Embassy

Summary of Embassy

The highest level of political mission that one nation may accredit to another. An embassy is a permanent mission charged with maintaining direct political liaison with the government of the host country. The chief officer of an embassy is the ambassador, who is regarded as the personal representative of the head of state of the country he represents. The ambassador is assisted in the performance of his duties by one or more counselors, several secretaries, who are diplomatic officials concerned with political and economic affairs, and various attachés, who are experts in fields of interest to the home government and who are charged with collecting data on those areas for use by their government. In the absence of the ambassador, an embassy official is appointed chargé d’affaires, or head of the mission. In some cases, the term chancery has been used interchangeably with embassy, in current usage, however, chancery is applied to the main embassy building, while embassy includes till structures assigned to the diplomatic mission, including satellite facilities, such as trade missions, away from the main site.

All embassy buildings, wherever situated, as well as vehicles and personal property of the embassy, are extraterritorial, that is, beyond the jurisdiction of the state in which they are physically located, and are subject to the jurisdiction of the home country. In some cases, particularly in the case of smaller countries, diplomatic missions inferior to embassies are exchanged; these missions are called legations and are headed by a minister rather than an ambassador. In all other respects, legations are the effective equivalent of embassies, although they rank below embassies in order of diplomatic precedence. In recent years the trend has been to accredit all missions as embassies; relatively few states exchange legations.

(Main Author: William J. Miller)

Embassies Legal Materials

Embassies in the U.S.: The address and telephone number of foreign embassies and other diplomatic offices in the U.S. are posted on Project Visa and/orEmbassy World, usually with links to the Embassy Web site. Alternatively, you can get the telephone numbers and addresses of most embassies in the U.S. by calling Information or looking in the New York and/or D.C. telephone books. (Tip: If you can’t find an embassy, try to get in touch with the country’s mission to the U.N., which is almost definitely in New York. They can probably give you the number of the Embassy.)

U.S. Embassies in Foreign Countries: The address, telephone number and other information for U.S. embassies and diplomatic missions abroad are posted by the U.S. State Department. You can also look through a directory of Key Officers of Foreign Service Posts.

Listings of prior Ambassadors and other Chiefs of Mission are available on the State Department’s Office of The Historian website and in the Europa World Yearbook.

Embassies in Other Countries: Contact information for foreign embassies and other diplomatic offices located in foreign countries is posted on Project Visa andEmbassy World, usually with links to the Embassy Web site. If that doesn’t work, (a) use a good search engine or two to locate a Web site with the information you need or (b) use the information provided above to contact an embassy, mission or other office of the foreign country in the U.S., then call and ask if they can provide the information you need.

See Also

• United States Department of State
• United Nations
• Diplomatic Immunity
• Diplomatic Mission
• Attache
• Privileges and Immunities
• Department of Foreign Affairs
• Ambassador
• Diplomatic Agent
• Diplomacy
• Extraterritoriality
• Diplomatic Negotation
• Foreign Service

NATO bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade

Note: there is more information on the Asian/Chinese legal Encyclopedia. Notion of of NATO bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade: During NATO’s military operation against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, five U.S. bombs hit the Chinese embassy, killing three Chinese reporters. The U.S. government subsequently apologized and explained that its forces had accidentally misidentified coordinates for a Yugoslav military target.[1]

Resources

See Also

• Foreign Policy
• China

Resources

Notes and References

1. Description/definition of NATO bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade provided by the Foreign Policy Association

See Also

• Foreign Policy
• China

Hierarchical Display of Embassy

International Relations > International affairs > International affairs > Diplomatic relations > Diplomatic representation

Embassy

Concept of Embassy

See the dictionary definition of Embassy.

Characteristics of Embassy

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Resources

Translation of Embassy

• Spanish: Embajada
• French: Ambassade
• German: Botschaft
• Italian: Ambasciata
• Portuguese: Embaixada
• Polish: Ambasada

Thesaurus of Embassy

International Relations > International affairs > International affairs > Diplomatic relations > Diplomatic representation > Embassy

See also

• Audiovisual industry
• Photographic industry

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• Film industry

• Photography

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