Legal Term: RESIDENT

Definition: international law. A minister, according to diplomatic language, of a third order, less in dignity than an ambassador, or an envoy. This term formerly related only to the continuance of the minister s stay, but now it is confined to ministers of this class.

2. The resident does not represent the prince s person in his dignity, but only his affairs. His representation is in reality of the same nature as that of the envoy; hence he is often termed, as well as the envoy, a minister of the second order, thus distinguishing only two classes of public ministers, the former consisting of ambassadors who are invested with the representative character in preeminence, the latter comprising all other ministers, who do not possess that exalted character. This is the most necessary distinction, and indeed the only essential one. Vattel liv. 4, c. 6, 73.

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