| |
In general usage, any consular officer; in more specific terms, one of the four consular ranks.
The office of consul is of great antiquity, and precedes resident diplomatic missions. It was instituted by states to protect their commercial interests in a foreign country and those of their nationals who were trading or travelling there. Professionally speaking, consuls were in their prime from about 1850 to 1950. This period saw a huge expansion in international commerce, and a good deal of it occurred in territories that were part of the large overseas and overland empires which then held sway. As diplomatic missions are sent only to capital cities, states wishing to provide on-the-spot advice and assistance to their traders had to establish consular posts.
The ending of colonialism was accompanied by a great increase in the size of diplomatic services and the number of diplomatic missions. And it happened that in capital cities it quickly became customary for consular matters to be dealt with not by separate consular posts but by newly established consular sections within diplomatic missions, or by members of the mission\'s staff who were authorized to perform consular functions - with the individuals concerned enjoying diplomatic rather than consular status. Thus consular posts tend nowadays to be found only in large commercial cities or seaports which are not the capital of the state concerned. In some Commonwealth states, notably India and Pakistan, consular functions exercised by other Commonwealth states outside the capital city are performed not by consular posts but by offices of the deputy high commissioner.
However, consular functions remain of considerable importance, not least in geographically large and economically powerful states. The exponential growth in leisure travel has also created a need for consuls in highly popular holiday areas. Thus consular functions continue to be valuably exercised across much of the international scene, albeit no longer by members of a consular service, and not always by individuals with a consular rank. See also consular relations; factory; honorary consular officer; proxenos. |
|
