Walter Alison Phillips

“ Sometimes short signed memoranda, known as a vote or opinion, are attached to the protocol, stating the reasons that have governed the Powers in question in agreeing to a given conclusion. Individual Powers may express their dissent in two ways: either by placing such dissent on record, as Lord Stewart did at Laibach, or by withdrawing altogether from the sessions of the congress, as Spain did at Vienna and Great Britain at Verona. ”

“ This is done sometimes by an elaborate exchange of diplomatic correspondence issuing in preliminary conventions, sometimes by the summoning of conferences, e.g. those at Vienna in 1855 preliminary to the congress of Paris in 1856.
Procedure.—When the congress assembles the first business is the verification of powers, which is done by a. commission specially appointed to examine the credentials of the plenipotentiaries. It is usual for the Powers, for obvious practical reasons, to be represented by two or three plenipotentiaries. If the foreign minister himself attend, he needs no credentials ”

“ All this has been obviated by the rule observed at the congress of Berlin (1878) , according to which the plenipotentiaries took their seats at a horse-shoe table in the alphabetical order of the states they represented, according to the French alphabet.
The presidency of the congress is by courtesy reserved for the minister for foreign affairs of the state in which the meeting is held; if, however, he decline to serve, a president is elected ”