Ratzinger's claim of sovereign immunity "risible"

Geoffrey Robertson QC attacks the premise

[T]he papal states were extinguished by invasion in 1870 and the Vatican was created by fascist Italy in 1929 when Mussolini endowed this tiny enclave — 0.17 of a square mile containing 900 Catholic bureaucrats — with "sovereignty in the international field ... in conformity with its traditions and the exigencies of its mission in the world."

The notion that statehood can be created by another country's unilateral declaration is risible ...

Put the pope in the [prisoner's] dock — Grauniad

Earlier: Lover's knots