Two Protocols, a Vienna conference and the Convention on Consular Relations

Background

The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is the treaty that sets out how one country runs its consulates in another. The United Nations Conference on Consular Relations met in Vienna, in Austria, and adopted the text there. The Convention is dated Vienna, 24 April 1963, and it entered into force on 19 March 1967 in accordance with its article 77. The same conference adopted two Optional Protocols, one on the acquisition of nationality and one on the compulsory settlement of disputes. The Convention and both Protocols were deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations, who acts as the depositary. It treats a consulate-general, a consulate, a vice-consulate and a consular agency alike as a consular post, and calls the area given to such a post a consular district. Consular officers fall into two categories, career and honorary, and their listed functions include issuing passports and travel documents and visas, and acting as notary and civil registrar. The United Kingdom gave listed provisions of the Convention the force of its own law through the Consular Relations Act 1968.