Why does diplomacy exist? How does it contribute to a country’s national interest? How critical is it to national security? The answers to these questions are important as much for people in government as for those on the outside. A country’s diplomatic service is the steward of its national interests abroad. International civil servants, who work on the staff of multilateral organizations like the United Nations and the European Union, are supposed to serve global or regional interests. Both bilateral and multilateral diplomats manage and participate in the daily conduct of international relations. In carrying out their duties, they work within a diplomacy architecture–systems that have been established at the national and global levels. Before we discuss these systems, we need to understand how diplomacy relates to other key terms and concepts, such as national interest, national security and foreign policy.

A diplomatic mission is an organization like no other. Its members live and work away from home, and the line between their professional and personal lives is blurred to an extent most outsiders do not fully understand or appreciate. In the average workplace, a supervisor is not concerned with what employees do at home. That is not the case in a diplomatic mission. Its staff is a community, and excessive drinking, a nasty divorce, threats of violence or a suicide is not just one family’s problem. It affects the section in which that person works, and often the entire mission. The chief of mission has not only authority over almost everyone at post, but also responsibility for their security and well-being. So managing such a workplace is a unique and daunting task, made even more difficult by being in a foreign country.

Consular work is perhaps the best example of diplomacy with a human touch, because consular officers touch people’s lives around the world every day, often in moments of great need, trauma or desperation. They serve on the front lines of diplomacy, guarding against threats far away from the home country’s physical borders. They protect those borders through the entry visas they decide to grant or deny, and assist home-country citizens in harm’s way. They provide what are known as cradle-to-grave services, including everything from issuing reports of birth abroad to visiting detained or imprisoned compatriots to issuing death certificates. Consular matters affect every bilateral relationship, and their impact is felt globally. Consular work will test you as an individual, including your ability to empathize while fairly applying laws and procedures.

This chapter considers the repatriation of French women and girls in the midst of the moral panic of trafficking. Advocates for repatriation justified this protocol with reference to regulatory aims: protecting the vulnerable from exploitation, guarding borders against undesirables, and managing the sexual order of nations. International conventions and French national law designated the consulate as the body responsible for returning trafficking victims to France; by authorizing or denying repatriation, the consul functioned as a powerful agent of migration control. Consuls focused their efforts on trafficking victims while placing consenting prostitutes in a category apart, although in practice, this line was not so easy to draw. Vulnerability did not always track neatly with youthfulness, passivity, or moral purity. In addition, vulnerability occurred in a wide range of exploitative labor arrangements, including but not limited to prostitution.

This chapter focuses on the experience of Hong Kong refugees in Macau. It addresses the role the British consulate in Macau played in refugee management and intelligence networks, explaining how the enclave was an important base and a connecting node for British operations. This chapter argues that Macau played an important supportive role to many in and from Hong Kong from late 1941 to the end of the war. It allowed for escapees to reach unoccupied China, for a great number of refugees to receive assistance, for intelligence to be gathered and for resistance activities to be coordinated. The chapter highlights the significant experience of colonial transplantation that allowed the British to keep a foothold in South China and facilitated the reoccupation of Hong Kong.