Does Dominique Strauss-Kahn enjoy diplomatic immunity by virtue of his role as the top official at the IMF, so that any American domestic attempt to prosecute him for assaulting a hotel employee gets struck out before it starts?

Good question. I don’t know the answer.

Missions of international organisations enjoy many diplomatic privileges in their host country of the sort enjoyed by national diplomats, but not necessarily all. So hard work will be needed foraging through the IMF’s statutes and legal precedents in the USA to try to work out if he can loftily continue about his business without facing prosecution.

Here (in French, but y’all have Google Translator) is Le Monde poring over the issue. Noteworthy that the French Embassy’s consular officials in the USA and the the French Foreign Ministry are hot on the case – isn’t DSK supposed to be working for all of us, not merely France?

Basic conclusion: if (God forbid) he ever makes it to the summit of the IMF, Gordon Brown is unlikely to get into this sort of difficulty. He’s Scottish and socialist after all, and so has unbounded self-control.