privileged sanctuary

English

Noun

privileged sanctuary (plural privileged sanctuaries)

1. (military) An area that is granted special protection or immunity from military operations or attacks, such as a religious or cultural site or one belonging to another party than those involved in a conflict.
   • 1973 May-June, G.R. Christmas, “Guerrilla Sanctuaries”, in Infantry, volume 61, page 25:

     For example, Walter Lippman has written that "it is for all practical purposes impossible to win a guerrilla war if there is a privileged sanctuary behind the guerrilla fighters."

   • 2002, Nicholas M Poúlantzas, The Right of Hot Pursuit in International Law, page 332:

     The use of Manchuria as a "privileged sanctuary" by Communist aircraft led General MacArthur to request from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Department of State a right of "hot pursuit" of enemy fighters two or three minutes of flying-time into Manchurian air space.

2. (ecology) A refuge where certain species are granted a protected status and cannot be killed.
   • 1956, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, Withdrawal and Utilization of the Public Lands of the United States, page 138:

     They have a privileged sanctuary. I can remember in the early days in western Nebraska we used to go out in roundups and round up jackrabbits and run them into a corral and kill them with clubs, hundreds and thousands of them, because there were so many of them. Then a bug came along and most of them died off. The last few years, because of the privileged sanctuary, which is the focal point, they are coming back, actually thousands of jackrabbits.

3. (business) A category of a commercial transaction in which one business or organization holds exclusive rights to operate.
   • 1966, United States. Congress. House. Committee on Post Office and Civil Service, Hearings, page 523:

     In its presentation, the Post Office has stated to this committee that the present restrictions on the size and weight of parcel post provide a privileged sanctuary for one company — REA Express.

   • 1967, Hearings, Reports and Prints of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, page 128:

     We have seen that some 60 percent have legislation and if it be true that without legislation, McCarran-Ferguson has no application, the antitrust laws apply, where is the privileged sanctuary?

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see privileged,‎ sanctuary.
   • 2000, Robert ter Horst, “Poetics and Economics in Luis de León”, in David Foster, Daniel Altamiranda, Carmen de Urioste, editor, Spanish Literature, page 245:

     But he has brought economic motivation into the privileged sanctuary of pastoral, courtly, and religious poetry.

   • 2011, Kal Raustiala, Does the Constitution Follow the Flag?:, page 221:

     In a case involving the comparatively very mild threat of extraterritorial trademark infringement, the Court declared, "[W]e do not think that petitioner by so simple a device [as selling in Mexico] can evade teh thrust of the tlaws of the United States in a privileged sanctuary beyone our borders."

   • 2020, E. Amanda McVitty, Treason and Masculinity in Medieval England, page 149:

     Westminster was the most highly privileged sanctuary in England and it offered permanent protection from prosecution at common law as well as exemptions from taxes and trading regulations.