Disputes Regarding Mode of Address
Letters of credence are the most formal form of exchange between states short of state visits, with formal modes of address such as titles and styles being used. This may be significant; for example, when Italy deposed the Haile Selassie of Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and claimed his title, Emperor of Abyssinia, for the King of Italy (Victor Emmanuel III), not all states recognized this claim (see diplomatic recognition), and some letters of credence were addressed to the "King of Italy and Emperor of Abyssinia," others to the "King of Italy." King George VI, as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, addressed his letters of credence to the "King of Italy"; however, as King of Ireland, on the advice of the Irish government of Éamon de Valera, he addressed his letters of credence to the "King of Italy and Emperor of Abyssinia," because the Irish Free State, unlike the United Kingdom, recognized the King of Italy's imperial title.
Another dispute revolved around the name of the Irish state. Between 29 December 1937 and 2 December 1999, the Irish constitution laid claim to the territory of the entire island of Ireland. The constitution also gave the Irish state the name Ireland. The United Kingdom rejected the territorial claim and also adopted a policy of referring to the state using forms such as "Republic of Ireland" and "Eire" (an anglicised spelling of the name for Ireland in the Irish language) which did not imply Irish sovereignty over the whole island. Consequently, on the advice of Her Majesty's Government, Queen Elizabeth II for a time addressed letters of credence to the President of Ireland by name (e.g., "President Robinson," "President McAleese," etc.). This compromise was agreed to by the governments of both states. However, as part of the Belfast Agreement, Ireland dropped its claim to the territory of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom now accepts its official name, Ireland, and its letters of credence are now addressed to the President of Ireland.
Traditionally monarchs, particularly European ones, address each other in formal communications in the singular e.g. ‘I being desirous’ but address Presidents and other Heads of State in the majestic plural e.g. ‘We being desirous’. They also close formal letters with ‘Your good brother/sister’ for sovereigns, but with ‘Your good friend’ for other leaders.
Read more about this topic: Letter Of Credence
Famous quotes containing the words mode and/or address:
“Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one’s ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonising preoccupation with self.”
—Iris Murdoch (b. 1919)
“Another success is the post-office, with its educating energy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious sentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or gluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea over land and comes to its address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a fine meter of civilization.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)