III APPOINTMENT OF CONSULS
Hall, § 105—Phillimore, II. § 250—Halleck, I. p. 371—Moore, V. §§ 697-700—Ullmann, § 58—Bulmerincq in Holtzendorff, III. pp. 702-706—Rivier, I. § 41—Nys, II. p. 400—Calvo, III. §§ 1378-1384—Bonfils, Nos. 749-752—Pradier-Fodéré, IV. §§ 2056-2067—Fiore, II. Nos. 1181-1182—Martens, II. § 21—Stowell, "Le Consul," pp. 207-216.
Qualification of Candidates.
§ 424. International Law has no rules in regard to the qualifications of an individual whom a State can appoint consul. Many States, however, possess such rules in their Municipal Law as far as professional consuls are concerned. The question, whether female consuls could be appointed, cannot be answered in the negative, but, on the other hand, no State is obliged to grant female consuls the exequatur, and many States would at present certainly refuse it.
No State obliged to admit Consuls.
§ 425. According to International Law a State is not at all obliged to admit consuls. But the commercial interests of all the States are so powerful that practically every State must admit consuls of foreign Powers, as a State which refused such admittance would in its turn not be allowed to have its own consuls abroad. The commercial and consular treaties between two States stipulate as a rule that the contracting States shall have the right to appoint consuls in all those parts of each other's country in which consuls of third States are already or shall in future be admitted. Consequently a State cannot refuse admittance to a consul of one State for a certain district if it admits a consul of another State. But as long as a State has not admitted any other State's consul for a district, it can refuse admittance to a consul of the State anxious to organise consular service in that district. Thus, for instance, Russia refused for a long time for political reasons to admit consuls in Warsaw.
What kind of States can appoint Consuls.
§ 426. There is no doubt that it is within the faculty of every full-Sovereign State to appoint consuls. As regards not full-Sovereign States, everything depends upon the special case. As foreign States can appoint consuls in States under suzerainty, it cannot be doubted that, provided the contrary is not specially stipulated between the vassal and the suzerain State, and provided the vassal State is not one which has no position within the Family of Nations,[774] a vassal State is in its turn competent to appoint consuls in foreign States. In regard to member-States of a Federal State it is the Constitution of the Federal State which settles the question. Thus, according to the Constitution of Germany, the Federal State is exclusively competent to appoint consuls, in contradistinction to diplomatic envoys who may be sent and received by every member-State of the German Empire.
Mode of Appointment and of Admittance.