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THE ROLE
OF THE LEGAL ADVISER IN MODERN DIPLOMATIC SERVICES - Stanko Nick
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 INTRODUCTION
Towards the end of the 1980s Yugoslavia
started falling apart. At that time I was the chief legal adviser in the Federal
Secretariat for Foreign Affairs. One of the last out of many interesting and pleasant jobs
I had in that capacity was, by the way, participation in the first conference organised by
the CSCE on peaceful settlement of disputes, here in Malta at the beginning of 1991. A few
months later it was obvious that the disintegration of the country was imminent, so I
decided to leave Belgrade for my native city of Zagreb and accept the position of the
first legal adviser in the newly created Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the newly
independent Republic of Croatia.
Upon my arrival I had a long interview with Professor Šeparovic’ who was then
foreign minister. He asked me many questions about myself and my background, my past work
and working experience. In those circumstances of armed conflict and strong mistrust I
found it quite normal. As the minister seemed satisfied with my replies, I decided to ask
him one question, almost as conditio sine qua non. I said that in my previous job as chief
legal adviser, I always had the privilege to openly speak my mind to my boss, the federal
foreign minister, who sometimes took my advice, and sometimes not. That was his right, of
course, but my right and even my duty was to give him my opinion straight. I emphasised
that I considered this way of working essential not only for my functioning, but also as a
condition for any normal diplomatic service. The minister agreed fully and we were in
business.
Let me add that I took care to reproduce the elements of this conversation to all those
who succeeded Professor Šeparovi’in the post of Croatian foreign minister. They
all agreed verbally with me, but some seem to have forgotten it soon afterwards...
I have chosen this true story as an opener to my subject, because it brings us
immediately to the very basic element of the role and the position of the legal adviser in
any diplomatic service in the world. The legal adviser usually has a rather unique status
in the structure and the organogram of the Foreign Ministry. Mostly, he is subordinated
only to the minister himself and his deputy. Very often he is the head of the service
(division, sector, bureau or whatever it might be called) of international legal affairs,
treaties, contentieux, etc. Sometimes he enjoys even fuller freedom and is completely
independent from any organisational framework: at the disposal of the whole Foreign
Service for opinion and advice, but responsible only to the very top of the ministry. Most
probably he would have a correspondent diplomatic title (usually that of an ambassador).
Sometimes the legal adviser does not even come from the diplomatic service, but stems from
a previous successful academic career (almost without exception that of an eminent
professor of public international law). Such a solution obviously has the advantage of a
more profound theoretical knowledge of international law, but also the disadvantage of the
lack of operative skills and practical diplomatic experience. Some countries try to
overcome this problem by employing two persons, associating the services of a
distinguished scholar to that of a senior diplomat who has international law background.
This seems to be quite a good combination.
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