for hostile, enemy nations, they are simply nests for foreign spies, and recruitment centers for developing domestic military and industrial spies.
Embassies, as constituted today (with extraterritoriality, and diplomatic immunities) do not seem to be a valid political construct. They serve no demonstrable net benefit to a free country, and clear and present risks.
Alternatives
We have established that a hosted embassy and foreign embassy can provide some demonstrable benefits to host residents, that relate to their rights and interactions with the government. I believe all of these benefits can be provided privately, sometimes in conjunction with sanction from relevant government departments.
Providing emergency services, or legal assistance
Travellers will typically already be buying some form of travel insurance. Such firms, with presence in the foreign country, can provide things like legal aid and advice, emergency cash advances, facilitate replacement of passports or ID, and similar such service. It would be entirely proper for our own government service departments to offer an affiliate service, wherein private firms were given official sanction to do things like provide forms, check them for accuracy, submit them to our government for processing, and so on. This would be a for-fee service by the private firm. Standard market mechanisms of supply and demand would lead to a sufficient supply of such services in a foreign country, based on demand. And this would avoid posting our own government officials in a foreign country, which without extraterritoriality or immunity, puts them at the mercy of the local legal system.
Valid Governmental Liasons
If there are valid fulltime liaising functions that are facilitated by having our own personnel posted abroad, or hosting foreign personnel here, those can be operated on an ad hoc basis, without needing the expensive and overwrought edifice of bilateral embassies.
References
Brad Aisa 