Ministers Resident.
§ 367. The third class, the Ministers Resident, enjoy fewer honours and rank below the Ministers Plenipotentiary. But beyond the fact that Ministers Resident do not enjoy the title "Excellency," there is no difference between them and the Ministers Plenipotentiary.
Chargés d'Affaires.
§ 368. The fourth class, the Chargés d'Affaires, differs chiefly in one point from the first, second, and third class—namely, in so far as its members are accredited from Foreign Office to Foreign Office, whereas the members of the other classes are accredited from head of State to head of State. Chargés d'Affaires do not enjoy, therefore, so many honours as other diplomatic envoys. And it must be specially mentioned that a distinction ought to be made between a Chargé d'Affaires who is the head of a Legation, and who, therefore, is accredited from Foreign Office to Foreign Office, and a Chargé d'Affaires ad interim. The latter is a member of a Legation whom the head of the Legation delegates for the purpose of taking his place during absence on leave. Such Chargé d'Affaires ad interim, who had better be called a Chargé des Affaires,[722] ranks below the ordinary Chargé d'Affaires; he is not accredited from Foreign Office to Foreign Office, but is simply a delegate of the absent head of the Legation.
[722] See Rivier, II. pp. 451-452.
The Diplomatic Corps.
§ 369. All the Diplomatic Envoys accredited to the same State form, according to a diplomatic usage, a body which is styled the "Diplomatic Corps." The head of this body, the so-called "Doyen," is the Papal Nuncio, or, in case there is no Nuncio accredited, the 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—Ullmann, § 48—Calvo, III. §§ 1343-1345—Bonfils, Nos. 677-680—Wheaton, §§ 217-220—Moore, IV. §§ 632-635.
Person and Qualification of the Envoy.