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The title given to the head of mission of the first class sent by one member of the Commonwealth to another. Apart from terminology, and some small additional privileges and ceremonial differentiation in London, a high commissioner is in exactly the same position and has exactly the same role as an ambassador (sense 1). However, the credentials carried by high commissioners are not the more usual letters of credence. Where both the sending and receiving states are of the Queen\'s Realms – that is, where both of them have the same head of state – the high commissioner carries a letter of introduction from the sending state\'s head of government (the prime minister) to the receiving state\'s head of government (the prime minister). This is because it is not deemed possible for a head of state to accredit a representative to herself or himself, nor for the Queen to accredit someone to her governor-general or for a governor-general to accredit someone to his or her Queen. It may be supposed that a similar procedure would have taken place in the case of (now extinct) personal unions. Unlike ambassadors (who are of the sending state to the receiving state), such high commissioners may be described as high commissioner for (the sending state) in (the receiving state). Where either the sending state or the receiving state is not of the Queen\'s Realms – that is, it is a republic or a monarchy with a head of state other than the British Queen – the high commissioner carries a letter of commission from the sending state\'s head of state to the head of state of the receiving state. In another terminological twist, such high commissioners are often described as high commissioner for (the sending state) to (the receiving state).
All British high commissioners (whether in the Queen\'s Realms or otherwise) are called just that – never Her Majesty\'s high commissioner. The reason for this is that British high commissioners do not hold commissions or warrants of appointment from the Queen, which alone would entitle them to be described as ‘Her Majesty\'s’. It is thought that this usage stems from the origins of the office, when all high commissioners, whether representing the dominions in London or vice versa, were subjects of the Crown. Hence they were not representatives of one sovereign state to another, and thus did not require to be commissioned to represent their sovereign at a foreign court. Additionally, all British high commissioners fly the United Kingdom flag, never the British diplomatic flag.
Given that the point is very frequently misunderstood, it perhaps bears emphasizing that as between two states of the Queen\'s Realms their high commissioners represent not their (common) head of state but their heads of government. Thus, when the Queen visits one of her other Realms, she is neither accommodated nor escorted by the British high commissioner, but by her governor-general.
The title of high commissioner derives from the late nineteenth century, when the oldest British dominion (Canada) first sought representation in London. As the territory was not a sovereign state it could not appoint a diplomatic representative, and hence a different terminology was adopted – which was later used for the representatives of other dominions. When, later still (in the 1920s) Britain began to appoint political representatives to the dominions, the same title was used. Soon afterwards, the dominions slowly became accepted as sovereign states, and in some dominion quarters there was unease at the continued use of the colonial-sounding title of high commissioner, and at the fact that such representatives were not members of the diplomatic corps or entitled to the usual diplomatic privileges and immunities. Suggestions emerged that the title be replaced by that of ambassador. However, some of these (by now Commonwealth) states were unenthusiastic about a change, and the impetus behind it was largely removed, in the late 1940s, by high commissioners being integrated into the diplomatic corps of the relevant states and made heads of mission of the first class. Since then there has been no serious opposition to the title; and now its distinctive character is often viewed very positively. See also presentation of credentials.
It is perhaps worth adding that although it is only in intra-Common-wealth relations that the title of ‘high commissioner’ is a genuinely diplomatic one, historically it has also served as a convenient title to give to senior officials with at least quasi-diplomatic responsibilities, not least when working in unusual circumstances. These include (i) some governors of dependent territories not formally part of an empire, as in the former British ‘high commission territories’ in southern Africa, and certain League of Nations mandates; (ii) representatives of victorious states sent to a defeated territory to conduct relations with its authorities and oversee its civil administration, as for example in Turkey after the First World War and Germany after the Second; (iii) representatives to unrecognized governments which nevertheless the sending state wished to support, as for example with the short-lived anti-Bolshevik government of Admiral Kolchak in Siberia during the Russian civil war; and (iv) some international civil servants with overall responsibility for certain humanitarian matters, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. |
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