If the consular officer employs unlawful means in entering into the lease, e.g., fraud and deceit, he is nevertheless doing so in the exercise of a consular function, and is immune from civil and criminal claims based on his fraud and deceit even though the Convention does not give him permission to engage in fraudulent and deceitful acts. This understanding of the Convention is well supported by U.S. decisional law, and demonstrates that there are immunized acts which are not authorized. The reason for the persistent tendency to equate consular authority with consular immunity may be the equally persistent tendency to view the Vienna Convention as being primarily, or even exclusively, concerned with establishing the existence and scope of consular immunity. That is far from the case, however. A review and analysis of the Vienna Convention's legislative history and of its specific provisions shows that the principal purpose of the Convention is to express agreement on the permissible activities of consular officers of one state in the territory of another state.
Consular immunity is an adjunct, albeit an important one, to that primary purpose.
The fact that conflicts and disputes over the provisions of the Vienna Convention frequently involve consular immunity should not be allowed to distract from this elementary insight. The various types of consular functions authorized by the Convention are listed in its Article 5. Article 5 raises a host of difficult issues of interpretation and application. Here we can only hope to discuss a few of them. The answer has some significant legal consequences.