oldest Ambassador, or, failing Ambassadors, the oldest Minister Plenipotentiary, and so on. As the Diplomatic Corps is not a body legally constituted, it performs no legal functions, but it is nevertheless of great importance, as it watches over the privileges and honours due to diplomatic envoys. IV APPOINTMENT OF DIPLOMATIC ENVOYS Vattel, iv. § 76-77-Phillimore, ii. §§ 227-231-Twiss, i. §§ 212-214- and Quali the § 370. International Law has no rules as regards the Person qualification of the individuals whom a State can appoint fication of as diplomatic envoys, States being naturally competent Envoy. to act according to discretion, although of course there are many qualifications a diplomatic envoy must possess to fill his office successfully. The Municipal Laws of many States comprise, therefore, many details as regards the knowledge and training which a candidate for a permanent diplomatic post must possess, whereas, regarding envoys ceremonial, even the Municipal Laws have no provisions at all. The question is sometimes discussed whether females 1 might be appointed envoys. History relates a few cases of female diplomatists. Thus, for example, Louis XIV. of France accredited in 1646 Madame de Guébriant ambassador to the court of Poland. During the last two centuries, however, no such case has to my knowledge occurred, although I doubt not that International Law does not prevent a 1 See Miruss, Das europäische Gesandtschaftsrecht, i. §§ 127-128; Embassies and Foreign Courts (Anon.), pp. 102-109; Phillimore, 1 ii. § 134; and Focherini, Le Signore Credence, Pass ports. State from sending a female as diplomatic envoy. But under the present circumstances many States would refuse to receive her. Letter of § 371. The appointment of an individual as a diploFull matic envoy is announced to the State to which he is Powers, accredited in certain official papers to be handed in by the envoy to the receiving State. Letter of Credence (lettre de créance) is the designation of the document in which the head of the State accredits a permanent ambassador or minister to a foreign State. Every such envoy receives a sealed letter of credence, and an open copy. As soon as he arrives at his destination, he sends the copy to the Foreign Office in order to make his arrival known. The sealed original, however, is handed personally by the envoy to the head of the State to whom he is accredited. Chargés d'affaires receive a letter of credence too, but as they are accredited from Foreign Office to Foreign Office, their letter of credence is signed, not by the head of their home State, but by its Foreign Office. Now a permanent diplomatic envoy needs no other empowering document if he is not entrusted with any task outside the limits of the ordinary business of a permanent legation. But in case he is entrusted with any such task, as, for instance, if any special treaty or convention is to be negotiated, he requires a special empowering document-namely, socalled Full Powers (pleins pouvoirs). These are given in letters patent signed by the head of the State, and they are either limited or unlimited full powers, according to the requirements of the case. Such diplomatic envoys as are sent, not to represent their home State permanently, but on an extraordinary mission such as representation at a congress, negotiation of a special treaty, and other transactions, receive full powers only, and no letter of credence. Every permanent or other diplomatic envoy is also furnished with so-called In structions for the guidance of his conduct as regards the objects of his mission. But such instructions are a matter between the envoy and his home State exclusively, and therefore, although they may otherwise be very important, they have no importance for International Law. Lastly, every permanent diplomatic envoy receives passports for himself and his suite, specially made out by the Foreign Office. These passports he deposits after his arrival at the Foreign Office of the State to which he is accredited, where they remain until he himself asks for them because he desires to leave his post, or until they are returned to him on his dismissal. Lega § 372. As a rule, a State appoints different individuals Combined as permanent diplomatic envoys to different States; tions. but sometimes a State appoints the same individual as permanent diplomatic envoy to several States. Moreover, as a rule, a diplomatic envoy represents one State only. But occasionally several States appoint the same individual as their envoy, so that one envoy represents several States. ment of 373. In former times States used frequently to Appointappoint more than one permanent diplomatic envoy as Several their representative in a foreign State. Although this Envoys. would hardly occur nowadays, there is no rule against such a possibility. And even now it happens frequently that States appoint several envoys for the purpose of representing them at congresses and conferences. In such cases one of the several envoys is appointed senior, and the others are subordinate to him. 1 See Miruss, op. cit., i. §§ 117-119. Duty to receive Diplomatic Envoys. V RECEPTION OF DIPLOMATIC ENVOYS Vattel, iv. §§ 65-67-Hall, § 98-Phillimore, ii. §§ 133-139-Twiss, i. §§ 202203-Taylor, §§ 285-290-Moore, iv. §§ 635, 637-638-Hershey, Nos. 259 and 266-Martens, ii. § 8-Calvo, iii. §§ 1353-1356-Pradier-Fodéré, iii. §§ 1253-1260-Fiore, ii. Nos. 1118-1120, 1124-Rivier, i. pp. 455457-Nys, ii. pp. 400-402-Satow, Diplomatic Practice, i. §§ 243-262. § 374. Every member of the Family of Nations that possesses the passive right of legation is, under ordinary circumstances, bound to receive diplomatic envoys accredited to itself from other States for the purpose of negotiation. But this duty extends neither to the reception of permanent envoys, nor to the reception of temporary envoys under all circumstances. (1) As regards permanent envoys, it is generally recognised that a State is as little bound to receive them as it is to send them. In practice, however, every full sovereign State which desires its voice to be heard among the States receives, and sends, permanent envoys, as without such it would, under present circumstances, be impossible for a State to have any influence whatever in international affairs. It is for this reason that Switzerland, which in former times abstained entirely from sending permanent envoys, has abandoned her former practice, and nowadays sends, and receives, several. The insignificant Principality of Lichtenstein is, as far as I know, the only full sovereign State which neither sends nor receives one single permanent legation. But a State may receive a permanent legation from one State, and refuse to do so from another. Thus, the Protestant States never received a permanent legation from the Popes, even when the latter were heads of a State, and they still observe this rule, although some keep a permanent legation at the Vatican. (2) As regards temporary envoys, it is likewise generally recognised among those writers who assert the duty of a State to receive temporary envoys under ordinary circumstances that there are exceptions to that rule. Thus, for example, a State which knows beforehand the object of a mission, and does not wish to negotiate thereon, can refuse to receive the mission. Thus, further, a belligerent can refuse to receive a legation from the other belligerent, as war involves the rupture of all peaceable relations. certain Indi vidual. § 375. But the refusal to receive an envoy must not Refusal to be confounded with the refusal to receive a certain indi- receive a vidual as envoy. A State may be ready to receive a permanent or temporary envoy, but may object to the individual selected for that purpose. International Law gives no right to a State to insist upon the reception of an individual appointed by it as diplomatic envoy. Every State can refuse to receive as envoy a person objectionable to itself. And a State refusing an individual envoy is neither compelled to specify what kind of objection it has, nor to justify its objection. Thus, for example, most States refuse to receive one of their own subjects as an envoy from a foreign State. Thus, again, the King of Hanover refused in 1847 to receive Count von Westphalen as minister from Prussia, because he was of the Roman Catholic faith. Italy refused in 1885 to receive Mr. Keiley as ambas 1 But this is not generally recognised. See Vattel, iv. § 67; Phillimore, ii. § 138; and Pradier-Fodéré, iii. No. 1255. In case a State receives one of its own subjects as diplomatic envoy of a foreign State, it has to grant him all the privileges of such envoys, including exterritoriality. Thus in the case of Macartney v. Garbutt, (1890) 24 Q. B. D. 368, it was decided that a British subject accredited to Great Britain by the Chinese Govern ment as a secretary to its embassy, |