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Diplomatic mission

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Spanish embassy to the Holy See and the Sovereign Military Order of Malta in Rome
Multiple embassies in one location: The embassies of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden in a joint compound in Berlin, Germany.

A diplomatic mission or foreign mission[1] is a group of people from one state or an organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving state. In practice, the phrase diplomatic mission usually denotes the resident mission, namely the embassy, which is the main office of a country's diplomatic representatives to another country; this is usually, but not necessarily, in the receiving state's capital city. Consulates, on the other hand, are smaller diplomatic missions which are normally located in major cities of the receiving state (but can be located in the capital, usually when the sending country has no embassy in the receiving state). As well as being a diplomatic mission to the country in which it is situated, it may also be a non-resident permanent mission to one or more other countries. There are thus resident and non-resident embassies.[2][3][4][5]


A country may have several different types of diplomatic missions in another country.


A high commission is an embassy of a Commonwealth country located in another Commonwealth country.

A permanent mission is a diplomatic mission to a major international organization.



A legation was a diplomatic representative office of lower rank than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an ambassador, a legation was headed by a minister. Ambassadors outranked ministers and had precedence at official events. Legations were originally the most common form of diplomatic mission, but they fell out of favor after World War II and were upgraded to embassies.

A consulate headed by an Honorary Consul is a diplomatic mission headed by an Honorary Consul which provides only a limited range of services.[6]

The head of an embassy is known as an ambassador or high commissioner. The term embassy is commonly used also as a section of a building in which the work of the diplomatic mission is carried out, but, strictly speaking, it is the diplomatic delegation itself that is the embassy, while the office space and the diplomatic work done is called the chancery. Therefore, the embassy operates in the chancery.

The members of a diplomatic mission can reside within or outside the building that holds the mission's chancery, and their private residences enjoy the same rights as the premises of the mission as regards inviolability and protection.[7]

All missions to the United Nations are known simply as permanent missions, while EU member states' missions to the European Union are known as permanent representations, and the head of such a mission is typically both a permanent representative and an ambassador. European Union missions abroad are known as EU delegations. Some countries have more particular naming for their missions and staff: a Vatican mission is headed by a nuncio (Latin for "envoy") and consequently known as an apostolic nunciature. Under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya's missions used the name people's bureau, headed by a secretary.

Missions between Commonwealth countries are known as high commissions, and their heads are high commissioners.[8] Generally speaking, ambassadors and high commissioners are regarded as equivalent in status and function, and embassies and high commissions are both deemed to be diplomatic missions.[9][10]


A consulate is similar to, but not the same as a diplomatic office, but with focus on dealing with individual persons and businesses, as defined by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. A consulate or consulate general is generally a representative of the embassy in locales outside of the capital city.[8] For instance, the Philippines has its Embassy of the Philippines in Washington, D.C., but also maintains seven consulates-general and four consulates elsewhere in the US. The person in charge of a consulate or consulate-general is known as a consul or consul-general, respectively. Similar services may also be provided at the embassy (to serve the region of the capital) in what is normally called a consular section.



Contrary to popular belief, diplomatic missions do not enjoy full extraterritorial status and – in those cases – are not sovereign territory of the represented state.[11] Rather, the premises of diplomatic missions remain under the jurisdiction of the host state while being afforded special privileges (such as immunity from most local laws) by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Diplomats themselves still retain full diplomatic immunity, and (as an adherent to the Vienna Convention) the authorities of the host country may not enter the premises of the mission without permission of the represented country, even to put out a fire.[12] International rules designate an attack on an embassy as an attack on the country it represents.[citation needed] The term "extraterritoriality" is often applied to diplomatic missions, but normally only in this broader sense.


Notable violations of embassy extraterritoriality include repeated invasions of the British Embassy, Beijing (1967),[13] the hostage crisis at the American embassy in Tehran, Iran (1979–1981), and the Japanese embassy hostage crisis at the ambassador's residence in Lima, Peru (1996–1997).


The Vienna Convention states:


Diplomatic missions between members of the British Commonwealth of Nations are not called embassies, but high commissions, for Commonwealth nations share a special diplomatic relationship. It is generally expected that an embassy of a Commonwealth country in a non-Commonwealth country will do its best to provide diplomatic services to citizens from other Commonwealth countries if the citizen's country does not have an embassy in that country. Canadian and Australian nationals enjoy even greater cooperation between their respective consular services, as outlined in the Canada-Australia Consular Services Sharing Agreement. The same kind of procedure is also followed multilaterally by the member states of the European Union (EU). European citizens in need of consular help in a country without diplomatic or consular representation of their own country may turn to any consular or diplomatic mission of another EU member state.


Multiple missions in a city

Some cities may host more than one mission from the same country. An example is Rome, where many states maintain missions to Italy and another to the Holy See. It is not customary for these missions to share premises nor diplomatic personnel. At present, only the Iraqi missions to Italy and the Holy See share premises; however, two ambassadors are appointed, one to each country. In the case of the UN's Food Agencies, the Head of Mission to the Italian Republic is usually accredited as permanent representative. The United States maintains a separate United States Mission to the UN Agencies in Rome, whose head is the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture. Kolkata in India hosts two Bangladeshi Deputy High Commissions, one at Park Circus and another, opened later, at Mirza Galib Street. This was done to reduce overcrowding inside the Deputy High Commission. Both the Deputy High Commissions issue Bangladeshi visas.

Non-diplomatic offices


See also

Notes and references

  1. ^ "What is a Foreign Mission /Chancery?". Retrieved 2017-08-25.
  4. ^ "Of Chile's 109 foreign diplomatic missions in 1988, no fewer than 31 were on a non-residential basis, while 17 of the 63 missions in Santiago were non-resident" (Deon Geldenhuys, Isolated States: A Comparative Analysis (University of Cambridge 1990 ISBN 0-521-40268-9), p. 158).
  6. ^ "Types of Diplomatic Missions". e Diplomat. 2016.
  7. ^ "1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, article 30" (PDF).
  9. ^ Nutt, Jim S. "Diplomatic and Consular Representations".
  10. ^ "Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, "What does the work of a High Commissioner involve?"" (PDF).
  11. ^ 'Laws and Rules Regarding Extraterritoriality' on "There is a common misconception that Embassies and Consulates have extraterritoriality. As anecdotal evidence of this misconception, people will often say things like, 'the US Embassy sits upon United States soil.' For the most part, this is not the case as extraterritoriality is not conferred upon an Embassy or Consulate, but in some situations extraterritoriality may be created by Treaty".
  12. ^ "What is a U.S. Embassy?". Archived from the original on 2018-05-10. Retrieved 2014-01-06.
  13. ^ "Sir Ray Whitney". The Daily Telegraph. London. 15 August 2012. Retrieved 17 August 2015. Red Guards scaled the British mission's wall as diplomats watched the Ealing comedy Two-Way Stretch. They retreated to an inner room without switching off the projector, pushing a piano across the door as the mob broke windows and began climbing in. Whitney and his colleagues retreated again to the embassy's secure zone, with heavily barred windows. The Chinese set fire to the mission, then used a battering ram on the steel emergency door.
  14. ^ "Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relationships, article 3" (PDF).

External links

This page was last edited on 5 April 2021, at 16:01