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Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law [MPECCoL]

Acta iure gestionis and acta iure imperii

Charlene Sun, Aloysius Llamzon

Content type:
Encyclopedia entries
Product:
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law [MPECCoL]
Article last updated:
June 2018

From: Oxford Constitutions (http://oxcon.ouplaw.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2015. All Rights Reserved.date: 18 September 2019

Subject(s):
Administrative law — Jurisdiction — Standing (locus standi) — State sovereignty and states' rights

Published under the direction of the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law.
General Editors: Rainer Grote, Frauke Lachenmann, Rüdiger Wolfrum.

1. Acta iure imperii and acta iure gestionis are terms of opposing polarity that set out the scope and limits, respectively, of a state’s immunity from suit. As a constitutional matter, they arise from a basic organizing principle of statehood that dates back to ancient monarchies, embodied in the Latin maxim rex non potest peccare (‘the king can do no wrong’): a sovereign cannot, without their consent, be made a respondent in civil actions, nor be criminally prosecuted, within their own state. Constitutionalism, however, also requires accountability for...
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