Honorary consuls, many unpaid, increasingly vital to nations’ missions

To reach Chile’s diplomatic mission, pull up to a modest Dutch Colonial in Brighton and duck into the cellar through a side door. Follow a low-ceilinged passageway through an antique laundry room, where the owners used to wash the dogs, and into a tiny office where the Garber boys once played Ping-Pong.

Today, this room is protected by the Vienna Convention. And the owners, Paul and Philip Garber, twin seventy-six-year-old brothers, are the longtime consuls of the Republic of Chile, though they are not, in fact, Chilean. ...

...More than half of the fifty-seven consulates serving Massachusetts and much of New England are headed by honorary consuls, and, worldwide, their numbers are estimated to be in the thousands. Many are lawyers, executives, and academics who can advance the nations’ economic interests abroad by connecting the countries to researchers, investors, and business opportunities.

“There’s no doubt about it that it’s becoming more important,’’ said Alan Henrikson, director of diplomatic studies at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. “I would say that globalization is the main factor.’’

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