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Consular Affairs and Diplomacy
Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Downloaded from Brill.com09/01/2023 02:50:34AM
via Western University
Diplomatic Studies
Series Editor
Jan Melissen
Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’
VOLUME 7

Consular Affairs and
Diplomacy
Edited by
Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2011

This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Consular affairs and diplomacy / edited by Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernandez.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-90-04-18876-1 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Diplomatic and consular
service. 2. Diplomacy. 3. Diplomatic and consular service, European. 4. Diplomatic
and consular service, Russian. 5. Diplomatic and consular service—United States.
6. World politics. I. Melissen, Jan. II. Fernandez, Ana Mar.
JZ1405.C66 2011
327.2—dc22
2010050201
ISSN 1872-8863
ISBN 978-90-04-18876-1
Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing,
IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission
from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by

Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to
The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910,
Danvers, MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ............................................................................ vii

List of Contributors ........................................................................... ix
Introduction The Consular Dimension of Diplomacy ............. 1

Jan Melissen
PART I
THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY CONSULAR AFFAIRS
Chapter One Changes in Consular Assistance and the

Emergence of Consular Diplomacy ........................................... 21
Maaike Okano-Heijmans
Chapter Two Risk, Populism, and the Evolution of Consular

Responsibilities ........................................................................................ 43
William Maley
Chapter Three Honorary Consuls in an Era of Globalization,

Trade, and Investment ................................................................. 63
Kevin D. Stringer
Chapter Four Consular Affairs in an Integrated Europe ........ 97

Ana Mar Fernández
Chapter Five New Trends in European Consular Services:

Visa Policy in the EU Neighbourhood ...................................... 115
Mara Wesseling and Jérôme Boniface
PART II
THE CONSULAR SERVICES OF THE GREAT POWERS
Chapter Six The Transformation of Consular Affairs:

The United States Experience ...................................................... 145
Donna Hamilton

vi contents
Chapter Seven The Consular Service in Russia:

Past Problems, New Challenges .................................................. 173
Tatiana Zonova
Chapter Eight China’s Consular Service Reform and

Changes in Diplomacy ................................................................. 199
Xia Liping
PART III
THE HISTORY OF THE CONSULAR INSTITUTION
Chapter Nine The Many Past Lives of the Consul ................... 225
Halvard Leira and Iver B. Neumann
Chapter Ten A History of the Spanish Consular Service:

An Institution in Its Own Right ................................................. 247
Jesús Núñez Hernández
Chapter Eleven The Dutch Consular Service: In the Interests

of a Colonial and Commercial Nation ...................................... 275
Albert E. Kersten and Bert van der Zwan
Chapter Twelve A History of the French Consular Services .... 303

Jörg Ulbert
Index .................................................................................................... 325

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The editors are indebted to all of the contributors to Consular Affairs

and Diplomacy. Preparing a book with contributions from nine coun-
tries requires a certain amount of time and, in the case of some writ-
ers who delivered quickly, considerable patience. We hope that the
papers—from Australia, China, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Rus-
sia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States—contribute to a global
perspective on the consular institution.
We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this book
and the encouragement of Brill Academic Publishers, in particular the
kind support of Marie Sheldon and her predecessor Irene van Rossum.
Rebecca Solheim’s work in preparing the manuscript was invaluable,
as always. Ali Molenaar and Janny Krayema of Clingendael Institute’s
documentation centre have been extremely helpful throughout, and
Ragnhild Drange provided excellent assistance with a variety of events
and publications on the consular dimension of diplomacy, including
the index of this book.
Early drafts of papers were presented at various conferences, and the
first The Hague Diplomacy Conference, which was held at Clingendael
Institute in 2007, provided a particularly good venue for discussion on
consular affairs today. After this conference, the editors decided to pro-
ceed with the project, and this book is the result. In 2008 Clingendael
organized a one-day seminar on Honorary Consuls, in collaboration
with the Netherlands Consular Association. Also in 2008, The Hague
Journal of Diplomacy published research results on consular affairs by
three contributing authors to this volume (Ana Mar Fernández, Hal-
vard Leira and Iver Neumann), as well as two pieces by practitioners
from the Council of the European Union and the Netherlands Minis-
try of Foreign Affairs. These and other initiatives helped to shape our
thinking on an increasingly important field of work for foreign min-
istries, but a field that is often undervalued, juxtaposed to diplomacy
or rather simplistically portrayed as its historical predecessor. Last but
not least, by commissioning a confidential pilot study on the state of
consular affairs from the Clingendael Institute (authored by Maaike
Okano-Heijmans and Jan Melissen in 2006), the Netherlands Ministry

viii acknowledgements
of Foreign Affairs gave an unbeknownst stimulus to this project. It was

during the course of this pilot study, as well as work on the external
relations of the European Union, that the editors became more aware
of an intriguing and important research agenda on the consular insti-
tution, to which this book hopes to make a contribution.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Jan Melissen is Head of the Diplomatic Studies Programme at the

Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, Professor
of Diplomacy at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) and co-editor of
The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. His latest books are (co-ed.) Public
Diplomacy and Soft Power in East Asia (Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2011); and (ed.) The New Public Diplomacy: Soft Power in Inter-
national Relations (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005/2007).
Ana Mar Fernández (Ph.D.) is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the

Autonomous University of Barcelona and Associate Researcher at Sci-
ences Po Paris (Centre d’études européennes). She has been Visiting
Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels),
the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris and Mannheim University
(Germany). She has also been Visiting Professor at the Universities
of Bologna (Italy), Miskolc (Hungary) and ITAM (Mexico). Her pub-
lications include: ‘Consular Affairs in the EU: Visa Policy as a Cata-
lyst for Integration?’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (vol. 3, 2008);
and ‘Local Consular Cooperation: Administering EU Internal Security
Abroad’, European Foreign Affairs Review (vol. 14, no. 4, 2009).
Jérôme Boniface is a Seconded National Expert from the French

Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the European Institute of Public Admin-
istration in Maastricht, the Netherlands. He works in the European
Policies Unit on EU foreign policy-related issues. His research and
training activities focus more particularly on EU relations with its close
neighbourhood. He has published several briefings and reports on the
implications of the common visa policy in the European Neighbour-
hood, including one for the European Parliament (Visa Facilitation
Versus Tightening of Control: Key Aspects of the ENP, 2008).
Donna Hamilton (B.A. in Political Science, Washington State Uni-

versity; M.A. in International Relations, University of Wisconsin) is
a retired member of the Senior Foreign Service of the United States.
She held overseas consular assignments in Colombia, Mexico, Greece,

x list of contributors
Peru and Costa Rica. In the Bureau of Consular Affairs, she held the
positions of Deputy Executive Director, Deputy Assistant Secretary
for Visa Services, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Overseas Consular
Services and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary. She lectured at the
Foreign Service Institute and Consular Conferences on issues involving
automation and consular management. Her main publications include
Public Charge and the 1996 Immigration Act: Family Reunification and
Immigrant Visa Processing (Washington DC: Institute for the Study of
International Migration, Georgetown University, 2001).
Albert E. Kersten studied history at the University of Nijmegen and

received his doctorate for a thesis on the Dutch foreign ministry in
exile in London from 1940–1945. He was Professor of Diplomatic His-
tory at Leiden University from 1982 until 2005, and is the author of
many publications on the history of international diplomacy, Dutch
foreign policy and European integration. He is the honorary Historical
Adviser to the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Halvard Leira is Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of

International Affairs. His academic interests include international
thought, the dissemination of ideas, the historiography of Interna-
tional Relations and diplomacy. In the field of diplomatic studies, he is
particularly interested in diplomatic training, the diplomatic corps and
consular affairs. He has published widely in Norwegian (for example,
he co-wrote the centenary history of the Norwegian Foreign Service
with Iver B. Neumann), as well as in the Leiden Journal of Interna-
tional Law, Review of International Studies, Global Society, Coopera-
tion and Conflict and The Hague Journal of Diplomacy.
Xia Liping (Ph.D., China Foreign Affairs University) is an Associate

Professor in Diplomacy and Vice Chair of the Department of Diplo-
macy at the China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) in Beijing,
China. She is a member of the National Association of International
Relations and the National Association of Contemporary Chinese His-
tory Studies. Her main areas of study are the foreign relations of con-
temporary China and, in particular, the development of consular rules
and practices. Her main publications include ‘An Analysis of the EU’s
Common Consular Protection’, Chinese Journal of European Studies
(no. 2, 2010); ‘The Cause for Institutional Changes in the Protection
of the Security of Overseas Chinese Citizens by the Chinese Govern-

list of contributors xi
ment’, International Forum (no. 1, 2009); ‘Reform of the British Con-

sular Protection Mechanism since 1990: Challenges and Responses’,
Foreign Affairs Review (no. 4, 2009); and ‘A Study of Zhou Enlai’s
Thought on “Single Citizenship”’, Foreign Affairs Review (no. 2, 2008).
She also co-edited China’s Diplomacy since Reform and Opening-Up,
1978–2008 (Beijing: World Affairs Press, 2008).
William Maley is Professor and Director of the Asia-Pacific College

of Diplomacy at the Australian National University, and has served as
Visiting Professor at the Russian Diplomatic Academy and as a Visit-
ing Research Fellow in the Refugee Studies Programme at Oxford Uni-
versity. He is author of Rescuing Afghanistan (London: Hurst, 2006)
and The Afghanistan Wars (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002);
and co-editor (with Andrew F. Cooper and Brian Hocking) of Global
Governance and Diplomacy: Worlds Apart? (Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2008).
Iver B. Neumann (D.Phil., Oxon.; Dr Philos., Oslo) is a Professor

and Director of Research at the Norwegian Institute of International
Affairs. He was the editor of Cooperation and Conflict (the journal
of the Nordic International Studies Association) from 1999–2001.
Among his fourteen books are Uses of the Other: ‘The East’ in Euro-
pean Identity Formation (Minneapolis MN: University of Minnesota
Press, 1999); and (with Ole Jacob Sending) Governing the Global Polity
(Ann Arbor MI: University of Michigan Press, 2010). He is currently
working on a book for Cornell University Press that has the working
title An Ethnography of Diplomacy.
Jesús Núñez Hernández is an Ambassador of Spain. In his career,

he has been, inter alia, Spain’s Deputy Consul in Hamburg (Ger-
many), Consul in Cordoba (Argentina), General Consul in Antwerp
(Brussels), Ambassador in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia), General Director
of Consular Affairs and General Director of the Foreign Affairs Ser-
vice at the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Madrid, and Spain’s
Ambassador to Austria. He has a Master’s in Philosophy and Ph.D.
in Law. He is the author of Rules and Actual Situation of the Spanish
Foreign Service (Madrid: Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Cooperation, 1997); and (co-authored with Xavier Martí) The Con-
sular Function in Spanish Law (Madrid: Spanish Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and Cooperation, 2009, 3rd ed.).

xii list of contributors
Maaike Okano-Heijmans is a Research Fellow in the Clingendael

Institute’s Diplomatic Studies Programme and Clingendael Asia Stud-
ies, and a Visiting Fellow at the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy of
the Australian National University. She is also co-editor of the book
review section of The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. Her main research
interests are the theory and practice of economic diplomacy, and the
political economy of East Asia, with a special focus on Japan. While
undertaking a commissioned research for the Dutch Ministry of For-
eign Affairs in 2006, she developed a special interest in consular affairs
and diplomacy.
Kevin D. Stringer is Visiting Professor of International Studies at

Thunderbird School of Global Management and an adjunct Professor
of Security Studies at the Baltic Defence College in Tartu, Estonia. He
is also a Senior Visiting Fellow of Henley Business School at the Uni-
versity of Reading in the UK. At the East–West Center in Hawaii, he
was a Research Visitor in International Political Economy. He holds
a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich, an M.A. from Boston Univer-
sity, and a B.Sc. from the US Military Academy at West Point. He has
served as a consular officer in the US Foreign Service, and is co-editor
of the book reviews for The Hague Journal of Diplomacy. His research
interests are commercial and consular diplomacy, honorary consuls,
and the economic and diplomatic strategies of small states.
Jörg Ulbert (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor at the University of South

Brittany, France. He is a specialist on the modern history of diplomacy
and, in particular, on the development of the consular institution. He
has published several books and articles on French and German diplo-
macy. Among others, he is the author (with G. Le Bouëdec) of La
fonction consulaire à l’époque modern: L’Affirmation d’une institution
économique et politique, 1500–1800 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de
Rennes, 2006).
Bert van der Zwan studied history at Leiden University in the Neth-
erlands. He has worked for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs since
1984, most recently as Head of the Historical Unit. He has published
on the history of the foreign ministry and Dutch foreign policy, nota-
bly on Dutch information services.

list of contributors xiii
Mara Wesseling (M.Sc., University of Amsterdam; M.A., Sciences-

Po Paris) is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University
of Amsterdam. Her research and teaching cover issues of European
integration and in particular European internal and external secu-
rity policies (inter alia visa policy and counter-terrorism policy). She
previously worked at the European Institute of Public Administra-
tion (EIPA), the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French
Embassy in the Netherlands.
Tatiana Zonova (Ph.D. in Political Sciences) is Professor of the Dip-

lomatic Department at Moscow State International Relations Univer-
sity (MGIMO). She has also been Visiting Professor at Florence, Rome
and Messina Universities (Italy) and Stavanger University (Norway).
Her publications include The Modern Model of Diplomacy (Moscow:
Rosspen, 2003); Vatican Diplomacy in the Context of the European
Political System (Moscow: Rosspen, 2000); and ‘Diplomatic Cultures:
Comparing Russia and the West in Terms of a Modern Model of
Diplomacy’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy (vol. 2, 2007).

INTRODUCTION
THE CONSULAR DIMENSION OF DIPLOMACY
Jan Melissen
Blending Diplomacy and Consular Affairs
This book aims to contribute to a better understanding of key themes

in consular affairs, the consular challenges that are facing three of the
world’s great powers—the United States, Russia and China—as well as
the European origins of the consular institution. It analyses the mul-
tifaceted nature of diplomacy’s consular dimension in contemporary
international relations and also aims at a forward-looking reading of
the history of the consular institution. As the academic literature on
consular affairs is rather thinly scattered, particularly in the field of
diplomatic studies, this book will hopefully break some new ground.
As far as the following essays enhance our knowledge of the consular
institution and contemporary consular challenges for a foreign minis-
try (MFA), this should be seen as the result of a collective effort by its
sixteen contributors, and predominantly from the point of view of the
disciplines of politics and history.
This introductory chapter intends to give a general grasp of what con-
sular affairs are all about and delves into various themes and issues from
the perspective of diplomatic studies. One thread running through this
book is how consular affairs can be understood in the broader context
of diplomatic practice and, vice versa, how the much-neglected study of
the consular institution may improve our understanding of contempo-
rary diplomacy. Four conceptual and empirical observations that help
frame our analysis are suggested at the start of our discussion. First,
the book’s outline at the end of this introductory chapter immediately
shows how the core function of consular affairs has radically been
transformed throughout history, roughly speaking from special judicial
responsibilities and the promotion and facilitation of particular trade
flows to the assistance of individual citizens living or travelling overseas
in any conceivable capacity. With the evolution of international society
and the needs of its citizens, the consular function has thus been shown

2 jan melissen
to possess an almost chameleonic quality, a flexibility that overrides

diplomacy’s proverbial adaptability to change.
Second, one way or another the consular function has always been
enmeshed with diplomacy. One basic finding emerging from this book
is that juxtaposing contemporary diplomacy and consular affairs—as
distinct activities with entirely different functions—does not help us
to comprehend the essence of what are in reality overlapping areas of
work within foreign ministries. One may speculate about how consular
work will look in 2050. There is little doubt, however, that a perma-
nent need will remain for the resolution of practical consular issues,
and that such issues will overlap with diplomatic concerns. Typically
consular tasks are here to stay, including administrative services, prac-
tical duties in the national economic interest, urgent jobs and assign-
ments during emergency operations, as well as humanitarian tasks, but
the distinction between consular and typically diplomatic functions is
only useful up to a point. It will be increasingly hard to identify dip-
lomats who have not been personally involved in consular work. In
the eyes of practitioners, the opposition of ‘consular’ and ‘diplomatic’
may look anything but academic. In the complex MFA environment,
the traditional contradistinction between separate consular and diplo-
matic worlds is in fact well beyond its ‘sell-by’ date.
Third, and put briefly, the ‘consular perspective’ has always been tied
up with unfolding transnational relations instead of mere inter-state
relations. Throughout history, the traditional division between ‘foreign’
and ‘domestic’ was alien to the world in which consular officers oper-
ated, as their daily tasks guaranteed a variety of contacts with citizens
from different strata of society. A perspective on diplomacy infused
by the consular experience contributes, and could have contributed, to
an earlier questioning of traditional modes of thinking about a neatly
organized ‘Westphalian’ diplomatic world. Fundamentally, the con-
sular dimension of diplomacy draws attention to the long-time neglect
of the societal dimension of world politics and diplomacy. That issue is
also being addressed in the recent surge of studies on public diplomacy
and thus reflects the largely hidden reality that, in spite of all their dif-
ferences, consular work and public diplomacy are somehow kindred
activities. To all intents and purposes, both are evidence of new priori-
ties and changing working practices in foreign ministries.
Finally, this study appears to show that in modern times the growth
in the structural demand for different types of consular services
responded to sweeping economic and social change in periods that

the consular dimension of diplomacy 3
were characterized by a thickening of international relations. Both

the rapidly expanding global economy and growing economic rivalry
among states in the nineteenth century, as well as the accelerated trans-
nationalization of world politics in the late twentieth century, led to a
dramatic upswing in consular work, even though the contrast between
the consular priorities in both epochs could hardly be greater.
The Conundrum of Rising Expectations
A great deal more has been written about diplomacy and diplomats
than about consular affairs and consuls. At any point in the history of
diplomacy and consular affairs, however, more people will have been
in touch with either honorary consuls, career consular officers or, after
the amalgamation of the diplomatic and consular services, with regu-
lar diplomats on a consular posting. Most citizens are also likely to
have less lasting memories of bumping into diplomats than their per-
sonal encounters with consular staff whose work, after all, consisted
of acting on their behalf or helping them out. To make the former
type of personal meeting possible, diplomats first have to make a point
of moving out of their own circle; while throughout history ordinary
people have been part and parcel of the consul’s operational sphere.
The early consuls of the seafaring powers in the Mediterranean, who
antedated the resident ambassador but succeeded the first ‘consuls de
la mer’, became responsible for looking after the interests of collec-
tivities of traders in foreign lands. The consul was of course also in
those foreign havens in the interests of his personal business, as it took
various centuries for the non-remunerated consular job to become a
career, but his official consular role was to protect his compatriots. The
four historical contributions to this book, starting with the overview
by Halvard Leira and Iver Neumann, and also the three chapters on
the great powers, give a good impression of the uneven development
of the consular institution, about its deserved place in the history of
diplomacy, and also about the distinctly limited responsibilities of con-
suls. Today, it is hard for countries to get across to their citizens where
the limits of their consular responsibilities lie. Anybody, anywhere in
the world, may ask his own government to come to his rescue, as is
made clear by Maaike Okano-Heijmans in the next chapter. Outside
the European Union, EU citizens may even request assistance from
accredited officials of other EU member states. What all of this boils

4 jan melissen
down to is that governments see professional consular assistance as

the combined result of the responsibilities that come with statehood
and the moral rights that are inferred by their nationals’ citizenship.
Inevitably, however, individuals’ expectations of the kind of help that
their governments can afford are usually higher than what can realis-
tically be done, making consular ‘expectation management’ a priority
issue within many foreign ministries.
In recent years consular work has become increasingly service-
oriented and the citizen calling on the MFA is nothing less than a
‘consumer’ of products and services delivered by the government. In
the words of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s strategy
for the years 2010–2013, consular affairs are about ‘putting citizens
first’. Comparable phrases and approaches have cropped up in the
consular vocabulary of many other countries, from Canada and the
United States in the West to China and Indonesia in the Far East. With
the distinct coalface quality that sets consular work aside from much
of diplomacy, it has invariably involved tête-à-têtes between officials
and their fellow nationals. With the advent of modern communication
technologies in consular practice, however, there are alternatives for
a great deal of the routine contacts, as Donna Hamilton points out in
her chapter on the United States. Electronic means will increasingly
enable governments, at least the wealthier ones, to provide faster and
more extensive internet-based services, and thus to promote efficiency.
This makes consular services potentially more reliable, but can also
backfire. Individuals may be less forgiving and understanding when
confronted with the shortcomings of machines rather than people, and
the theoretical speed with which services can be delivered is more and
more taken as a benchmark.
For foreign ministries, there is no return ticket to a much more
circumscribed practice of consular services, which has forced them
to strengthen their performance by enlisting the help of a variety of
domestic and international actors. The only way of meeting the con-
sular challenge today is for foreign ministries to engage in partnerships
with a variety of official actors and civil society organizations. In doing
so, as various chapters in the first two sections of this book illustrate,
the consular sector is developing skills and practical arrangements with
other parties, not least outside government, that are indicative of the
emergence of new, more collaborative modes of diplomatic practice.

The Inexorable Rise of Consular Affairs
Various factors have confronted foreign ministries with a true explo-

sion in the demand for consular services, and conspicuous consular
crises at the beginning of the twenty-first century provided multi-
media opportunities that added to the pressure on governments. One
cause of the rising demand for consular services since the late 1990s
lies in the surge in foreign travel, increasingly also by groups of the
adventurous young and the more vulnerable elderly. These groups
seem to be increasingly attracted by destinations with a greater degree
of risk, which, as William Maley relates, confront governments with
nasty dilemmas when it comes to providing citizens with generic travel
advice. Mass migration has led to an extra demand for visa and other
documentary services, which involve a lot of routine administrative
work that is fairly straightforward but extremely time-consuming. The
most depressing consular and indeed also diplomatic challenges for
foreign ministries are produced by intractable cross-border problems
such as child abduction and forced marriages. The low success rate of
such issues has generated considerable diplomatic effort in the inter-
ests of strengthening consular services, including negotiations aimed
at international legal regulation, while high-profile cases attracting
attention from the media and parliaments are as a rule lifted to the
diplomatic level. These and other developments and practices may
perhaps warrant speaking of ‘consular diplomacy’, a term that is some-
times also used rather loosely in this book, or merely understood as a
diplomatic effort in support of discharging consular functions.
Cross-border crime has also put considerable pressure on the con-
sular resources of a number of countries. Kidnappings by insurgent
groups affecting the citizens of third countries led to quiet diplomacy
involving mandarins and cabinet ministers. Major disasters brought
about by the forces of nature attracted the sort of attention that made
it politically impossible for the highest ranking diplomats and even
heads of government to stay aloof. The September 2001 terrorist attack
on the Twin Towers in New York and the Asian tsunami of 2004 were
true moments of ‘maximum consular communication’. These two
tragic events not only encouraged various countries to introduce 24/7
high-alert consular services; they also gave more urgency to the politi-
cally sensitive issue of intergovernmental consular collaboration. What
these and other factors contributing to the rise of consular affairs add

6 jan melissen
up to is that consular affairs are now widely recognized as requiring

a considerable investment in human resources. In terms of numbers
of staff, the consular sector has become the largest part of the MFA in
countries as different as the Netherlands, Mexico, Russia and China, as
Tatiana Zonova and Xia Liping specify in their chapters on the latter
two countries. That this mushrooming of consular affairs coincided
with society’s more critical look at government, as many diplomats
recognize, has not made things easier.1
Consular Business and the Changing Foreign Ministry
The role of foreign ministries as coordinators of their country’s exter-

nal relations has become somewhat problematic in a diplomatic realm
in which the distinction between international and domestic affairs
is blurred, and where different actors inside and outside government
claim a share of what was once a largely privileged diplomatic space
for the MFA. In this hybrid environment, traditional diplomats may
sometimes feel like fish out of water, but this ‘intermestic’ habitat
is actually one in which practitioners of consular affairs should feel
perfectly at home. Consular business has always been more deeply
entrenched in domestic affairs than any other aspect of MFA work,
and in recent years this development has been reinforced by the vari-
ous side-effects of globalization.2 In terms of its relationship with the
domestic public, a major opportunity as well as a considerable threat is
associated with this development. On the plus side, as has already been
mentioned, the growing volume of consular work has brought foreign
ministries markedly closer to their domestic constituency. More than
in any other field of MFA activity, the whole array of consular ser-
vices offers a chance for diplomats to demonstrate that they are not an
alienated elite. While this is hard to show for a great deal of diplomatic
work, it is self-evident in the consular line of duty.
1
Renée Jones-Bos and Monique van Daalen, ‘Trends and Developments in Con-
sular Services: The Dutch Experience’, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, vol. 3, 2008,
p. 89.
2
For an earlier discussion of consular affairs, see Maaike Heijmans and Jan Melis-
sen, ‘MFAs and the Rising Challenge of Consular Affairs’, in Kishan S. Rana and Jovan
Kurbalija (eds), Foreign Ministries: Managing Diplomatic Networks and Optimizing
Value (Malta and Geneva: DiploFoundation, 2007), pp. 192–206.

In an increasingly transparent world, however, where people are

getting used to being in touch all of the time, no matter the physical
distance, there is also a downside. The effect of the growing amount of
assistance to citizens in need, as well as the rising number of visa issues,
makes consular work more of a public matter and also increasingly
political. Journalists and parliamentarians tend to spot the govern-
ment’s consular failures rather than quiet behind-the-scenes victories,
and between them the press and the legislative branch of government
have the power to turn consular cases into damaging media events.
With the rise of consular affairs, it then appears that the foreign min-
istry’s own reputation is more at risk. The real threat for MFAs is
that while citizens abroad expect assistance in the most extraordinary
circumstances, those who stay at home wonder why their government
fails. Finally, as various authors in this book illustrate, consular crises
across the world have the potential to undermine seriously and unex-
pectedly otherwise smooth bilateral relationships.
Increased attention for the consular dimension of diplomacy can
help students of diplomacy to understand change in contemporary
diplomatic practice. The rise of the consular dimension is an indicator
of the changing balance between the age-old functions of diplomacy
and core tasks that have more recently gained in prominence. The
significance of this change may escape those who are preoccupied with
high-politics issues and are hence mainly or exclusively focused on
diplomacy’s classical functions. Three interrelated developments cast
light on this development. First, the more domestically orientated for-
eign ministry turns diplomats into service-oriented professionals, who
can no longer be merely described as managers of change or mediators
of estrangement. As one study put it:
The classic distinction between high-priority sovereign representation
and the relatively low-priority service tasks of MFAs and their represen-
tations is no longer accepted, as MFAs are turning into public service
organizations responsible for handling a mixture of tasks, whose relative
priority is not given in advance.3
Second, the fact that the consular dimension of diplomacy is in some
ways moving centre-stage helps us to see that the really testing theme
3
Jorgen Gronnegaard Christensen and Nikolaj Petersen, Managing Foreign Affairs:
A Comparative Perspective (Copenhagen: Danish Institute of International Studies,
2005), p. 41.

8 jan melissen
for foreign policy bureaucrats is how they can strengthen networks

outside their own sphere and collaborate successfully with a variety
of actors. Consular services have become highly dependent on a good
working relationship with a number of domestic non-governmental
actors, to the extent that the quality of such collaborative partner-
ships has become a necessary condition for success in consular assis-
tance. Contrarily, however, as the chapters by Ana Mar Fernández,
Mara Wesseling and Jérôme Boniface demonstrate, on the issue of
EU collaboration completely different governmental reflexes and
trade-offs are at work. It is above all the domestic entrenchment of
the consular dimension of diplomacy that turns international coop-
eration beyond the basic sharing of facilities and information into a
complicated venture.
Last but not least, consular work points to the growing embedded-
ness of diplomatic practice in society, the link between diplomats and
the public at home and abroad, and the importance of diplomats pay-
ing attention to public opinion and public expectations. Beyond assist-
ing the execution of typical consular functions, the diplomatic efforts
underpinning consular work stand in the wider context of diplomacy’s
societization. In all sorts of ways, tomorrow’s diplomats will become
more tied up with the societies that they represent and the societies
where they are represented. In a macro-historical perspective and
against the historical backdrop of diplomatic aloofness from main-
stream society, this may constitute a sea change for diplomacy. From
the vantage point of consular officers, this development is common-
place, however, as consular work is, and has always been, about the
needs of individuals, their protection, and the promotion of practical
cooperation between corporate bodies.
What to Do with Consuls?
The radical transformation of consular functions across time is a trib-

ute to the flexibility of this institution, which reached its apogee in the
long nineteenth century from 1800–1914. As a result of the imme-
diate impact of the Industrial Revolution, Western European powers
substantially increased the number of their consuls. Some of them
gained the prestige of ambassadors in dependent territories outside the
European world, particularly in the Levant, Asia and Latin America.
In their incarnation as guardians of international trade, nineteenth-

century consuls became, as Jörg Ulbert puts it, ‘acteurs de l’expansion

occidentale dans le monde’.4 In the tense climate of growing economic
rivalry that characterized the nineteenth century, European consuls
were enjoying their finest hour. Other emerging powers followed the
European example and started appointing their own consuls. Tsar
Peter the Great, as a fervent promoter of occidental progress, had
already accredited Russia’s first consuls at the beginning of the eigh-
teenth century. Interestingly, the United States developed a sizable
consular network, while its diplomacy reflected its fundamentally iso-
lationist stance throughout the nineteenth century. China only joined
Russia, the United States and the European world with the creation of
a consular network in the final quarter of the nineteenth century.
Economic expansion led to the consular institution’s heyday in
modern history but, ironically, the long-term effects of industrializa-
tion and growing international trade were less benign for consuls. In
the eyes of governing elites and the international business commu-
nity, trade promotion became too important to be left to the consuls,
and the image of the consular service as second class—as a ‘Cinderella
Service’—gradually became more familiar.5 Economic factors contrib-
uted to consuls’ further marginalization as actors of Western global
expansion or, as Jesús Núñez Hernández writes about Spain, their
gradual ‘diplomatization’. When the need for economic intelligence
became greater and the commercial attaché entered the diplomatic
scene in the first part of the twentieth century, the days of consuls
seemed to be numbered in the field of economic assistance. With the
convergence of political, economic and consular work and the inte-
gration of tasks, the amalgamation of separate diplomatic and con-
sular services was only a matter of time. Few countries postponed this
merger until after the Second World War, like the Netherlands, as
Kersten and Van der Zwan write in their short history of the Dutch
consular service.
With decreasing economic work and the acceleration of other con-
sular tasks, as a result of the combined effects of migration, interna-
tional travel and the consular fall-out of major wars and international
4
Jörg Ulbert, ‘La Fonction Consulaire au XIXe siècle’, in Jörg Ulbert and Lukian
Prijac, Consuls et services consulaire au XIXe siècle (Hamburg: DOBU, 2010), p. 18.
5
D.C.M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825 (Edinburgh: Long-
man, 1971).

10 jan melissen
crises, the first half of the twentieth century definitely turned the page
for consular affairs. Perceptions of what constitutes the essence of
consular work started to shift, and trade promotion was increasingly
seen to be a secondary duty. Many foreign ministries are today much
more preoccupied with dimensions of consular work such as consular
assistance, visa policy and the prospects for international consular
cooperation—issues that keep them busy for very good reasons and
that have made consular affairs much more visible for all diplomats.
In spite of their importance, the principal consular-policy concerns
inside foreign ministries are, however, only a partial reflection of the
practical tasks that are executed by those in the periphery.
Broadly speaking, it is not difficult to distinguish between diplomatic
and consular work. Consular work is of a more practical nature and
has a strong emphasis on cooperation between countries, and consul-
ates do of course also operate in a more restricted area—the consular
district—than the embassy, which is covering a country as a whole.6
Going too far in portraying consular work and its typical functions
as entirely different from diplomacy proper does, however, not serve
analytical purposes, neither at the more general level discussed at the
beginning of this chapter, nor in a more practical sense.7 Consulates
strengthen a foreign ministry’s overall representational capacity; it is
increasingly realized how they can make an effective contribution to
the MFA’s public diplomacy; and, above all, their added value seems
evident in big countries of economic significance. As Smith Simpson
wrote almost 30 years ago:
Consular posts are in reality political, economic and cultural outposts,
adding to a government’s observation, listening, intelligence-gathering,
crisis-alerting, trade promotion, cultural and public relations opportuni-
ties. They are often in touch with whole regions of a country with which
embassies in capitals are not.8
6
For a concise and level-headed overview, see Sir Ivor Roberts (ed.), Satow’s Dip-
lomatic Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), in particular chapter 19.
An indispensible legal analysis is the handbook by Luke T. Lee and John Quigley,
Consular Law and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).
7
For an opposite view, see G.R. Berridge, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (Basing-
stoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, 4th ed.), pp. 128–129.
8
Smith Simpson, ‘Political Functions of Consuls and Consulates: The Consular
Contribution to Diplomacy’, in Martin F. Herz, The Consular Dimension of Diplomacy
(Washington DC: University Press of America, 1983), p. 14.

It is above all their regional presence that supports the case for con-
sulates, career consuls and honorary consuls—as agents that can con-
tribute to the national economic interest. The economic importance
and greater ‘actorness’ of regions, quite a few of them with the muscle
of small states or even sizable ‘middle powers’, is one of the striking
features of the current global economy. MFAs that are considering
the closure of consulates as a relatively easy target in their drive to cut
costs had therefore better establish whether they contribute to bilateral
trade flows. In his chapter in this book, Kevin Stringer suggests that
may well be the case.
What to do with consuls? Calls for overseas regional representation
beyond other nations’ capitals have been a key element of government
policies, most famously in the United States’ second Bush administra-
tion’s ‘transformational diplomacy’, which was pronounced by US Sec-
retary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2006. An increasingly local posture
does not automatically rule in favour of consulates, but tends to draw
on functions in the field of export promotion and inward investment
that were traditionally performed by consuls. Many governments in
the Western world have recently created specialized agencies—such
as the Netherlands Business Support Offices, UBIFRANCE, the Cana-
dian Trade Commission, the Finpro Trade Centres, or Spain’s ICEX
office—that are in effect taking over and professionalizing such tasks.
Their activity is particularly visible in emerging economies such as
the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Other types of
informal missions, including specialist knowledge outposts like Swit-
zerland’s Swissnex and industrial intelligence offices such as Innova-
tion Norway, also make clear that the age-old consular functions are
of course by no means extinct. They may, however, be performed by
people other than consular officers or diplomats, in different types
of informal missions, and actually be less recognizable as ‘consular’,
because they go under another name.9 This is entirely consistent with
the early history of the consular institution, when people doing con-
sular work were in fact known by a variety of titles.
It is hard to predict what the long-term consular response of coun-
tries will be to major geopolitical shifts and intensified competition
in the global economy. Foreign ministries will certainly keep asking
9
I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of this book for drawing my attention
to this point.

12 jan melissen
themselves what sort of consular tasks still need to be undertaken or

will continue to be performed by diplomats, and how future career
consuls and honorary consuls should fit in. The first of these questions
is, of course, the easier. As to the second, the mere fact that the con-
sular institution has proven to be necessary for so many centuries and
that it has been typified by an amazing flexibility should, at least from
an academic point of view, bring a bit of relief to foreign ministries’
apprehension.
Chapter Outline
Contemporary Consular Affairs

This book consists of three separate sections on themes in contempo-
rary consular affairs, the consular services of three great powers (the
United States, China and Russia), and the evolution of the consular
institution.
The first part deals with different themes in contemporary consular
affairs. Inevitably, the topics and perspectives in this book do not cover
all of today’s consular challenges, but they aim to give an adequate
impression of the fast-growing importance and multifaceted nature
of consular tasks in the work of foreign ministries. Maaike Okano-
Heijmans observes that ministries of foreign affairs’ renewed interest
in consular affairs mainly stems from the need to meet the growing
demands of citizens. MFAs’ primary motivation to improve their ser-
vices is to guard governments against criticism from nationals, but
they also recognize the potential marketing value of consular affairs.
Regular consular affairs are dealt with through standard administra-
tive procedures, and in cooperation with external partners. Ministries
of foreign affairs do, however, also engage in what can be called ‘con-
sular diplomacy’, which either involves the diplomatic negotiation of
a (legal) framework or the solution through diplomacy of intractable
high-profile cases. In this section’s second chapter, William Maley
writes that foreign ministries are increasingly under pressure to antici-
pate risks that their nationals might face abroad, and to provide real-
time warnings as threats materialize. This has created new challenges:
a strong warning from the ministry of foreign affairs may offend a
friendly government; while a warning that is insufficiently robust may
expose the MFA to political attack. Maley argues that the weight of

domestic considerations is likely to carry the day, and that this has the
potential to lead to routine exaggeration of threats, with a number of
significant consequences. Maley suggests, inter alia, that consideration
might be given to outsourcing such activities. Kevin Stringer looks at
a dimension that most observers associate with the history of consular
work or even consular decline, but that should not be overlooked in an
era of enhanced global economic competition, with growing presence
by regions and cities on the international stage, and augmenting pres-
sure on the cost of overseas representation. Stringer contends that, in
spite of its history, the commercial dimension of consular work is once
again becoming a significant component of diplomatic power, when
compared to the work of embassies. He argues in particular that shifts
brought on by globalization make the institution of honorary consul
relevant for this new era of diplomacy. Stringer’s chapter discusses
why regions and municipal hubs are increasingly more important than
national capitals in terms of business and commerce, and it highlights
how states are using honorary consuls to extend their representational
network. He demonstrates in particular how selected countries are
using honorary consuls to develop their export and trade relations.
The first part of the book concludes with two chapters on the Euro-
pean Union. As a political order, the EU is not eliminating the classi-
cal Westphalian model, but it has transformed diplomatic practice in
a profound sense. Arguably, Europe is once again one of the world’s
most fascinating diplomatic laboratories, and indeed also a testing
ground that shows the potential as well as the limitations of interna-
tional consular cooperation. Discussions on contemporary European
diplomacy tend to focus on the nascent External Action Service. It is,
however, very likely that pressure to demonstrate the viability and ben-
efits of efficiency will focus on harmonizing the consular activities of
member states, particularly in the field of visa policy. Ana Mar Fernán-
dez’s chapter sets the scene by exploring the institutional development
of the external side of EU internal security. In particular, her chapter
addresses the question of its administrative settings. It examines the
patterns of administrative cooperation resulting from both the gradual
institutionalization of channels of trans-governmental consular coop-
eration and the growing deployment of the EU’s harmonized rules and
practices. The chapter ends with some concluding remarks concern-
ing the implications of this process for the consular administrations
of EU member states in third countries and, more generally, for the

14 jan melissen
exercise of the consular function in the framework of an integrated

Europe. Mara Wesseling and Jérôme Boniface, meanwhile, evaluate
the fast-growing demand for EU consular services as a result of the
growing contacts with European Neighbourhood countries. Their
chapter deals with three trends: first, the growing importance of pro-
viding high-quality services, since consulates are often a first point of
contact with the EU member state; second, increased cooperation with
private actors, in particular the practice of outsourcing consular work,
is believed to help in solving problems and cutting costs, although
this practice does raise a variety of questions that are discussed by the
authors; and third, the authors analyse the EU’s pooling of efforts by
initiatives such as Common Application Centres, and the reasoning
behind this development.
The Great Powers

The second part of this book looks at the experience of three of today’s
Great Powers: the United States; and two of the so-called BRICs, China
and Russia. Analysis of these three countries demonstrates how consu-
lar affairs have turned into a core activity that is consuming consider-
able energy and that, in terms of personnel, is turning the consular
sector into foreign ministries’ largest sector. The case studies also show
how citizens’ services in today’s world have become a major focus for
foreign ministries across political systems and that the management
and technological challenge is particularly formidable for countries
dealing with large numbers of people overseas. All three cases make
clear that the transformation of consular affairs cannot be separated
from change in diplomacy, just as the two institutions have been tied
up in one way or another throughout their history. In her chapter on
the United States, Donna Hamilton observes that information technol-
ogy and security issues are transforming consular affairs’ broad-based
diplomacy. Visa procedures, passport and visa formats, and handling
of crisis situations have all changed dramatically. Advanced technol-
ogy in the performance of consular functions is the key to improved
processes and more secure documents. Hamilton discusses how the
US Bureau of Consular Affairs is meeting the challenge. Her chapter
begins with a brief review of the history and organization of consular
affairs within the US Department of State and goes on to discuss the
application of advanced technology to consular services and resulting
changes to the consular function.

Tatiana Zonova discusses the rise of consular affairs in Russian for-

eign policy. Her narrative on the consular institution starts with the
evolution and a discussion of consular reform in the Russian Empire,
from Tsar Peter I to the 1917 October Revolution. Zonova then eval-
uates the Soviet approach to the existing consular network, includ-
ing the controversial history of the USSR’s accession to the Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations. Third, the upgrading of consular
affairs in today’s diplomatic activities is discussed, with attention for a
variety of challenges, including the economic dimension, legal innova-
tions, the acceptance of honorary consuls and consular relations with
the former Soviet republics.
In the broader perspective of China’s diplomatic practice, the con-
cept of ‘diplomacy for the people’ has become a guiding principle for
the Chinese government, as Xia Liping argues in her chapter. In recent
years, consular cases have drawn the attention of all circles of Chinese
society, and China has responded with a drastic reform of its consular
protection mechanism. The consular section of the Chinese foreign
ministry has become its largest division, more external actors have
participated in consular protection and a coordinating mechanism
was established. China’s approach changed from a passive model to a
proactive one, with crisis prevention as its core. This process is also a
matter of learning and there are distinct successes, but problems can-
not be resolved quickly during China’s integration into the world.
Reading the History of Consular Affairs

The third and final part of this collection of essays looks at the his-
torical evolution of consular affairs. This section hopes to fill in some
disturbing blanks in the history of diplomacy and it starts with a broad
analysis by Halvard Leira and Iver Neumann, who argue in favour of a
rereading of the consular institution in its own right. They discuss the
emergence of the consular institution in the Mediterranean during the
years after the crusades, its development into a more modern recog-
nizable form around the North Sea in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries and its application in overseas areas in the succeeding cen-
turies. Leira and Neumann highlight the political functions of consuls
who have been sent to areas that lack external sovereignty, as well as
the shift in the consular institution from being a means of creating
and maintaining order in a foreign merchants’ community to being a
practice that is constitutive of state sovereignty.

16 jan melissen
The final section then continues with three case studies of seafaring,
colonial nations. As Great Powers on the European continent, Spain,
France and the Netherlands have each in their own right contributed
to the evolution of the consular institution in Europe, particularly
from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Strenuous efforts by
the editors to include Great Britain in this book’s case studies were
unsuccessful, but in any case Britain was not a pioneering nation in
the consular field, and fortunately there is some literature covering
the evolution of British consular practice.10 Jesús Núñez Hernández
writes that from the Middle Ages the history of the consular function
is closely related to the development of the Spanish consular institu-
tion, and that Spain has played a significant role in the codification of
consular law. Núñez analyses the development and influence of the
Spanish Consular Service since the Visigothic period. He examines the
origins and development of the consular function and addresses its
contemporary transformation in the face of developments such as the
‘diplomatization’ of the consular institution during the twentieth cen-
tury, Spain’s transition to democracy and its accession to the European
Communities.
The chapter by Albert Kersten and Bert Van der Zwan discusses
the evolution of the Dutch consular service. In the mid-seventeenth
century, the Republic of the United Provinces had grown into a Great
Power with a vast diplomatic and consular network across Europe, the
Ottoman Empire and North Africa. Its main task was fostering com-
mercial interests. Kersten and van der Zwan write that by the second
half of the nineteenth century a professional service had come into
being, which also executed diplomatic functions in colonial and semi-
dependent areas. The Industrial Revolution was the main push-factor
that eventually led to this professionalization. By 1945, much later
than in France or Germany, the convergence of commercial, politi-
cal and security interests resulted in the merging of the consular and
diplomatic services.
Finally, in the chapter on France, Jörg Ulbert argues that despite
being created in the Middle Ages, the French consular network only
started to grow at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Dur-
ing the next two centuries, the number of positions was constantly
10
Platt, The Cinderella Service; and John Dickie, The British Consul (London: Hurst
& Company, 2007).

increasing until it reached its apex in the mid-nineteenth century. The

tasks and prerogatives of French consuls also changed. First, consuls
concentrated on legal supervision of a community of compatriots in
a foreign haven. Later, they became commercial agents with real dip-
lomatic competencies. After the First World War they were finally
stripped of their political functions, to be reduced to a commercial
and largely administrative role. Ulbert traces the changes of duties and
responsibilities, and explains the main challenges for the French gov-
ernment in this evolution.

PART I
THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY CONSULAR AFFAIRS

CHAPTER ONE
CHANGES IN CONSULAR ASSISTANCE AND THE

EMERGENCE OF CONSULAR DIPLOMACY
Maaike Okano-Heijmans*
Introduction
This chapter analyses the consequences of change in individual and

collective (crisis) assistance by foreign ministries to diplomacy at large.
There can be little doubt that consular assistance poses a growing chal-
lenge to government officials. Globalization encourages people to travel
overseas in increasingly large numbers and instability may cause them
to get into trouble and call more often upon consular officers for assis-
tance. Citizens are becoming increasingly assertive, the media more
engaged and news reporting more international. As a consequence of
these developments, points of contact as well as links between diplo-
mats and the public increase. The number of highly mediatized cases
grows and internationally coordinated attempts to bring consular
assistance to a higher level are on the rise.
Consular affairs increasingly involve what I will posit here as ‘consu-
lar diplomacy’: international negotiations on a consular (legal) frame-
work and individual consular cases that attract substantial attention
from the media, public and politicians. Relatively low-priority service
tasks of the foreign ministry move up the agenda and gain a distinctly
diplomatic character. This is not to argue that consular affairs always
involve a degree of diplomacy or international, high politics. Rather,
this chapter draws attention to substantial developments in consular
affairs since the late 1990s that necessitate a qualification of assump-
tions about the relationship between consular affairs and diplomacy.
The media’s growing power and citizens’ rising expectations play a central
role in this process. As will be shown, consular affairs become a window
for the general public into diplomatic dealings and an incentive, as well
* I would like to thank the editors of this book and several practitioners in the
consular field for review of earlier drafts of this chapter, and the Dutch Ministry of
Foreign Affairs for their professional and financial encouragement in starting research
on this subject in 2006. I am also grateful to the many consular officials and other
experts who shared their insights in interviews and discussions over the past years.

22 maaike okano-heijmans
as tool, for foreign ministries to communicate with the public. Con-

sular affairs change diplomacy by making it more visible to domestic
and foreign publics and, in certain countries, more open to potential
partners in service delivery. These trends will only strengthen in the
future. The emerging consular diplomacy is thus unlikely to be a tem-
porary phenomenon and is therefore worthy of attention.
Throughout this chapter, the term ‘consular affairs’ generally refers
to assistance to a state’s own citizens in distress abroad and, when
necessary, their family or other designated contacts at home. The con-
cepts of ‘assistance’, ‘citizen’ and ‘distress’ are deliberately left open to
interpretation, in line with foreign ministry practice. In most coun-
tries, consular assistance includes documentary services, individual
assistance to citizens in distress and assistance at times of crisis. Since
documentary services are relatively straightforward and at a fairly
equal level in all countries,1 they are not included in the discussion
here. Visa services and other assistance to foreign rather than to own
nationals are also excluded from the analysis. The most pressing chal-
lenges to the foreign ministry in terms of communication with the
domestic public and protecting national interests are in the field of
individual and collective (crisis) assistance. Developments in these
areas illustrate how changes in society, diplomacy and consular affairs
relate and have contributed to the emergence of consular diplomacy.
Diplomacy and Consular Assistance
Developments in contemporary consular affairs need to be under-

stood in the framework of discussion about the evolving relationship
between the state and its citizens, and of changes in the foreign min-
istry and in diplomacy. Consular affairs, as such, are nothing new and
the motivation of the consul to help nationals has remained funda-
mentally unaltered throughout the centuries.2 What has changed is
the character of ‘the citizen in distress’ and the environment in which
consular services are delivered. The focus of assistance has shifted
1
This is not to say that documentary services are in all ways clear-cut or routine
work. For example, travel document and identity fraud, as well as the introduction of
biometric data into travel documents, are growing challenges that require substantial
attention from consular departments.
2
See the historical chapters in this book, and Maaike Heijmans and Jan Melis-
sen, ‘Foreign Ministries and the Rising Challenge of Consular Affairs: Cinderella in
the Limelight’, in Foreign Ministries: Managing Diplomatic Networks and Optimizing
Value (Geneva: DiploFoundation, 2007), p. 195.

consular assistance and consular diplomacy 23
from representing traders’ interests to responding to the interests of

the general public. Consular activity of old was by and large provided
to businessmen who themselves also had a strong interest in maintain-
ing friendly relations with the countries they visited or in which they
resided. This is hardly the case for the herds of tourists who travel the
world nowadays on short visits, often not returning to the same place
twice. While consular protection used to be required in only a limited
number of countries with which a government held strong trade links,
ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) these days need to be prepared to
assist citizens anywhere in the world. The surge in consular activity
that has accompanied these changes triggered many governments to
‘professionalize’ service. Reviews of consular practice in recent years
have sought to outline the changed environment and new challenges.
Ultimately, these reports were to provide clues to foreign ministries on
how to improve their performance.3
The upgrading of consular services that began in the 1990s involved
defensive as well as offensive reasons. Primarily, on the defensive side,
foreign ministries aim to meet the growing demands of citizens and—as
a consequence and extension of this—of politicians and high-ranking
government officials. Managing practical as well as accountability
expectations, foreign ministries guard themselves against criticism
from citizens. At the same time they recognize the potential marketing
value of consular affairs, which makes for offensive reasons to upgrade
consular assistance. If properly dealt with, the foreign ministry can
boost its image among the public through communication with citi-
zens about consular protection in general and individual consular
assistance in particular. Clearly, developments in consular affairs are
part of a trend towards diplomacy’s increased dealings with the general
public. Conscious efforts by foreign ministries and the European Com-
mission to engage the public are one aspect of this. Overall, however,
foreign ministries are on the defensive side, with their media exposure
3
An internal review by the Canadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International
Trade was published in November 2004: Review of Consular Affairs—Final Report.
The National Audit Office in November 2005 published the report The Foreign and
Commonwealth Office: Consular Services to British Nationals. The Dutch government
commissioned a confidential review; see Maaike Heijmans and Jan Melissen, Con-
sulaire Zaken en Diplomatie: Buitenlandse Zaken met Binnenlandse Prioriteiten (The
Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations ‘Clingendael’, 2006, unpub-
lished). The European Commission launched a public debate on diplomatic and
consular protection; see Green Paper: Diplomatic and Consular Protection of Union
Citizens in Third Countries, COM(2006)712 final (Brussels: European Commission,
28 November 2006).

growing as consular issues take the limelight in daily papers, television

and on the internet. Publicity facilitates individual citizens’ ability to
pressure the foreign ministry to improve the quality and intensity of
consular service.
As the challenges facing consular departments grow at a faster
pace than the (financial) resources to address citizens’ demands, an
increasingly diverse group of actors becomes involved in service deliv-
ery. Increased dealings with the public are thus not only with citizens
as customers, but also in the upgrading of assistance. As mentioned
earlier, countries with extensive diplomatic networks that are con-
fronted with large numbers of consular cases tend to seek help from
other ministries, the police, private companies and non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) to deal with the increased workload. Consular
challenges that foreign ministries cannot address through this ‘privati-
zation’ of diplomacy are those that require communication with other
governments. Because of their high profile and, accordingly, extensive
media coverage, these events bring the ministry closer to the public and
vice versa. This results in a growing divergence between what might
be labelled common consular affairs—constituting the large majority
of issues, dealt with in cooperation with partners through standard
procedures—and ad hoc consular diplomacy.
Responding to Rising Public Expectations

While the growing consular activity creates substantial difficulties for
officials, this is not the primary challenge of foreign ministries. The
main challenge that consular affairs pose to foreign ministries today
concerns the expanding role of the media and of politicians in con-
sular affairs. In other words, what is really new and constitutes the
largest test to foreign ministries around the world is the increase in
expectations. Assertive citizens nowadays demand high quality and
quantity of services and—when necessary—find their way to the media
or parliamentarians to make their voices heard by government. This in
turn begs the question of whether, at times, certain governments are
pushing assistance too far. One may question, for example, whether
former French President Jacques Chirac spent his limited time and
(financial) resources correctly when he spared no effort to arrange and
personally attend the commemoration of a plane crash in Venezuela
that had killed 154 French citizens in 2004.
High-profile consular assistance poses a new, growing challenge to
foreign ministries. The death sentence of a citizen detained abroad, a

case of international child abduction, a large-scale natural disaster or

terrorist attack in a tourist area can dominate the news for weeks or
even months. In those cases, consular affairs become directly related
to the image and prestige of individual politicians, the foreign ministry
and even the government at large. One could even say that the concept
of a diplomatic crisis is changing from ‘opportunities lost’—such as
in the failure of major economic or political negotiations—to a sud-
den, instant and/or life-threatening interruption of a diplomat’s daily
work. When a consular issue receives widespread attention from the
press and politicians, senior diplomats spare little effort in negotiating
a satisfactory agreement. High-profile consular events thereby offer
unexpected opportunities for diplomatic contact at the highest level.
Generally, however, consular issues tend to gobble up precious time at
high-level meetings dealing with a range of issues. Highly mediatized
consular assistance thereby risks rendering diplomacy overly emotive
and sometimes in conflict with broader national interests.
Examples of highly publicized consular cases where high-ranking
officials spared little effort to show their human face to the public
include the case of Machiel Kuijt—a Dutchman convicted in Thailand
of smuggling drugs. Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and (then) For-
eign Minister Ben Bot took up the issue during a state visit to Thai-
land in 2004, calling for the signing of a prisoner transfer agreement
and the effective transfer of Kuijt. In 2007 French President Nicolas
Sarkozy mounted a diplomatic offensive to free five Bulgarian nurses
and a Palestinian doctor who had been sentenced to death in Libya.
The prisoners eventually left Libya on a French government plane,
together with EU Commissioner for External Affairs Benita Ferrero-
Waldner and the (then) wife of the French President. Both the Euro-
pean Union and France, which held the rotating EU presidency at
the time, gained high and generally positive media exposure. At the
same time, however, Sarkozy was criticized by opposition socialists for
secretive diplomacy and personal practice of power. In a similar vein,
the EU commissioner pointed to the pitfalls of ‘freelance diplomacy’
and dealing with the Libyan leader.4
While public initiatives by upper-ranking officials are laudable in
terms of what they try to achieve for the victims, there are clear draw-
backs when considering a country’s goals and ambitions in international
4
‘Libya Frees Bulgarian Nurses in AIDS Case’, New York Times (online), 24 July
2007.

affairs in the long term. What is particularly problematic is that such

occasions raise public expectations to a level that may be difficult to
sustain generally. Consular officials who deal with similar but less pub-
licized or smaller-scale issues are thereby put in a difficult position.
In this perspective, much is to be said for the decision by Australian
Prime Minister John Howard to remain largely (publicly) uninvolved
in Schapelle Corby’s case of 2004–2005, wherein an Australian citi-
zen was convicted in Indonesia for smuggling drugs. This example
is, however, the exception that proves the rule that there is a growing
trend towards consular diplomacy, where modern consular services—
under close scrutiny from the media—go hand in hand with (quiet)
diplomacy and international negotiation. The media closely follow
individual cases, which set precedents and raise public expectations
further. Consular departments have difficulty meeting these standards
on other, less mediatized occasions.
What adds to the matter’s difficulty is that the definition of consu-
lar affairs as ‘assistance to citizens in distress abroad’ remains rather
vague. In fact, although governments have the responsibility to protect
citizens in distress abroad, most countries do not grant citizens the
legal right to consular assistance. Germany is exceptional in having
a Consular Law that stipulates the right to consular assistance.5 The
law nevertheless does not specify what consular help should consist
of—partly because this is dependent on the laws of the host country.
Indeed, the interpretation of what constitutes ‘assistance’, a ‘citizen’
and ‘distress’ varies according to culture and national norms, values
and time. Canadian consular officials, for example, deliver consular
assistance from a ‘Royal Prerogative’. This has made the consular
bureau relatively susceptible to political pressure, resulting in a con-
tinuous demand for higher and better consular services. Consular offi-
cials of the French foreign ministry, on the other hand, have a tool to
limit (financial) consular assistance. They refer to Articles 205 and 206
of the Code Civil, which places financial responsibility for children and
parents with one another. For better or for worse, consular assistance
remains thereby, in the words of a consular official, largely a matter of
‘push and pull’ and ‘trial and error’.
5
Law on consular officers, their functions and powers (Consular Law, 1974), arti-
cles 1 and 5 (1).

It should be emphasized that the trend of governments respond-

ing to rising public expectations is by no means limited to consular
affairs. Such developments need to be considered within the broader
development of changing relations between the state and citizens of
the last decade, whereby the state takes up corporate standards and
the citizen increasingly comes to be seen as a consumer who wants
‘value for money’.6
Towards Greater Maturity?

Responding to the growing challenges on the consular front, an
increasing number of foreign ministries pay attention to assistance
to citizens abroad at the highest level. As one diplomat described his
superiors’ attitudes towards consular affairs, ‘the people at the top are
like reborn Christians’.7 New positions and public centres are created
to give consular affairs a face and a voice. The Canadian foreign min-
istry, for example, now has an assistant deputy minister for consular
services and emergency management, and in 2009 the Japanese for-
eign ministry established a Centre for Consular Services. The Swed-
ish case, however, shows that the pendulum may swing back when
the sense of (political) urgency is lost. The disastrous experience of
the Asian tsunami in 2004–2005 led to the creation of the position of
director-general for consular affairs in the Swedish foreign minister’s
office in late 2005. With the momentum and immediate political and
media pressure gone, however, the post was abolished when the per-
son holding it retired two years later.8
6
See, for example, the ongoing debates about the ‘transaction state’ and ‘drama
democracy’ in Frank Ankersmit, ‘De Plaag van de Transactiestaat’, in Frank Ankers-
mit and Leo Klinkers (eds), De tien plagen van de staat: de bedrijfsmatige overhead
gewogen (Amsterdam: Van Gennip, 2008); and Mark Elchardus, De Dramademocratie
(Tielt: Lannoo, 2003). The trend towards managerialism and marketization is particu-
larly recognizable in the current British consular strategy, which uses terminology
such as customers, service, value for money and efficiency; see Foreign and Common-
wealth Office, Delivering Change Together: The Consular Strategy 2007–2011 (Lon-
don: FCO, 2007), available online at http://www.fco.gov.uk/resources/en/pdf/pdf13/
fco_pdf_consularstrategy2007.
7
British consular official in a personal meeting with the author, London, 21 Febru-
ary 2006.
8
It is telling that the media did not take notice of this important change in the
foreign minister’s office. Although the tasks of the director-general are taken over
by officials in the consular department, the clout of having an officer in the higher
spheres of the ministry has clearly faded; communication with a representative of the
Swedish foreign ministry, December 2008.

The discrepancy between the call of the public and politicians for
high-quality services and the tools available to consular practitioners is
becoming increasingly difficult to manage. One consular official com-
mented that ‘we are the victims of our own success’, meaning that
internally the consular bureau gets little recognition because officers
‘hang in’, while externally citizens are not satisfied despite—or because
of—what have come to be called ‘Cadillac consular services’.9 The pri-
oritization of consular affairs by senior officials remains, indeed, more
an ad hoc response to practical challenges that relate to the reputation
of individuals and the ministry alike, than a matter of intrinsic vision.
The upgrading of consular assistance to Dutch prisoners abroad and
their contacts at home in the early 2000s, for example, was pursued
under intense pressure from the Dutch parliament and press. The
result—including a monthly allowance to prisoners in certain coun-
tries outside the EU, which for security reasons is not rarely delivered
personally by diplomats to prisoners—may well be called an extension
of the welfare state and in turn raises (ethical) questions, including
whether perpetrators are receiving too much attention relative to vic-
tims. While Dutch excellence in this field may be upheld as an example
for other countries, it is also a clear case of consular affairs responding
to pressure from parliament and the press.
Only recently, calls have been growing to shift from a merely opera-
tional approach to consular affairs, to an awareness of the need to
develop a distinct policy agenda. In the words of one consul, ‘we have
been busy like children, handling cases, but now we need to become
adults’.10 This slowly but steadily unfolding process signals a profound
shift in thinking about consular affairs.
At the core of this development is the changing context, wherein citi-
zens are increasingly able and willing to make a consular issue a politi-
cal matter through media exposure, and wherein a growing number
of officials at various levels argue for the development of a consular
framework. It could be argued that the government’s responsibility to
protect its citizens has never been a mere ‘consular matter’, but there
is little doubt that today it is increasingly a diplomatic concern.
9
Interviews by the author at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London,
and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Ottawa, April–May
2006.
10
Canadian consular official in a personal meeting with the author, The Hague,
19 September 2008.

Two Sides of the Diplomacy Coin
Distinguishing between the notion of diplomacy as an institution and

diplomacy as a method (or a profession) shows how developments in
consular affairs and diplomacy are moving in different directions. This
facilitates understanding of the dual challenge in consular affairs that
foreign ministries face, and how this in turn drives the emergence of
two distinct expressions of consular diplomacy.
Changing Role of the State

Hedley Bull’s characterization of diplomacy as a regulating mechanism
contributing to order in the society of states, and his argument that
national governments are key players in international society remains
valid.11 Transnational civil society and the global economy obviously
play an increasingly important role in the international order, but
these structures have not taken over the role of the state.12 More pre-
cisely, the last decade’s developments transform rather than transcend
the role of the state. Even Robert Cooper’s argument about the break-
down of state control over violence—such as the spread of terrorism
and weapons of mass destruction—and the rise of a stable, peaceful
post-modern order in Europe does not rebuff the continuously impor-
tant role played by the state.13 The same can be said of the argument
that contractual international law and multilateralism have become
the dominant institutional practices governing modern international
11
Hedley Bull, The Anarchical Society: A Study of Order in World Politics (New
York: Columbia University Press, 2002 [1977]). By the international order, Bull means
a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary goals of the society of
states, or international society. Other regulating mechanisms are the balance of power,
international law, war and the Great Powers.
12
See also Andrew Hurrell, in Bull, The Anarchical Society, p. xxi (foreword to the
third edition).
13
Robert Cooper, The Breaking of Nations: The Order and Chaos in the Twenty-
First Century (London: McClelland & Stewart, 2005). Moreover, the excessive empha-
sis on the declining role of the state relative to that of other actors may be the greatest
shortcoming of Haass’s otherwise useful argument about the ‘age of nonpolarity’.
See Richard N. Haass, ‘The Age of Nonpolarity: What Will Follow US Dominance’,
Foreign Affairs, vol. 87, no. 5, May/June 2008. This essentially Western-centric view
underestimates the continuously crucial role being played by the state to achieve
order and manage the disorder in the security, economic and financial fields. The
state retains primacy, for example, in intelligence-gathering and managing global
challenges, including intervention in financial markets.

society.14 The response of European and US governments to the rise

of (non-state) terrorism and to the financial and economic crisis in
2008–2009 may be the most recent examples of the continued power
and importance of the state in the fields of security and economics.
Globalization has also enlarged the responsibility of states for conflict
management and the well-being of citizens. And while the challenge of
terrorism gives the state in general and diplomats in particular a for-
midable test that requires long-term and profound interaction with a
foreign public,15 the consular challenge is mostly practical and involves
a large domestic dimension.
The changing reality with regard to consular affairs confirms this
dual trend: it suggests that while the role of the state is declining in
certain fields, it is expanding in other areas. The role and responsibili-
ties of the state increase with the growing and changing demands of
citizens in trouble in foreign lands. Practically, this puts greater bur-
den on the financial and human resources of consular departments in
the foreign ministry. At a more abstract level, it affects the functions of
diplomacy. Diplomacy between states and other entities in world poli-
tics involves not only high political goals, but increasingly also needs
to address the interests of individual citizens. While concerns for the
balance of national interests and for individual citizens may comple-
ment one another, governments find that the two areas may conflict
at times. Politically sensitive travel advisories and consular issues gob-
bling up precious time at high-level summits are but two examples.
With the burden of its responsibilities growing, the foreign ministry
may—somewhat paradoxically—outsource certain aspects of its grow-
ing activism in consular affairs to third parties. In states where the
pressure on consular resources is particularly large, for example, gov-
ernments increasingly turn to private companies to assist diplomats
in providing high-quality services.16 Attempts to improve services—
14
Christian Reus-Smit, The Moral Purpose of the State: Culture, Social Identity and
Institutional Rationality in International Relations (Princeton NJ: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 2009 [1999]), p. 14.
15
James Mayall, ‘Introduction’, in Paul Sharp and Geoffrey Wiseman (eds), The
Diplomatic Corps as an Institution of International Society (New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2008), pp. 1–12.
16
The British foreign ministry, for example, discusses its strategy and cooperates
with a ‘Consular Stakeholder Panel’ (earlier, the Consular Strategy Board and Travel
Advice Review Group). This group includes associations of travel agents and operators,
insurers, airlines, airports and travel guides as well as non-governmental organiza-
tions such as the Muslim Council and the Red Cross; see Foreign and Commonwealth

sometimes with the help of other government agencies, NGOs and

private companies—are commonly referred to as the ‘professionaliza-
tion’ or ‘privatization’ of consular assistance. There can be no doubt
that the growing involvement of (semi-)private institutions profoundly
changes the foreign ministry’s relationship with society and the role of
the state at large.
Moving Up the Agenda

Changes in consular affairs also have an impact on the notion of diplo-
macy as ‘the management of international relations’.17 Aptly captured
by D.C.M. Platt, service tasks have traditionally been of a relatively low
priority within the foreign ministry.18 As consular protection increas-
ingly has the potential to gain political significance, it moves up the
agenda. Senior officials more often (wish to) become involved in the
negotiation of individual cases, while diplomats of all ranks receive
increasingly professional consular training.
Although some governments call upon the help of private actors
to assist in providing services, no entity other than the state has the
(legal) capacity to manage or deal with the core of consular issues. The
management task cannot be outsourced because, as per the Vienna
Convention on Consular Relations, citizens can turn to the state of
their nationality for protection and—certain limits notwithstanding—
consular officials have the legal right to have access to and communi-
cate with citizens, even when they are in prison, custody or detention.19
Since no person other than the consular official is granted these spe-
cial rights, citizens depend on their government for protection. This
reliance of the citizen on the state—or the responsibility of the state
and the expectations of citizens, depending on which perspective you
take—is enhanced by the fact that only the state has the legal capac-
ity to issue (emergency) travel documents and to negotiate with other
governments on its citizens’ behalf.
Office, Delivering Change Together. As discussed elsewhere in this book in the chapter
by Wesseling and Boniface, a similar trend towards outsourcing is recognizable at the
European level with regard to the collection of visa requests.
17
On this understanding of diplomacy, see R.P. Barston, Modern Diplomacy (Har-
low: Pearson Education Limited, 2006 [1988]).
18
D.C.M. Platt, The Cinderella Service: British Consuls since 1825 (Hamden CT:
Archon, 1971).
19
Article 36 of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, 1963.

All of this implies that the responsible government needs to know

and to direct the movement of its citizens to guarantee safety. Pro-
fessional diplomats and the embassy as an institution, which guaran-
tees diplomatic protection on its grounds, are managers to assure this
protection. Diplomacy as a profession that governs relations between
nations becomes particularly important in consular affairs when con-
sular assistance attracts the attention of press and politicians. High-
level negotiation by government officials is then put under substantial
pressure. Being the only entity with direct access to foreign govern-
ments, the state plays a critical role in this process. Pressure on the
foreign ministry grows as citizens—directly and through the media—
more often and more successfully urge their government to take up a
consular issue with a foreign government.
When assessing the changes in consular affairs in their broader con-
text, it becomes obvious that a string of developments in domestic
and international society poses growing challenges to the state’s core
responsibility to protect its citizens. Globalization, increasing threats
of natural disasters and terrorist attacks, and other changes in glo-
bal society make travellers more prone to risk. Since the state bears
primary responsibility for assisting its citizens at home and abroad,
consular help becomes an increasingly burdensome task for govern-
ment. These challenges directly affect the diplomatic institution and
profession, and thereby alter the very essentials of diplomacy at large.
Complementing the ad hoc consular diplomacy wherein governments
increasingly take up consular issues with foreign governments, as
described earlier, is the trend towards international cooperation in
the consular field. This generates what I propose to call preventive
consular diplomacy.
Improving Efficiency Multilaterally

As citizens travel more and to more remote places, and find their
way to the ministry when in trouble, the demand for high-quality
and quantity services increases. Responding to the growing challenges
in consular affairs, foreign ministries in many countries started to
improve their services from the 1990s. They upgraded the quality of
assistance and the efficiency of delivering consular services to citizens
by professionalizing services within their own consular departments
and by elevating levels of cooperation between states. Professionaliza-
tion by individual foreign ministries includes the acquisition of better

tools and more human resources, improving policy standards and

information-sharing between the ministry and representations abroad,
enhancing access for citizens to consular departments, and strength-
ening cooperation with other parties. This upgrading of service has
relatively little impact on the relationship between consular affairs and
diplomacy, however, since it largely involves ‘in-house’ developments
that can be achieved by any government alone.
Multilateral efforts aiming to improve the level of consular serv-
ices do, however, enhance the diplomatic character of consular affairs.
Negotiations in this field can be considered as a kind of preventive
consular diplomacy. Between like-minded countries, adhering to simi-
lar standards of consular assistance, such efforts have focused on the
exchange of best practices and the enhancement of pragmatic coop-
eration—that is, to be well prepared and well informed so that for-
eign ministries of different countries do not spend precious time for
the same purpose in cases of emergency. The coordination of visits to
medical or emergency centres to confirm whether citizens have been
hospitalized, for example, leaves hands available for much-needed
help elsewhere. This type of bottom-up cooperation has been taking
place at different levels and in various ways. The Scandinavian coun-
tries, for example, have coordinated consular affairs for many years,
mostly on-the-spot in third countries and by attuning consular policy
and travel advice. Taking cooperation yet a step further, representa-
tives of the ‘Group of Five’ English-speaking countries—consisting of
Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United
States—undertake proactive diplomatic efforts towards third countries
to improve the framework wherein consular assistance is provided.
Other than consulting one another regularly and cooperating in crisis
or emergency situations, they undertake démarches to third countries’
governments, requesting for example that foreign representations be
included in the contingency plans of local cities and airports. In doing
so, they increasingly seek cooperation with other like-minded coun-
tries, such as Japan and the Netherlands. The general aim is preven-
tive: to increase preparedness for relief efforts in times of crisis.
Negotiation in the consular field also involves discussion about
practical arrangements relating to consular assistance between states.
Bilateral treaties and multilateral arrangements are sought with other
countries on consular matters such as prisoner exchange, child abduc-
tion and dual citizenship. Negotiation and cooperation in these fields
differ from the above, in the sense that they take place not only between

like-minded countries, but—more importantly—between countries

that have different ideas about concepts that lie at the core of consu-
lar assistance, such as human rights and (dual) citizenship. Prisoner
transfer agreements, for example, allow citizens that are convicted
or imprisoned abroad to serve (part of) their sentence in the coun-
try of their own nationality. Such arrangements are mostly sought by
Western countries that are concerned about the well-being of citizens
detained abroad. Negotiations also take place on international and
bilateral agreements concerning international child abduction. While
relatively small in number, child abduction has become an increasing
challenge to consular departments, because of the surge in interna-
tional marriages and, sometimes, dual citizenship of children. Prob-
lems arise when one parent, against the other parent’s wishes, takes a
child away from the country of residence to the country of his or her
own nationality. Although the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects
of International Child Abduction of 1980 provides a general frame-
work to address these issues, there is no legal way to take up a conflict
with countries that have not joined the convention, including Islamic
countries.
Negotiating treaties and defending the state’s interests is, of course,
the very essence of diplomacy; in this sense consular diplomacy is
nothing new. As foreign ministries step up their role as service pro-
vider, however, national interests may be at odds with the interests of
citizen travellers. A negative travel advice, for example, constitutes a
strong political statement and is used with extreme caution by risk-
averse governments seeking to avoid offending friendly nations. At the
same time, an overly lenient approach that downplays an actual threat
to travellers carries in it the risk of a domestic backlash and nega-
tive overexposure in the media in cases when a citizen does encounter
serious trouble.20 Preventive consular affairs may thus conflict with
broader political goals.
Increasing efforts for multilateral cooperation in the consular field
beg the question of whether general standards for assistance that pro-
vide guidance for (large) groups of countries are viable. Put differently:
can bottom–up cooperation in consular affairs be substantiated with
top–down arrangements? While substantial benefits could in theory
be derived from greater cooperation in consular affairs, in practice
20
The chapter in this book by William Maley addresses this issue in more detail.

Another random document with
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certain narratives having a place in these books, because, to their
somewhat Europeanized ideas, they seemed too far-fetched to be
probable. The more striking incidents are, however, familiar to every
Hindu, for Brahmans wander all over the country, reciting the sacred
poems to the people. They gather an audience of both sexes and all
ages and read to them from the venerable Sanskrit, rendering the
verses of the dead language of the Aryan invaders of India into the
living speech of their hearers. Sometimes the Brahmans read and
expound vernacular translations of these poems of Valmiki and
Vyasa. Often-times these recitations are accompanied with much
ceremony and dignified with a display of religious formalities.[9] Day
after day the people congregate to listen, with rapt attention, to the
old national stories, and the moral lessons drawn from them, for their
instruction, by the Pandits. To this day a considerable proportion of
the people of India order much of their lives upon the models
supplied by their venerable epics, which have, moreover, mainly
inspired such plastic and pictorial work as the Indian people have
produced; being for the Hindu artist what the beautiful creations of
Greek fancy, or the weird myths of the Middle Ages, have been for
his European brother.
Impressed with the importance of some knowledge of the Indian
epics on the part of everyone directly or indirectly interested in the
life and opinions of the strange and highly intellectual Hindu race,
which has preserved its marked individuality of character through so
many centuries of foreign domination, I have written, for the benefit
of those, whether Europeans or Indians, who may be acquainted
with the English language, the brief epitomes of them contained in
the following pages; deriving my materials not from the original
Sanskrit poems, which are sealed books to me, but from the
translations, more or less complete and literal, of these voluminous
works, which have been given to the world by both European and
Indian scholars. On all occasions where religious opinions or
theological doctrines are concerned I have given the preference to
the translations of native scholars, as I know that Indian Sanskritists
have a happy contempt for Western interpretations of their sacred
books, and it seemed very desirable, in such a case, to let the
Hindus speak for themselves. Besides, I am of opinion that the
English versions of the “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata,” now being
given to the world by Indian scholars, have a unique value, which
later translations will, in all probability, not possess. The present
translators are orthodox Hindus possessing a competent knowledge
of English, and their aim has been to produce English versions of
their sacred poems, as understood and accepted by themselves and
by the orthodox Indian world to-day, their renderings, no doubt,
reflecting the traditional interpretation handed down from past times.
Hereafter we shall have more learned translations, in which
European ideas will do duty for Indian ones, and the old poems will
be interpreted up to our own standard of science and philosophy. In
wild legends we shall discover subtle allegories veiling sober history,
in license and poetry we shall find deep religious mysteries, and in
archaic notions shall recognize, with admiration, the structure of
modern philosophy. Something of this has already come about, and
that the rest is not far-off is evident; for we have only recently been
told, that “in the shlokas of the ‘Ramayana’ and ‘Mahabharata’ we
have many important historical truths relating to the ancient
colonization of the Indian continent by conquering invaders ... all
designedly concealed in the priestly phraseology of the Brahman,
but with such exactitude of method, nicety of expression and
particularity of detail, as to render the whole capable of being
transformed into a sober, intelligible and probable history of the
political revolutions that took place over the extent of India during
ages antecedent to the records of authentic history, by anyone who
will take the trouble to read the Sanskrit aright through the veil of
allegory covering it.”[10]
While regretting my shortcomings in respect to the language of the
bards who composed the Sanskrit epics, since I am thereby cut off
from appreciating the beauty of their versification and the felicities of
expression which no translation can possibly preserve, I derive
consolation from the reflection, that with sufficiently accurate
translations at hand—similar to our English versions of the Hebrew
and Greek Scriptures—a knowledge of Sanskrit is certainly not
essential for the production of a work with the moderate pretensions
of this little volume.
PART I
THE RAMAYANA
THE RAMAYANA
OR ADVENTURES OF RAMA
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
Once every year, at the great festival known as the Dasahra, the
story of the famous Hindu epic, the “Ramayana,” is, throughout
Northern India, recalled to popular memory, by a great out-door
dramatic representation of the principal and crowning events in the
life of the hero, Rama. The “Ramayana” is not merely a popular
story, it is an inspired poem, every detail of which is, in the belief of
the great majority of the Indian people, strictly true. Although
composed at least nineteen centuries ago, it still lives enshrined in
the hearts of the children of Aryavarta and is as familiar to them to-
day as it has been to their ancestors for fifty generations. Pious
pilgrims even now retrace, step by step, the wanderings, as well as
the triumphal progress, of Rama, from his birth-place in Oudh to the
distant island of Ceylon. Millions believe in the efficacy of his name
alone to insure them safety and salvation. For these reasons the
poem is of especial value and interest to anyone desirous of
understanding the people of India; affording, as it does, an insight
into the thoughts and feelings of the bard or bards who composed it
and of a race of men who, through two thousand eventful years,
have not grown weary of it.
In the following chapters I shall first give a brief summary of the
leading events narrated in the “Ramayana” and then proceed to link,
as it were, the past with the present, by describing the annual play
as I have often witnessed it in Northern India.
The “Ramayana,” written in the Sanskrit language, embraces an
account of the birth and adventures of Rama. The whole poem,
which is divided into seven books or sections, contains about fifty
thousand lines and occupies five goodly volumes in Mr. Ralph
Griffith’s metrical translation,[11] which is, to a certain extent, an
abridged version. To Valmiki is attributed the authorship of this
famous epic, and a pretty story is told of the manner in which he
came to write it. A renowned ascetic, a sort of celestial being, named
Narada, had related to Valmiki the main incidents of the adventurous
life of Rama, and had deeply interested that sage in the history of the
hero and his companions. Pondering the events described by
Narada, Valmiki went to the river to bathe. Close at hand two
beautiful herons, in happy unconsciousness of danger, were
disporting themselves on the wooded bank of the stream, when
suddenly one of the innocent pair was laid prostrate by the arrow of
an unseen fowler. The other bird, afflicted with grief, fluttered timidly
about her dead mate, uttering sore cries of distress. Touched to the
heart by her plaintive sorrow, Valmiki gave expression to his feelings
of irritation and sympathy in words which, to his own surprise, had
assumed a rhythmic measure and were capable of being chanted
with an instrumental accompaniment. Presently, Brahma himself, the
Creator of all, visited the sage in his hermitage, but Valmiki’s mind
was so much occupied with the little tragedy at the river-side, that he
unconsciously gave utterance to the verses he had extemporized on
the occasion. Brahma, smiling, informed the hermit that the verses
had come to his lips in order that he might compose the delightful
and instructive story of Rama in that particular measure or shloka.
Assuring Valmiki that all the details of the stirring tale would be
revealed to him, the Supreme Being directed the sage to compose
the great epic, which should endure as long as the mountains and
seas exist upon this earth. How Valmiki acquired a knowledge of all
the details of the story is worth remembering, as being peculiarly
Indian in its conception.
“Sitting himself facing the east on a cushion of Kusa grass, and
sipping water according to the ordinance, he addressed himself to
the contemplation of the subject through Yoga.[12] And, by virtue of
his Yoga powers, he clearly observed before him Rama and
Lakshmana, and Sita, and Dasahratha, together with his wives, in
his kingdom, laughing and talking and acting and bearing
themselves as in real life.”[13]
CHAPTER II
THE STORY
The story of the “Ramayana,” in brief outline, is as follows:
In the ancient land of Kosala, watered by the River Surayu, stood the
famous Ayodhya,[14] a fortified and impregnable city of matchless
beauty, and resplendent with burnished gold, where everyone was
virtuous, beautiful, rich and happy. Wide streets traversed this city in
every direction, lined with elegant shops and stately palaces
glittering all over with gems. There was no lack of food in Ayodhya,
for “it abounded in paddy and rice, and its water was as sweet as the
juice of the sugar-cane.” Gardens, mango-groves and “theatres for
females” were to be found everywhere. Dulcet music from Venas
and Panavas resounding on all sides, bore evidence to the taste of
the people. Learned and virtuous Brahmans, skilled in sacrificial
rites, formed a considerable proportion of the population; which also
included a crowd of eulogists and “troops of courtesans.” The pride
of ancient families supported a large number of genealogists. Hosts
of skilled artisans of every kind contributed to the conveniences and
elegancies of life, while an army of doughty warriors protected this
magnificent and opulent city from its envious foes. Over this
wonderful and prosperous capital of a flourishing kingdom, ruled
King Dasahratha, a man some sixty thousand years of age, gifted
with every virtue and blessed beyond most mortals. But, as if to
prove that human happiness can never exist unalloyed with sorrow,
even he had one serious cause for grief; he was childless, although
he had three wives and seven hundred and fifty concubines.[15]
Acting upon the advice of the priests, the Maharajah determined to
offer, with all the complicated but necessary rites, the sacrifice of a
horse, as a means of prevailing upon the gods to bless his house
with offspring. The accomplishment of such a sacrifice was no easy
matter, or to be lightly undertaken, even by a mighty monarch like
Dasahratha, since it was an essential condition of success that the
sacrifice should be conducted without error or omission in the
minutest details of the ritual of an intricate ceremony, extending over
three days. Not only would any flaw in the proceedings render the
sacrifice nugatory, but it was to be feared that learned demons
(Brahma-Rakshasas), ever maliciously on the look-out for
shortcomings in the sacrifices attempted by men, might cause the
destruction of the unfortunate performer of an imperfect sacrifice of
such momentous importance. However, the sacrifice was actually
performed on a magnificent scale and most satisfactorily, with the
assistance of an army of artisans, astrologers, dancers, conductors
of theatres, and persons learned in the ceremonial law. Birds,
beasts, reptiles, and aquatic animals were sacrificed by the priests
on this auspicious occasion, but the sacred horse itself was
despatched, with three strokes, by the hand of Kauçalya,
Dasahratha’s queen. When the ceremonies had been conducted to a
successful close, Dasahratha showed his piety and generosity by
making a free gift of the whole earth to the officiating priests; but they
were content to restore the magnificent present, modestly accepting
in its stead fabulous quantities of gold and silver and innumerable
cows.
The gods, Gandharvas and Siddhas, propitiated by the offerings
profusely made to them, assembled, each one for his share,[16] and
Dasahratha was promised four sons.[17] While these events were
transpiring, a ten-headed Rakshasa named Ravana was making
himself the terror of gods and men, under the protection of a boon
bestowed upon him by the Creator (Brahma), that neither god nor
demon should be able to deprive him of his life. This boon had been
obtained by the Rakshasa as the reward of long and painful
austerities.[18]
The hierarchy of minor gods, in their own interest and for the sake of
the saints who were constantly being disturbed in their devotions by
this Ravana and his fellows, appealed to the Supreme Deity to find
some remedy for the evil. Brahma, after reflecting on the matter,
replied—
“One only way I find
To stay this fiend of evil mind.
He prayed me once his life to guard
From demon, God and heavenly bard,
And spirits of the earth and air,
And I consenting heard his prayer.
But the proud giant in his scorn,
Recked not of man of woman born,
None else may take his life away
But only man the fiend may slay.”
—Griffith.
On receiving this reply the gods petitioned Vishnu to divide himself
into four parts and to appear on earth, incarnate as the promised
sons of Dasahratha, and thus, in human form, to rid the world of
Ravana. Vishnu consented. He proceeded to the earth and
appeared amidst the sacrificial flames of Dasahratha’s offering, in an
assumed form “of matchless splendour, strength and size”—black,
with a red face, and shaggy hair—apparelled in crimson robes, and
adorned with celestial ornaments, holding in his hands a vase of
gold, containing heavenly nectar, which he handed to the king, with
instructions to make his three queens partake of the sacred draught,
in order that they might be blessed with sons.
Dasahratha distributed the nectar amongst his wives, though not in
equal proportions. In due time the promised sons were born, viz.,
Rama, Lakshmana, Bharata and Satrughna. Rama possessed the
larger share of the divine nature and decidedly excelled his brothers
in prowess. To him, especially, was allotted the task of destroying
Ravana. And countless hosts of monkeys and bears were begotten
by the gods, at Brahma’s[19] suggestion, to aid him in his work.
Whilst yet a mere stripling, Rama was appealed to by the sage
Vishwamitra to destroy certain demons who interrupted the religious
rites of the hermits.
The boy was only sixteen years of age, and Dasahratha, naturally
solicitous for his safety, declined to let him go to fight the dreadful
brood of demons, who had an evil reputation for cruelty and ferocity;
but the mighty ascetic waxed so wrath at this refusal of his request,
that “the entire earth began to tremble and the gods even were
inspired with awe.” Vasishta, the king’s spiritual adviser, who had
unbounded confidence in Vishwamitra’s power to protect the prince
from all harm, strongly advised compliance with the ascetic’s
request, and Dasahratha was prevailed upon to allow Rama and
Lakshmana to leave Ayodhya with Vishwamitra.
The incidents of the journey reveal a very primitive state of society.
The princes and their guide were all of them on foot, apparently quite
unattended by servants and unprovided with even the most ordinary
necessaries of life. When they reached the River Surayu,[20]
Vishwamitra communicated certain mantras or spells to Rama, by
the knowledge of which he would be protected from fatigue and
fever[21] and from the possibility of being surprised by the
Rakshasas against whom he was going to wage war.
The land through which our travellers journeyed was sparsely
inhabited. A goodly portion of it seems to have been covered with
woods, more or less pleasant, abounding in the hermitages of
ascetics, some of whom had been carrying on their austerities for
thousands of years. Beside these pleasant woods there were vast,
trackless forests, infested by ferocious beasts and grim Rakshasas,
and it was not long before the might of the semi-divine stripling,
Rama, was tried against one of these terrible creatures, Tarika by
name, an ogress of dreadful power, whom Rama undertook to
destroy “in the interests of Brahmans, kine and celestials.” When the
ascetic and the two princes arrived in the dark forest where the
dreaded Tarika ruled supreme, Rama twanged his bowstring loudly,
as a haughty challenge to this redoubtable giantess. Incensed at the
audacious sound of the bowstring, Tarika uttered terrible roars and
rushed out to attack the presumptuous prince. The ascetic raised a
defiant roar in response. That was his entire contribution to the
combat in which Rama and his adversary were immediately
involved, Lakshmana taking part in it also. This, the first conflict in
which Rama was engaged, may be taken as a type of all his
subsequent battles. Raising clouds of dust, Tarika, “by help of
illusion,” poured a shower of huge stones upon the brothers, but
these ponderous missiles were met and arrested in mid-air by a
volley of arrows. The battle raged fiercely, but the brothers
succeeded with their shafts in depriving Tarika of her hands, her
nose and her ears. Thus disabled and disfigured, Tarika changed her
shape[22] and even concealed herself from view, while still continuing
the fight with unabated fury; but Rama, guided by sound alone,
assailed his invisible foe with such effect that he eventually laid her
dead at his feet, to the joy of Vishwamitra and the relief of the
denizens of the great forest over which she had terrorized.
After this successful combat, the ascetic, Vishwamitra, conferred on
Rama a gift of strange weapons, which even the celestials were
incapable of wielding. How very different the magic weapons
received by Rama were from those familiar to the sons of men, will
be apparent from the poet’s statement that the weapons themselves
made their appearance spontaneously before Rama, “and with
clasped hands, they, well-pleased, addressed Rama thus: These, O
highly generous one, are thy servants, O Raghava. Whatever thou
wishest, good betide thee, shall by all means be accomplished by
us.”
Such wonderful and efficient weapons, endowed with a
consciousness and individuality of their own, needed, however, to be
kept under strict control, lest in their over-zeal or excitement they
might effect undesigned and irreparable mischief. The sage
accordingly communicated to Rama the various mantras or spells by
which they might, on critical occasions, be restrained and regulated
in their operations.
In their woodland wanderings amongst the hermitages the brothers
and their guide came across many sages whose laborious
austerities were constantly being hindered by wicked, flesh-eating
Rakshasas. Indeed the world, outside the cities and villages,—which
it would seem were very few and far between,—as pictured by
Valmiki, is a very strange one, mostly peopled by two sets of beings,
hermits striving after supernatural power through the practice of
austerities, and demons bent on frustrating their endeavours by
unseasonable interruptions of their rites, or impious pollution of their
sacrifices. Sometimes, as in the case of Ravana, the demons
themselves would practise austerities for the attainment of power.
Very prominent figures in the poem are the great ascetics, like
Vishwamitra himself, who, a Kshatriya by caste and a king by
lineage, had obtained, through dire austerities prolonged over
thousands of years, the exalted rank and power of Brahmanhood. A
single example of his self-inflicted hardships and the consequences
resulting therefrom may not be out of place. He once restrained his
breath for a thousand years, when vapours began to issue from his
head, “and at this the three worlds became afflicted with fear.” Like
most of his order, he was a very proud and irate personage, ready,
upon very slight provocation, to utter a terrible and not-to-be-
escaped-from curse.[23] Once, in a fit of rage against the celestials,
Vishwamitra created entire systems of stars and even threatened, in
his fury, to create another India by “the process of his self-earned
asceticism.”
The life led by the princely brothers in their pedestrian wanderings
with this mighty sage was simplicity itself. They performed their
religious rites regularly, adoring the rising sun, the blazing fire or the
flowing river, as the case might be. Their sojourn in the forests was
enlivened by pleasant communion with the hermits to whose kind
hospitality they were usually indebted for a night’s lodging, if such it
can be called, and a simple fare of milk and fruits. Vishwamitra
added interest to their journeyings by satisfying the curiosity of the
brothers in regard to the history of the several places they visited.
Here, as he informed them, the god Rudra had performed his
austerities—for even the gods were not above the necessity and
ambition of ascetic practices—and blasted the impious Kama into
nothingness with a breath. There, the great god Vishnu of mighty
asceticism, worshipped of all the deities, dwelt during hundreds of
Yugas, for the purpose of carrying on his austerities and practising
yoga.[24] At one time Vishwamitra would relate the history of the
origin of Ganga and of her descent upon the earth, as the mighty
and purifying Ganges, chief of rivers. At another time he would
himself listen complacently, along with his princely companions, to
the history of his own wonderful asceticism and marvellous
performances, as the wise Satananda related it for the special
edification of Rama.
So passed away the time in the forests, not altogether peacefully,
however, for the object of the journey would not have been fulfilled
without sundry fierce and entirely successful encounters with the
Rakshasas, those fiendish interrupters of sacrifice and persistent
enemies of the anchorites. Eventually the wanderers came to the
kingdom of Mithila, whose king, Janaka,[25] had a lovely daughter to
bestow upon the worthy and fortunate man who should bend a
certain formidable bow which had belonged to Siva and which he
had once threatened to use in the destruction of the gods.
Janaka’s daughter, the famous Sita, whose matrimonial future was
thus connected with Siva’s bow, was of superhuman origin, having
sprung from the earth in a mysterious manner; for, while Janaka was
ploughing the ground in the course of a child-conferring sacrifice, the
lovely maiden had, by the favour of the gods, come to him out of the
furrow.
Allured by the fame of Sita’s beauty, suitor after suitor had come to
Mithila and tried that tough bow of Siva’s, but without success; and
Rama’s curiosity was awakened about both the mighty weapon and
the maiden fair.
Having been introduced by Vishwamitra to the King of Mithila, Rama
was allowed to essay his strength against the huge bow, and huge it
was indeed, for it had to be carried on an eight-wheeled cart which
“was with difficulty drawn along by five thousand stalwart persons of
well-developed frames.” To Rama, however, the bending of this
gigantic bow was an easy matter, and he not only bent but broke it
too, at which event all present, overwhelmed by the noise, rolled
head over heels, with the exception of Vishwamitra, the “king and the
two Raghavas.” The lovely and much-coveted prize was Rama’s of
course. Arrangements for the wedding were carried out in grand
style. Dasahratha and his two other sons were invited to Mithila and
brides were found, in the family of Janaka, for all the four brothers.
Upon a daïs covered with a canopy, and decked with flowers, the
happy brides and bridegrooms were placed, attended by the king
and the priests of the two families. Water-pots, golden ladles,
censers, and conches, together with platters containing rice, butter,
curds and other things for the Hom sacrifice, were also arranged for
use on the platform. The sacrificial fire was lighted, the appropriate
mantras repeated, and the four bridegrooms led their brides first
round the fire, and then round the king and the priests. At this stage
of the proceedings showers of celestial flowers rained down upon
the happy couples, now united in the bonds of matrimony.[26] After
these marriages the return to Ayodhya was accomplished with
rejoicings and in great state; but Vishwamitra took his solitary way to
the Northern Mountains.
As the years went by and Rama was grown to man’s estate he was
endowed with every princely virtue; the people idolized him, and his
father, desirous of retiring from the cares of government, determined
to place him upon the throne. But, although apparently simple of
execution, this arrangement was beset with difficulties. Rama was
the son of the Rajah’s eldest and principal wife; but Bharata was the
son of his favourite wife, the slender-waisted Kaikeyi. The suffrages
of the people and Dasahratha’s own wishes were entirely in favour of
Rama, but, apparently unwilling to face the grief or opposition of his
darling Kaikeyi, the king took advantage of Bharata’s absence on a
visit to a distant court to carry out the rather sudden preparations for
Rama’s installation as Yuva-Rajah, hoping, it would seem, to keep
Kaikeyi in complete ignorance of what was being done. The whole
city, however, was in a state of bustle and excitement at the
approaching event. The streets were being washed and watered,
flag-staffs were being erected on every side, gay bunting was
floating about and garlands of flowers adorned the houses.
Musicians played in the highways and in the temples, and,
notwithstanding the seclusion of the women’s apartments, it was
impossible to conceal from the inmates of the zenana what was
going on in the great world outside. A deformed and cunning slave-
girl, named Manthara, found out and revealed the whole plot to
Bharata’s mother. At first Kaikeyi received the intelligence with
pleasure, for Rama was dear to everybody; but the slave-girl so
worked upon her feelings of envy and jealousy, by artfully picturing to
her the very inferior position she would hold in the world’s estimation,
the painful slights she would have to endure and the humiliation she
would have to suffer, once Kauçalya’s son was raised to the throne,
that in a passion of rage and grief, she threw away her ornaments
and, with dishevelled hair, flew to the “chamber of sorrow” and flung
herself down upon the floor, weeping bitterly. Here the old king found
her “like a sky enveloped in darkness with the stars hid” and had to
endure the angry reproaches of his disconsolate favourite. Acting
upon a suggestion of the deformed slave-girl, the queen reminded
her husband of a promise made by him long previously, that he
would grant her any two requests she might make. She now
demanded the fulfilment of the royal promise, her two requests being
that Rama should be sent away into banishment in the forests for a
period of fourteen years and that her own son Bharata should be
elevated to the dignity of Yuva-Rajah. On these terms, and on these
only, would the offended and ambitious Kaikeyi be reconciled to her
uxorious lord. If these conditions were refused she was resolved to
rid the king of her hated presence. Dasahratha, poor old man, was
overwhelmed by this unexpected crisis. He fell at his wife’s feet, he
explained that preparations for Rama’s installation had already
commenced, he besought her not to expose him to ridicule and
contempt, he coaxed and flattered her, alluding to her lovely eyes
and shapely hips, he extolled Rama’s affectionate devotion to
herself. He next heaped bitter reproaches upon Kaikeyi’s
unreasonable pride and finally swooned away in despair. But she
was firm in her purpose and would not be shaken by anything, kind
or unkind, that this “lord of earth” could say to her. The royal word
she knew was sacred, and had to be kept at any cost.
As soon as it came to be known what a strange and unforeseen turn
events had taken, the female apartments were the scene of loud
lamentations, and the entire city was plunged in mourning. Rama, of
expansive and coppery eyes,[27] long-armed, dark blue like a lotus, a
mighty bowman of matchless strength, with the gait of a mad
elephant, brave, truthful, humble-minded, respectful and generous to
Brahmans, and having his passions under complete control, was the
idol of the zenana, the court, and the populace. The thought of his
unmerited banishment to the forests was intolerable to everyone. But
he himself, with exemplary filial devotion, prepared to go into exile at
once, without a murmur. The poet devotes considerable space to a
minute description of the sorrow experienced by the prominent
characters in the story on account of Rama’s banishment. Each one
indulges in a lengthy lamentation, picturing the privations and
sufferings of the ill-fated trio, and nearly everyone protests that it will
be impossible to live without Rama. With affectionate regard for
Sita’s comfort, and loving apprehension for her safety, Rama
resolved to leave her behind with his mother; but no argument, no
inducement, could prevail upon the devoted wife to be parted from
her beloved husband. What were the terrors of the forest to her, what
the discomfort of the wilderness, when shared with Rama? Racked
with sorrow at the proposed separation, Sita burst into a flood of
tears and became almost insensible with grief. At the sight of her
tribulation Rama, overcome with emotion, threw his arms about his
dear wife and agreed to take her with him, come what may.
Lakshmana, with devoted loyalty, would also accompany his brother
into exile.
Kaikeyi, apprehensive of delays, hurried on their preparations, and
herself, unblushingly, provided them with the bark dresses worn by
ascetics. The two brothers donned their new vestments in the king’s
presence.
“But Sita, in her silks arrayed,
Threw glances, trembling and afraid,
On the bark coat she had to wear
Like a shy doe that eyes the snare.
Ashamed and weeping for distress
From the queen’s hand she took the dress.
The fair one, by her husband’s side,
Who matched heaven’s minstrel monarch, cried:
‘How bind they on their woodland dress,
Those hermits of the wilderness?’
There stood the pride of Janak’s race
Perplexed, with sad appealing face,
One coat the lady’s fingers grasped,
One round her neck she feebly clasped,
But failed again, again, confused
By the wild garb she ne’er had used.
Then quickly hastening Rama, pride
Of all who cherish virtue, tied
The rough bark mantle on her, o’er
The silken raiment that she wore.
Then the sad women when they saw
Rama the choice bark round her draw,
Rained water from each tender eye
And cried aloud with bitter cry.”[28]
—Griffith.
After giving away vast treasures to the Brahmans the ill-fated trio
took a pathetic leave of the now miserable old king, of Kauçalya who
mourned like a cow deprived of her calf, of Sumitra the mother of
Lakshmana, and of their “other three hundred and fifty mothers.”
With an exalted sense of filial duty the exiles also bid a respectful
and affectionate farewell to Kaikeyi, the cruel author of their
unmerited banishment, Rama remarking that it was not her own
heart, but “Destiny alone that had made her press for the prevention
of his installation.”
When Rama and his companions appeared in the streets of the
capital, in the dress of ascetics, the populace loudly deplored their
fate, extolling the virtues of Rama while giving vent to their feelings
of disapproval at the king’s weak compliance with his favourite’s
whim. Sita came in for her share of popular pity and admiration,
since she “whom formerly the very rangers of the sky could not see,
was to-day beheld by every passer-by.”
A royal chariot conveyed away to the inhospitable wilderness the two
brothers and faithful Sita, torn from stately Ayodhya, their luxurious
palaces and the arms of their fond parents. All they carried with
them, in the chariot, was their armour and weapons, “a basket bound
in hide and a hoe.” Crowds of people, abandoning their homes,
followed in the track of the chariot, resolved to share the fate of the
exiles. And such was the grief of the people that the dust raised by
the wheels of the car occupied by Rama and his companions was
laid by the tears of the citizens. They drove at once to the jungles
and rested there for the night. During the hours of slumber the exiles
considerately gave their followers the slip and hurried off, in the
chariot, towards the great forest of Dandhaka. When they arrived at
the banks of the sacred and delightful Ganges the charioteer was
dismissed with tender messages to the old king from his exiled
children. After the departure of the charioteer Rama and his
companions began their forest wanderings on foot. Their hermit-life
was now to commence in earnest. Before entering the dark forests
that lay before them, the brothers resolved to wear “that ornament of
ascetics, a head of matted hair,” and, accordingly, produced the
desired coiffure with the aid of the glutinous sap of the banyan tree.
Thus prepared and clothed in bark like the saints, the brothers, with
faithful Sita, entered a boat which chanced to be at the river-side and
began the passage of the Ganges. As they crossed the river the
pious Sita, with joined hands, addressed the goddess of the sacred
stream, praying for a happy return to Ayodhya, when their days of
exile should be over. Having arrived on the other bank, the exiles
entered the forest in Indian file, Lakshmana leading and Rama
bringing up the rear. Passing by Sringavara on the Ganges, they
proceeded to Prayaga at the junction of the Ganges and the Jumna.
Here they were hospitably entertained by the sage Bharadvaja, who
recommended them to seek an asylum on the pleasant slopes of
wooded Chitrakuta. On the way thither Sita, ever mindful of her
religious duties, adored the Kalindi river—which they crossed on a
raft constructed by themselves—and paid her respects to a gigantic
banyan tree, near which many ascetics had taken up their abode. On
the romantic and picturesque side of Chitrakuta the exiles built
themselves a cottage, thatched with leaves, “walled with wood, and
furnished with doors.” Game, fruits, and roots abounded in the
neighbourhood, so that they need have no anxiety about their
supplies. So much did they appreciate the quiet beauties of their
sylvan retreat, the cool shade, the perfumed flowers, the sparkling
rivulets and the noble river, that they became almost reconciled to
their separation from their friends and the lordly palaces of Ayodhya,
in which city important things were happening.

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Parliamentary Diplomacy in European and Global

Economic Diplomacy Japan and the Balance of National

British Diplomacy in Turkey 1583 to the present

Red States The New Southern Studies Ser Indigeneity

Germany and the Diplomatic Revolution A Study in

Mountain Movers Student Activism and the Emergence of

Histories of Public Diplomacy and Nation Branding in

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated,

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Acknowledgements ............................................................................ vii

Introduction The Consular Dimension of Diplomacy ............. 1

THEMES IN CONTEMPORARY CONSULAR AFFAIRS

Chapter One Changes in Consular Assistance and the

Chapter Two Risk, Populism, and the Evolution of Consular

Chapter Three Honorary Consuls in an Era of Globalization,

Chapter Four Consular Affairs in an Integrated Europe ........ 97

Chapter Five New Trends in European Consular Services:

THE CONSULAR SERVICES OF THE GREAT POWERS

Chapter Six The Transformation of Consular Affairs:

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Chapter Seven The Consular Service in Russia:

Chapter Eight China’s Consular Service Reform and

THE HISTORY OF THE CONSULAR INSTITUTION

Chapter Ten A History of the Spanish Consular Service:

Chapter Eleven The Dutch Consular Service: In the Interests

Chapter Twelve A History of the French Consular Services .... 303

Index .................................................................................................... 325

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

The editors are indebted to all of the contributors to Consular Affairs

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

of Foreign Affairs gave an unbeknownst stimulus to this project. It was

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Jan Melissen is Head of the Diplomatic Studies Programme at the

Ana Mar Fernández (Ph.D.) is Senior Lecturer in Politics at the

Jérôme Boniface is a Seconded National Expert from the French

Donna Hamilton (B.A. in Political Science, Washington State Uni-

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Albert E. Kersten studied history at the University of Nijmegen and

Halvard Leira is Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of

Xia Liping (Ph.D., China Foreign Affairs University) is an Associate

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

ment’, International Forum (no. 1, 2009); ‘Reform of the British Con-

William Maley is Professor and Director of the Asia-Pacific College

Iver B. Neumann (D.Phil., Oxon.; Dr Philos., Oslo) is a Professor

Jesús Núñez Hernández is an Ambassador of Spain. In his career,

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Maaike Okano-Heijmans is a Research Fellow in the Clingendael

Kevin D. Stringer is Visiting Professor of International Studies at

Jörg Ulbert (Ph.D.) is Associate Professor at the University of South

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

Mara Wesseling (M.Sc., University of Amsterdam; M.A., Sciences-

Tatiana Zonova (Ph.D. in Political Sciences) is Professor of the Dip-

Jan Melissen and Ana Mar Fernández - 978-90-04-18877-8

THE CONSULAR DIMENSION OF DIPLOMACY