The legal nature of state immunity

The article gives a historical and theoretical perspective of the question of the essence and legal nature of state immunity as a category of general legal and branch legal sciences. The authors study opinions on the notion, grounds and ways of origin of state immunity, presented innational and foreign juridical science. On the basis of the method of comparative analysis, historical and systematic approach, they come to the conclusion that state immunity itself is a specific variety of legal privilege, the existence of which may be grounded by the basic characteristic of a state, as a bearer of sovereign power. The authors draw a line between state immunity and other varieties of legal immunities, which are realized in the framework of intrastate rights of different countries or in the context of international legal relations (deputative, judicial, diplomatic, etc.). The article reveals the genesis and contents of two main concepts of a foreign state’s immunity: absolute and functional (restricted). Herewith, it is stated that at the stage of intensive globalization, the transformation of sovereignty, which is an initial constant of political and legal existence of a state, led to the decay of the doctrine of absolute state immunity in favor of extension of ideas of the functional (restricted) state immunity.