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The list maintained and (usually) published periodically by a receiving state which gives the names of those who, being members of resident or non-resident diplomatic missions, enjoy diplomatic status within that state. The names are grouped by mission, missions being listed on an alphabetical basis.
The order in which names are listed within each mission\'s list is indicative of the order of precedence, within that mission, of its named diplomatic agents. That order is entirely a matter for the sending state, as is the designation of the agents. (The receiving state, however, determines the general format of the overall list.) When, as is often the case, the agents at a particular mission are members not just of the sending state\'s foreign ministry but also of various other government departments, determining the mission\'s order of precedence can be a matter of controversy, between both the individuals and the departments concerned.
Should internal dissension within a state result in more than one diplomatic mission being sent to a second state, each claiming to represent the first state, the receiving state must decide which it regards as legitimate. Its decision will be reflected in its diplomatic list. If, however, it wishes to avoid or delay coming out in favour of one rather than the other but does not wish to acknowledge that fact, it may decline to publish a new diplomatic list until the matter has been resolved. This unusual state of affairs occurred in the Soviet Union in the early 1970s, when two embassies from Cambodia appeared in Moscow. However, it appears that the secretive Soviets had for some time not published a diplomatic list. The inconvenience to diplomats which this entailed was, from January 1965 at least into the early 1970s, made good by the inclusion of an unofficial list in a directory called Information Moscow which was regularly compiled for members of the foreign community by the British wife of a Soviet journalist.
An international organization to which permanent missions have been sent by member states may publish its own list of the members of such missions. However, although those individuals will be in receipt of certain privileges and immunities they are not, formally speaking, regarded as enjoying ‘diplomatic’ status (although, at the level of practice, this is unlikely to be evident). Thus the organization\'s list may not use that term. The UN, for example, calls its list, ‘Permanent Missions to the United Nations’. See also Sheriffs’ List. |
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