CONSUL
consul (kon-s<<schwa>>l), n.1. A governmental representative living in a foreign country to oversee commercial and other matters involving the representative’s home country and its citizens in that foreign country. • Consuls are not diplomatic agents, so, unless a treaty provides otherwise, they do not enjoy diplomatic privileges and im-munities. But consuls are entitled to consular immunities, which protect them from local law and jurisdiction in the exercise of their consular functions. [Cases: Ambassadors and Consuls 1–8. C.J.S. Ambassadors and Consuls §§ 2–32.] — consular (kon-s<<schwa>>-l<<schwa>>r), adj. — consulship (kon-s<< schwa>>l-ship), n.
“The commercial agents of a government, residing in foreign parts, and charged with the duty of promoting the commercial interests of the state, and especially of its individual citizens or subjects, are called consuls. These, under the regulations of some countries, are of different grades, being either consuls-general, consuls, or vice-consuls, from whom consular agents differ little.” Theodore D. Woolsey, Introduction to the Study of In-ternational Law § 99, at 159 (5th ed. 1878).
“Consuls are commercial, not diplomatic agents. They reside abroad for the purpose of protecting the individual interests of traders, travellers, and mariners belonging to the State which employs them…. They exercise juris-diction over their countrymen, their persons are inviolable, their residences may be used as asylums in the case of war or tumult, and in fact they possess more than the ordinary diplomatic immunities.” T.J. Lawrence, A Hand-book of Public International Law 86–87 (10th ed. 1925).
“Consuls are not diplomatic agents; they perform various services for a state or its subjects in another state, without, however, representing the former in the full sense. They may be nationals of either state, and generally they are made subject to the authority of the diplomatic representative of the state for which they act. They watch over commercial interests of the state for which they act; collect information for it; help its nationals with advice, administer their property if they die abroad, and register their births, deaths, and marriages; they authenticate documents for legal purposes, take depositions from witnesses, visa passports, and the like.” J.L. Brierly, The Law of Nations 216 (5th ed. 1955).
“The usual criterion used for the distinction between diplomats and consuls is the representative character of the former of which the latter are devoid. However, this distinction is not altogether correct. Undoubtedly diplomatic agents have a general representative character since in all matters and relations they represent their country in the state to which they are accredited. Consuls, on the other hand, as state organs, also represent their country in another state, but only in matters within their competence. Thus, the representative character of consuls is, like their competence, specific, and secondary to that of diplomatic agents.” Constantin Economidès, “Consuls,” in 1 Encyclopedia of Public International Law 770 (1992). consul general.A high-ranking consul appointed to a strategically important region and often having supervisory powers over other regions or other consuls.
2.Roman law. One of two chief magistrates elected annually during the Republic to exercise supreme authority. • Under the Empire, the consulship was reduced to a sinecure, held by appointees of the emperor or the emperor himself.“The principal inheritors of the royal authority and dignity were the two consuls elected by the comitia centuriata. They enjoyed equal powers. In the calendar the year was distinguished by their names. They convoked and initiated legislation in either comitia. In special emergencies, particularly in times of grave crisis, either consul might appoint a dictator who exercised supreme authority, but not beyond six months, unless re-appointed…. It was abolished by Justinian in A.D. 541, though later emperors continued to assume the title.” R.W. Lee, The Elements of Roman Law 14 (4th ed. 1956). [Blacks Law 8th]