3 Diplomatic Protection of Nationals

Definition (the Mavrommatis line, PCIJ 1924): the state's action on behalf of its injured national abroad — "the intervention of a State... on behalf of one of its nationals, for the purposeof seeking redress" — the state enforcing, in its own right, the international standard of treatment due to its nationals. The doctrine's foundations: the state's own right (not the individual's — the claim is the state's, in the state's name; the state may waive, settle or drop it); nationality's control (Nottebohm's genuine link — Unit 5); and the local remedies rule (below).The elements' checklist: injury to a national (person or, through Barcelona Traction's rules, corporation); continuous nationality from injury to claim (Mavrommatis tradition); exhaustion of local remedies; the claim at diplomatic or judicial level (espousal); the recovery's disposition at the state's discretion. The modern developments: the ILC's 2006 Articles on Diplomatic Protection (codifying the field — the "functional protection" of international organizations for staff — the Reparations logic); investment arbitration's displacement of classic espousal (the investor suing directly — Unit 3); and human-rights procedures' individual access (the same displacement) — diplomatic protection's sunset-and-sunrise.Nepal's practice: the standing caseload of the labour-migration era — Nepali workers' deaths, detention and wage theft in the Gulf and Malaysia — handled through embassy espousal, the Foreign Employment Act's compensation mechanisms and bilateral labour agreements:…