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The means whereby a state communicates with another. In this matter there are established usages, the breach of which is likely to be inefficient and also lead to ruffled feathers.
Where one state\'s foreign ministry wishes to communicate with its counterpart in another state, the message (whether oral or written) is ordinarily passed to the state\'s diplomatic mission in the capital concerned for onward personal transmission by a diplomatic agent to the relevant official in the other state\'s ministry. In this way the message can be delivered at the appropriate level and with exactly the emphasis and tone that is calculated to be most likely to achieve the desired result.
An alternative but usually much less satisfactory channel is to give the message to the recipient state\'s diplomatic mission which is resident in the capital of the state sending the message. The disadvantage of this channel is the lack of personal delivery to the official responsible for the issue on which the message-sending state seeks a satisfactory response. However, when one state wishes to protest strongly to another, the preferred channel is to use the resident mission of the state to which the protest is addressed. The head of mission can be summoned to meet a senior figure - a minister (sense 3) or a very high official - who can register the state\'s displeasure in no uncertain terms, and with greater weight than would be available to the protesting state\'s head of mission in the foreign state\'s capital.
In the event of the message-sending state having no diplomatic representation in the capital of the recipient state, the appropriate channel for the more normal type of message is also through the recipient state\'s diplomatic mission in the capital of the message-sending state. If there is no such mission (but assuming that the two states are in diplomatic relations (sense 1)), the message-sending state will select a place where both states have diplomatic representation and send the message to its mission there for passage to the recipient state\'s mission with the request that it be transmitted to that state\'s foreign ministry.
A further possibility where neither state has a diplomatic mission in the other\'s capital but where at least one of them has a consular post, is for that post to be used. However, in a high diplomatic matter, it might be thought inappropriate to involve a consular officer. And for the message-sending state to use its consular post in the receiving state for diplomatic purposes, the consent of the receiving state would need to be secured.
What all this reflects is that in the normal way the foreign ministry is far and away the leading agency responsible for the conduct of a state\'s international relations (sense 1); and that its diplomatic agents are the medium through which it makes external representations. Thus diplomats act as the voice box of the state vis-Ã -vis other states.
Accordingly, when a government department other than the foreign ministry wishes to communicate with a foreign state, the proper channel of communication is for it to use its own foreign ministry. Unless special circumstances obtain (as, for example, in the case of the states of the European Union), such a department is not entitled to communicate directly with its foreign counterpart, nor with its diplomats resident in the capital of the state concerned, nor with the diplomats of that state resident in its own capital. However, an exception to this rule may be permitted by a foreign ministry in respect of technical or routine matters, where there may well be obvious advantage in the relevant government department - for example, that responsible for transport or for civil aviation - contacting its counterpart directly. Such ‘exceptions’ are now by no means as exceptional as they used to be.
However, a foreign ministry will always be sensitive about the possibility of such dealings going beyond the permitted ambit, and keen to emphasize its prime responsibility for communications which have the least bearing on principle or policy, or which entail representations to foreign authorities. See also diplomacy (sense 1); direct dial diplomacy. |
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