Ambassador in United States

Ambassador Definition

In international law. A public minister sent abroad by some sovereign state or prince, with a legal commission and authority to transact business on behalf of his country with the government to which he is sent. Ambassadors extraordinary are those employed on particular or extraordinary occasions, or residing at a foreign court for an indeterminate period. Vattel, lib. 4, c. 6, §§ 70-79. Ambassadors ordinary are those sent on permanent missions. An ambassador is a minister of the highest rank. The United States were formerly represented by ministers plenipotentiary, sending no person of the rank of an ambassador, in the diplomatic sense. 1 Kent, Comm. 39, note. Ambassadors are now sent by the United States to Japan and the principal nations of Europe and South America. (1)

Responsible of Foreign affairs

Louis Henkin wrote (2):

“Foreign affairs” is not a term found in the Constitution, and what we characterize as foreign affairs is not a discrete constitutional category. Still, many of the provisions of the Constitution apply equally, and have had equal success, in foreign as in domestic affairs. Some particular constitutional dispositions for foreign affairs – for example, the grant to the federal government of virtually full authority, to the exclusion of the states – have surely proved their wisdom.

After 200 years the difficult constitutional issues of foreign affairs arise from the so-called separation of powers and the various checks and balances between Congress and the president. Some of the divisions of authority between the two political branches that apply generally have evoked special dissatisfaction as they operate in foreign affairs. Some of the allocations of authority that relate to foreign affairs in particular have at times left either the president or the Congress – or both – unhappy. Above all, the constitutional blueprint has proved to be unclear and incomplete as regards foreign affairs, and there is no agreed guiding principle to help make its provisions clear, or to fill the “lacunae.”

Ambassador in Foreign Legal Encyclopedias

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Concept of Ambassador

A definition of Ambassador is provided here: an official envoy or diplomatic agent of the highest rank accredited to a foreign government as the official resident representative of his own government; or an official appointed for a special, often temporary, diplomatic assignment

Concept of Ambassador

A definition of Ambassador is provided here: capitalized when referring to a specific person (i.e., Ambassador Scott)

Concept of Ambassador

In the U.S., in the context of Foreign Affairs and National Defense, Ambassador has the following meaning: The highest official diplomatic representative of the U.S. government to a foreign nation. The ambassador lives and works in that nation and represents U.S. interests (as an agent of the U.S. Department of State). (Source of this definition of Ambassador : University of Texas)

Ambassador

Resources

See Also

• Foreign Affairs
• National Defense

Resources

Notes

1. This definition of Ambassador is based on The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
2. Foreign Affairs and the Constitution, by Louis Henkin; Foreign Affairs, Winter 1987/88 Issue

See also

• Arbitration
• Mediation
• Conciliation
• Department of State
• Intelligence
• Counterintelligence
• International Intervention
• Nonintervention
• National Security Council
• International Recognition

Further Reading

• Bemis, Samuel Flagg. The Latin-American Policy of the United States. New York, 1943.
• Bemis, Samuel Flagg, and Robert H. Ferrell, eds. The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy. New York, 1928–.
• Brzezinski, Zbigniew. Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser: 1977–1981. New York, 1983.
• Destler, I. M., Leslie H. Gelb, and Anthony Lake. Our Own Worst Enemy: The Unmaking of American Foreign Policy. New York, 1984.
• George, Alexander L. Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information and Advice. Boulder, Colo., 1980.
• Graebner, Norman A. An Uncertain Tradition: American Secretaries of States in the Twentieth Century. New York, 1961.
• Grieb, Kenneth J. “Reginald Del Valle: A California Diplomat’s Sojourn in Mexico.” California Historical Society Quarterly 47 (1968).
• Grieb, Kenneth J. The United States and Huerta. Lincoln, Nebr., 1969.
• Halperin, Morton H. Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy. Washington, D.C., 1974.
• Harriman, W. Averell, and Ellie Abel. Special Envoy to Churchill and Stalin: 1941–1946. New York, 1975.
• Hastedt, Glen P. American Foreign Policy: Past, Present, and Future. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J., 2000.
• Henkin, Louis. “Foreign Affairs and the Constitution.” Foreign Affairs 66 (winter 1987–1988).
• Henkin, Louis. Foreign Affairs and the United States Constitution. 2d ed. New York, 1996.
• Hill, Larry D. Emissaries to a Revolution. Baton Rouge, La., 1973.
• Inderfurth, Karl F., and Lock K. Johnson, eds. Decisions of the Highest Order: Perspectives on the National Security Council. Pacific Grove, Calif., 1988.
• Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York, 1994.
• Munro, Dana G. Intervention and Dollar Diplomacy in the Caribbean, 1900–1921. Princeton, N. J., 1964.
• Munro, Dana G.. The United States and the Caribbean Republics: 1921–1933. Princeton, N.J., 1974.
• Ripley, Randall B., and James M. Lindsay, eds. U.S. Foreign Policy after the Cold War: Processes, Structures, and Decisions. Pittsburgh, Pa., 1997.
• Rosati, Jerel A. “United States Leadership into the Next Millennium: A Question of Politics.” International Journal (spring 1997).
• Rosati, Jerel A. The Politics of United States Foreign Policy. 2d ed. Fort Worth, Tex., 1999. Provides an effective overview of the evolution of foreign policy instruments and offices.
• Rubin, Barry. Secrets of State: The State Department and the Struggle over U.S. Foreign Policy. New York, 1985.
• Schlesinger, Arthur M., Jr. The Imperial Presidency. New York, 1989.
• Scott, James M., ed. After the End: Making U.S. Foreign Policy in the Post–Cold War Era. Durham, N.C., 1998.
• Seymour, Charles, ed. The Intimate Papers of Colonel House. 3 vols. Boston, New York, 1926. Provides the personal records of House’s missions.
• Robert E. Roosevelt and Hopkins: An Intimate History. 2d ed. New York, 1950.
• Smith, Jean E. The Constitution and American Foreign Policy. St. Paul, Minn., 1989.
• Wriston, Henry M. Executive Agents in American Foreign Relations. Baltimore, Md., 1929; Gloucester, Mass., 1967.