The high commissioner of the United Kingdom to Vanuatu is the United Kingdom's diplomatic representative to the Republic of Vanuatu.
As Vanuatu and the United Kingdom are fellow members of the Commonwealth of Nations, diplomatic relations between them are at government level rather than between heads of state. Thus, the countries exchange high commissioners rather than ambassadors.
In 2005 the British Government closed its High Commission in Port Vila. During this time British interests in Vanuatu were represented by the British high commissioner to Solomon Islands who was also accredited as High Commissioner to Vanuatu. The British High Commission in Port Vila is to reopened in summer 2019 with a resident high commissioner. [1]
Vanuatu maintains diplomatic relations with many countries, and it has a small network of diplomatic missions. Australia, France, Japan, New Zealand, the People's Republic of China, South Korea and the United Kingdom maintain embassies, High Commissions, or missions in Port Vila. The British High Commission maintained a continued presence for almost a century, though closed from 2005 until reopening in 2019.
A British High Commission is a British diplomatic mission, equivalent to an embassy, found in countries that are members of the Commonwealth of Nations. Their general purpose is to provide diplomatic relationships as well as travel information, passports, dual-citizenship information, and other services between Commonwealth states.
The British Western Pacific Territories (BWPT) was a colonial entity created in 1877 for the administration of a series of Pacific islands in Oceania under a single representative of the British Crown, styled the High Commissioner for the Western Pacific. Except for Fiji and the Solomon Islands, most of these colonial possessions were relatively minor.
In the Commonwealth of Nations, a high commissioner is the senior diplomat, generally ranking as an ambassador, in charge of the diplomatic mission of one Commonwealth government to another. Instead of an embassy, the diplomatic mission is generally called a high commission.
Malcolm Geoffrey Hilson OBE was High Commissioner of Vanuatu (1997–2000).