A permanent representative is the head of a diplomatic mission to one of various international organisations. The best known of the organisations to which states send permanent representatives is the United Nations (see United Nations Permanent Representative); of these, the most high-profile ones are those assigned to headquarters in New York City, but member states also appoint permanent representatives to the other UN offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi.
Permanent representatives are often colloquially described as "ambassadors"; however, although a permanent representative typically holds the personal rank of an ambassador, he or she is accredited to an international organisation, and not to a head of state (as an ambassador would be) or to a head of government (as a high commissioner would be).
UNESCO has permanent delegates heading the diplomatic missions to the organisation, not permanent representatives. A person can also be appointed as a permanent representative of a country to NATO.
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Famous quotes containing the word permanent:
“Let a man learn to look for the permanent in the mutable and fleeting; let him learn to bear the disappearance of things he was wont to reverence; without losing his reverence; let him learn that he is here, not to work, but to be worked upon; and that, though abyss open under abyss, and opinion displace opinion, all are at last contained in the Eternal Cause.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)