Notes from course on Diplomatic Practice (Prof. Frank Owarish)

1. States conduct consular relations in addition to diplomatic relations in similar reciprocal basis (sending and receiving). A consul is an official agent from a sending state to reside in a receiving state to assist and see to the general protection of its nationals there.

2. Consuls exercise their powers in a district defined in an exequatur issued by the appropriate authority of the receiving state. Consuls encourage the development of economic/commercial, cultural and scientific relations between the two states and report on conditions in their districts. They also issue passports and visas, act as notaries and civil registrars and the temporary administrators of estates, transmit judicial and other official documents, assure nondiscriminatory treatment of their nationals in local judicial, police and penal institutions and arrange their repatriation as needed; they control and assist their nation's vessels and aircrafts and their crews; and see to it that treaties and agreements are respected by the local authorities.

3. Consuls are of four ranks: consul general, consul, vice consul and consular agent. A consulate established in a country where there is an embassy is subordinate to the ambassador or charge d'affaires. The consul general is the head of a consulate or the chief of a consular section in an embassy.

4. Sometimes, some states used the nationals of a receiving state to perform some consular functions; an honorary consul is a host-country national appointed by a foreign state to perform limited consular functions in a locality where the appointing state has no other consular representation; a national of a host state could also be appointed to perform consular work for a state where it does not maintain a regular consulate. These limited consular functions could also be delegated to the consulate of a friendly country of the sending state.

5. See the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

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