§ 427. Consuls are appointed through a patent or commission, the so-called Lettre de provision, of the State whose consular office they are intended to administer. Vice-consuls are sometimes, and agents-consular are always, appointed by the consul, subject to the approval of the home State. Admittance of consuls takes place through the so-called exequatur, granted by the head of the admitting State.[775] The diplomatic envoy of the appointing State hands the patent of the appointed consul on to the Secretary for Foreign Affairs for communication to the head of the State, and the exequatur is given either in a special document or by means of the word exequatur written across the patent. But the exequatur can be refused for personal reasons. Thus, in 1869 England refused the exequatur to an Irishman named Haggerty, who was naturalised in the United States and appointed American consul for Glasgow. And the exequatur can be withdrawn for personal reasons at any moment. Thus, in 1834 France withdrew it from the Prussian consul at Bayonne for having helped in getting into Spain supplies of arms for the Carlists.
[775] That, in case a consul is appointed for a State which is under the protectorate of another, it is within the competence of the latter to grant or refuse the exequatur, has been pointed out above, § 92, p. 144, note 4.
Appointment of Consuls includes Recognition.
§ 428. As the appointment of consuls takes place in the interests of commerce, industry, and navigation, and has merely local importance without political consequences, it is maintained[776] that a State does not indirectly recognise a newly created State ipso facto by appointing a consul to a district in such State. This opinion, however, does not agree with the facts of international life. Since no consul can exercise his functions before he has handed over his patent to the local State and received the latter's exequatur, it is evident that thereby the appointing State enters into such formal intercourse with the admitting State as indirectly[777] involves recognition. But it is only if consuls are formally appointed and formally receive the exequatur on the part of the receiving State, that indirect recognition is involved. If, on the other hand, no formal[778] appointment is made, and no formal exequatur is asked for and received, foreign individuals may actually with the consent of the local State exercise the functions of consuls without recognition following therefrom. Such individuals are not really consuls, although the local State allows them for political reasons to exercise consular functions.
[776] Hall, §§ 26* and 105, and Moore, I. § 72.
[778] The case mentioned by Hall, § 26*, of Great Britain appointing, in 1823, consuls to the South American Republics, without gazetting the various consuls and—as must be presumed—without the individuals concerned asking formally for the exequatur of the various South American States, would seem to be a case of informal appointment.
IV FUNCTIONS OF CONSULS
Hall, § 105—Phillimore, II. §§ 257-260—Taylor, § 327—Halleck, I. pp. 380-385—Moore, V. §§ 717-731—Ullmann, § 61—Bulmerincq in Holtzendorff, III. pp. 738-749—Rivier, I. § 42—Calvo, III. §§ 1421-1429—Bonfils, Nos. 762-771—Pradier-Fodéré, IV. §§ 2069-2113—Fiore, II. Nos. 1184-1185—Martens, II. § 23—Stowell, "Le Consul," pp. 15-136.
On Consular Functions in general.