exercised great power over their own countrymen, and were designated by various titles, according to the customs of various countries.1 § 2. In the early part of the seventeenth century a great change was effected in commerce and international intercourse generally, by the establishment of permanent diplomatic agencies and legations, by the general improvement of municipal law, and especially by more clearly defining the boundaries and limits of territorial and foreign jurisdictions. The extra-territorial jurisdiction, criminal and civil, exercised by consuls, was found to be wholly at variance with the recognised principles of public law in Christian Europe, and the consular institution, thus changed in its condition and character, was limited to a general vigilance of the consul over the interests of shipping and navigation of his nation at a particular locality. To this was sometimes added a limited. authority over particular questions of dispute between merchants and sailors of his own country. This is the general position which, in Christian countries, the consulate continues to occupy at the present day. The duties and legal status of consuls, as will be shown hereafter, are somewhat dif ferent in the East, where, by virtue of express treaty stipulations, they have especial prerogatives and exercise a larger jurisdiction.2 1 The ships of foreign merchants were held to be navigated under the jurisdiction of the nation whose flag they carried, and the general practice was for vessels engaged in long sea voyages, some of which occupied a period of not less than three years, to have on board a magistrate whose duty it was to administer the law of the country of the flag amongst all on board, not merely whilst the vessel was on the high seas, but while she was in a foreign port, loading or unloading cargo. This magistrate was termed the Alderman in the ports of the Baltic and the North Sea, whilst in the Mediterranean ports he was designated by the familiar name of Consul, and was the precursor of the resident commercial Consul, who continues in the present day to exercise within merchant ships of his own nationality, notwithstanding they are within the territorial jurisdiction of another State, a portion of the personal jurisdiction formerly exercised by the ship's consul. The exercise of this consular jurisdiction requires no fiction of exterritoriality to support it. Its limits are either regulated by commercial treaties, or where it has originated in charter privileges, it is now held to rest upon custom.-Art. by Sir T. Twiss, Law Magazine, Feb., 1876. 2 Heffter, Droit International, § 244; Phillimore, On Int. Law, vol. ii. §§ 243, 244; Miltitz, Manuel des Consuls, tome i. p. 6; Martens, Guide Diplomatique, §§ 71, 72; Martens, Précis du Droit des Gens, §§ 147, 148; Garden, De la Diplomatie, tome i. pp. 315 et seq.; De Clercq, Guide des Consulats, pp. 1 et seq.; Bello, Derecho Internacional, pt. i. cap. vii. §1; Moreuil, Manuel des Agents Con., introduction; Mensch, Manuel § 3. The consular organisation is usually divided into consuls-general, consuls, vice-consuls, and consular or commercial agents. Some States have only the single office of consuls. Consuls-general exercise their functions over several places, and sometimes over a whole country, giving orders and directions to all consuls, vice-consuls, and commercial agents of their government within the same State. English viceconsuls are usually appointed by the consul, subject to the approbation of the foreign secretary of State. Other countries have adopted a different system of appointment. This depends entirely upon the institutions of the particular State, and is not governed by any rule of international jurisprudence. It is sufficient for the State, to which the consular officer is sent, to know that he has been appointed by the proper authority of his own government. By whatever names these officers are designated, their powers and duties in Christian countries are, generally speaking, the same; these we shall now proceed to discuss under the general name of consul. § 4. A consul receives a commission from the proper authority of his own government, a duplicate, or properly authenticated copy, being forwarded to the ambassador or minister of the same State, at the court of the country in which the consul is to officiate, in order that he may apply for the usual exequatur to enable him to enter officially upon his consular duties. This is usually issued under the great seal of State, and made public for the information of all concerned. On arriving at his post, the consul usually furnishes the principal public authority of the place with a copy of his commission, stamped with his consular seal. On receiving his exequatur he becomes entitled to exercise the authority, and enjoy the privileges, immunities, and exemptions due and pertaining to his office. Without such exequatur, or confirmation of their commission by the sovereign authority of the country to which they are deputed, they cannot enter upon the discharge of their functions; and, on its revocation by du Consulat, pt. i.; Riquelme, Derecho Pub. Int., lib. ii. cap. Ad., iii. ; Dalloz, Répertoire, verb. 'Consul,' § 1; Warden, Treatise on Consuls; Borel, Fonctions des Consuls; Santos et Barreto, Traité du Consulat; Bursotti, Guide des Agents Consulaires; De Podio, Juridiction des Consuls; Bynkershoek, De Foro Legat., lib. v. cap. x.; Vattel, Droit des Gens, liv. ii. ch. ii. § 34. such sovereign authority, their official character immediately ceases.1 § 5. Consuls have neither the representative nor diplomatic character of public ministers. They have no right of ex-territoriality, and therefore cannot claim either for themselves, their families, houses, or property, the privileges of exemption which, by this fiction of law, are accorded to diplomatic agents who are considered as representing, in a greater or less degree, the sovereignty of the State which appoints them. They, however, are officers of a foreign State, and when recognised as such by the exequatur of the State in which they exercise their functions, they are under the special protection of the law of nations. Consuls are sometimes made also chargés d'affaires, in which cases they are furnished with credentials, and enjoy diplomatic privileges; but these result only from their character as chargés, and not as consuls.2 § 6. Consuls are amenable, generally, to the civil and criminal jurisdiction of the country in which they reside, and their property and effects are subject to the recourse of execution and process of the local courts. It was at one time contended that they should be exempt from criminal jurisdiction, but the position was neither sustained in practice, nor in the doctrines of text-writers. They, therefore, may either be punished for their offences, by the laws of the State where they reside, or be sent back to their own country, at the discretion of the government which they have offended. A distinction, however, is made between personal offences and official acts done under the authority and direction of their own government. The latter are matters for diplomatic arrangement between the respective States, and are not properly justiciable by the local courts. Consuls are subject to the payment of taxes, and municipal imposts and duties on their property or trade, and the municipal charges incident to 1 Fynn, British Consuls Abroad, pp. 34-55; Wildman, Int. Law, vol. i. p. 130; Horne, On Diplomacy, sec. i. §§ 13, 14; De Cussy, Reg. Consulaires, pt. i. sec. i. 2 Kent, Com. on Am. Law, vol. i. p. 44; Foelix, Droit Int. Privé, §218; Flassan, Hist. de la Dip. Française, tome i. ch. ix.; Wheaton, Elem. Int. Law, pt. iii. ch. i. § 22; Westlake, Private Int. Law, § 139. Mr. Pritchard, the acting British Consul at Tahiti, having been imprisoned in 1844 by order of the French commander of that island, although without the authority of the French Government, the latter was compelled by Great Britain to pay a sum of money as indemnity for the outrage. Ann. Reg., 1844, p. 261. their personal status, and from which they are not exempted by the privileges of their office.1 § 7. Consuls,' says Phillimore, 'have no claim to any foreign ceremonial or mark of respect, and no right of precedence, except among themselves, according to the rank of the different States to which they belong.' But, as already stated, the present tendency is to considér all sovereign and independent States as equal in rank, with respect to ceremonial and precedence, and consuls of foreign States of the same rank in the consular hierarchy should have precedence among themselves, according to the dates of their respective exequaturs. The rank which they hold among the officers of their own State, civil or military, is regulated by the laws of their own State, and is not a matter of international jurisprudence, nor does it come within the province of the State where they reside to interfere in any differences between officers of a foreign government, with respect either to relative rank among themselves, or to their authority over each other.2 1 Wicquefort, De l'Ambassadeur, liv. i. § 5; Clark v. Cretico, 1 Taunt. R., 106. 2 Phillimore, On Int. Law, vol. ii. § 246. British Consular Officers take rank in their respective grades among their colleagues at the port of their residence, in conformity with the rules prescribed by the Congress of Vienna for diplomatic agents, viz., seniority according to official title and to priority of recognition. The rights and privileges of Consular Officers are of two kinds : those defined by treaty and those regulated by local law or custom. Consular Officers should maintain their right to privileges or exemptions which by treaty or by custom they may be fully entitled to demand, but they must not aim at more; and in any case of difference of opinion between them and the officers of other Governments, they must avoid giving offence and should conduct the controversy in a spirit of conciliation calculated to render unnecessary the reference which, if the difference cannot be arranged, must be made by the Consular Officer to the British Secretary of State. In the countries where it may be the custom for foreign Consuls to hoist the national flags of their respective nations over their residences, the flag to be hoisted by British Consular Officers is the Union Jack. If the regulations of the country or of the place in which the Consular Officer resides do not permit a display of this kind, and if such regulations are applicable to foreign Consuls generally, the British Consular Officer should not hoist the British flag. Brit. F. O. Inst., 1868. The interchange of visits in foreign ports between British Naval Officers and British Consuls is arranged as follows: On arrival of a British ship of war at a foreign port, the first visit is made by the Naval or Consular Officer who may be subordinate in relative rank; but the senior Naval Officer present is on all occasions to arrange to provide a suitable boat for Consular Officers to pay their official visits afloat, and to reland them, on the said officers notifying their wish to have a boat sent for their accommodation. § 8. Although consuls do not enjoy the rights accorded by the law of nations to public ministers, they are, nevertheless, entitled to certain rights of comity, and to certain privileges of exemption from local and political obligations, which cannot be claimed by private individuals,-rights and privileges which are incident to their office, and which result from their character as the duly appointed and recognised officers of a foreign State. Nor are these exemptions limited to the officers themselves; they extend, in a certain degree, to their houses and to public property in their charge. Thus they may raise the flag, and place the arms of the country they represent over their gates and doors; and, although their houses are liable to domiciliary visit and search, the papers and archives of their consulate are, in general, exempt from seizure or detention, and soldiers cannot be quartered in their consular residence. And, in addition to those rights and privileges to which consuls are entitled by the general rules of international law, custom, in some countries, has added others of the same kind; and in general, a consul is entitled to all those which have been allowed to his predecessors, unless a formal notice has been given that they will no longer be extended to his office, or to consuls of other States in the The above ceremonial is dependent on the relative rank accorded to certain Naval and Consular Officers, and such relative rank having undergone several changes since the Naval Regulations were established, the following scale of precedence between Naval and Consular Officers has been substituted : Agents and Consuls-General. To rank with, but after, Rear-Admirals. Consuls-General Consuls Vice-Consuls Consular Agents. with, but after, Commodores. with, but after, Captains R.N. of 3 years' standing and before all other Captains R.N. with, but after Lieutenants and Navigating Lieutenants of 8 years' standing. with, but after, all other Lieutenants, and Navigating Lieutenants R.N. The Consular Officers of the United States rank with their own Naval Officers, as follows : Agents and Consuls-General. Consuls-General Consuls Vice-Consuls Deputy-Consuls Consular Agents Commercial Agents } with Commodores. with Captains. with Lieutenants. |