Table of Contents
Introduction
The Commonwealth of Nations, normally known as the Commonwealth, is a sui generis political association of 53 member states, nearly all of the former territories of the British Empire.
The chief institutions of the organization are the Commonwealth Secretariat, which focuses on intergovernmental aspects, and the Commonwealth Foundation, which focuses on non-governmental relations between member states.
The Commonwealth dates back to the first half of the 20th century with the decolonization of the British Empire through increased self-governance of its territories.
It was originally created as the British Commonwealth through the Balfour Declaration at the 1926 Imperial Conference, and formalized by the United Kingdom through the Statute of Westminster in 1931.
The current Commonwealth of Nations was formally constituted by the London Declaration in 1949, which modernized the community, and established the member states as “free and equal”.
The human symbol of this free association is the Head of the Commonwealth, currently Queen Elizabeth II, and the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting appointed Charles, Prince of Wales to be her designated successor, although the position is not technically hereditary. The Queen is the head of state of 16 member states, known as the Commonwealth realms, while 32 other members are republics and five others have different monarchs.
Member states have no legal obligations to one another. Instead, they are united by the English language, history, culture and their shared values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law. These values are enshrined in the Commonwealth Charter and promoted by the quadrennial Commonwealth Games.
The Commonwealth comprises 53 countries, across all continents. The members have a combined population of 2.4 billion people, almost a third of the world population.
The land area of the Commonwealth nations is about 31,500,000 km2 (12,200,000 sq mi), or about 21% of the total world land area. 1)
Origins and History
Queen Elizabeth II, in her address to Canada on Dominion Day in 1959, pointed out that the confederation of Canada on 1 July 1867 had been the birth of the “first independent country within the British Empire”.
She declared: “So, it also marks the beginning of that free association of independent states which is now known as the Commonwealth of Nations.”
As long ago as 1884 Lord Rosebery had described, while visiting Australia, the changing British Empire, as some of its colonies became more independent, as a “Commonwealth of Nations”.
Conferences of British and colonial prime ministers occurred periodically from the first one in 1887, leading to the creation of the Imperial Conferences in 1911.
The Commonwealth developed from the imperial conferences. A specific proposal was presented by Jan Smuts in 1917 when he coined the term “the British Commonwealth of Nations” and envisioned the “future constitutional relations and readjustments in essence” at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 by delegates from the Dominions as well as Britain.
The term first received imperial statutory recognition in the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, when the term British Commonwealth of Nations was substituted for British
Empire in the wording of the oath taken by members of parliament of the Irish Free State.
Adoption and formalisation of the Commonwealth – In the Balfour Declaration at the 1926 Imperial Conference, Britain and its dominions agreed they were “equal in status, in no way subordinate one to another in any aspect of their domestic or external affairs, though united by common allegiance to the Crown, and freely associated as members of the British Commonwealth of Nations”. The term “Commonwealth” was officially adopted to describe the community.
Decolonisation and self-governance – After the Second World War ended, the British Empire was gradually dismantled. Most of its components have become independent countries, whether Commonwealth realms or republics, and members of the Commonwealth.
There remain the 14 mainly self-governing British overseas territories which retain some political association with the United Kingdom. In April 1949, following the London Declaration, the word “British” was dropped from the title of the Commonwealth to reflect its changing nature.
Burma (also known as Myanmar, 1948) and Aden (1967) are the only states that were British colonies at the time of the war not to have joined the Commonwealth upon independence.
Former British protectorates and mandates that did not become members of the Commonwealth are Egypt (independent in 1922), Iraq (1932), Transjordan (1946), British Palestine (part of which became the state of Israel in 1948), Sudan (1956), British Somaliland (which united with the former Italian Somaliland in 1960 to form the Somali Republic), Kuwait (1961), Bahrain (1971), Oman (1971), Qatar (1971), and the United Arab Emirates (1971).
Declining roles – The postwar Commonwealth was given a fresh mission by Queen Elizabeth in her Christmas Day 1953 broadcast, where she envisioned the Commonwealth as “an entirely new conception – built on the highest qualities of the Spirit of Man: friendship, loyalty, and the desire for freedom and peace”.
That role was no longer militarily or financially feasible, as Britain’s withdrawal from Greece in 1947 had painfully demonstrated. Britain itself was now just one part of the NATO military alliance in which the Commonwealth had no role apart from Canada.
The ANZUS treaty of 1955 linked Australia, New Zealand, and the United States in a defensive alliance, with Britain and the Commonwealth, left out.
Republics – On 18 April 1949, Ireland formally became a republic in accordance with the Irish Republic of Ireland Act 1948. Because it did this, it was automatically excluded from the Commonwealth. The issue came to a head in April 1949 at a Commonwealth prime ministers’ meeting in London. Under the London Declaration, India agreed that, when it became a republic in January 1950, it would accept the British Sovereign as a “symbol of the free association of its independent member nations and as such the Head of the Commonwealth”.
The London Declaration is often seen as marking the beginning of the modern Commonwealth. Following India’s precedent, other nations became republics, or constitutional monarchies with their own monarchs, while some countries retained the same monarch as the United Kingdom. 2)
Structure and Organization
Head of the Commonwealth – Under the formula of the London Declaration, Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of the Commonwealth, a title that is by law a part of Elizabeth’s royal titles in each of the Commonwealth realms, the 16 members of the Commonwealth that recognize the Queen as their monarch. When the monarch dies, the successor to the crown does not automatically become Head of the Commonwealth.
However, at their meeting in April 2018, Commonwealth leaders agreed that Prince Charles should succeed his mother as the head. The position is symbolic, representing the free association of independent members, the majority of which (31) are republics, and five have monarchs of different royal houses (Brunei, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malaysia, and Tonga).
Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting – The main decision-making forum of the organization is the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), where Commonwealth heads of government, including (amongst others) prime ministers and presidents, assemble for several days to discuss matters of mutual interest.
CHOGM is the successor to the Meetings of Commonwealth Prime Ministers and, earlier, the Imperial Conferences and Colonial Conferences, dating back to 1887. There are also regular meetings of finance ministers, law ministers, health ministers, etc. Members in arrears, as special members before them, are not invited to send representatives to either ministerial meetings or CHOGMs.
The head of government hosting the CHOGM is called the Commonwealth Chairperson-in-Office and retains the position until the following CHOGM. After the most recent CHOGM, in London, UK, from 18 to 20 April 2018 the UK’s prime minister, Theresa May, became the Chairperson-in-Office and will continue to hold the title until the next CHOGM, scheduled to take place in Rwanda in 2020.
Commonwealth Secretariat – Marlborough House, London, the headquarters of the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Commonwealth’s principal intergovernmental institution. The Commonwealth Secretariat, established in 1965, is the main intergovernmental agency of the Commonwealth, facilitating consultation and co-operation among member governments and countries. It is responsible for member governments collectively.
The Commonwealth of Nations is represented in the United Nations General Assembly by the secretariat as an observer. The secretariat organizes Commonwealth summits, meetings of ministers, consultative meetings and technical discussions; it assists policy development and provides policy advice, and facilitates multilateral communication among the member governments. It also provides technical assistance to help governments in the social and economic development of their countries and in support of the Commonwealth’s fundamental political values.
The secretariat is headed by the Commonwealth Secretary-General who is elected by Commonwealth heads of government for no more than two four-year terms.
The secretary-general and two deputy secretaries-general direct the divisions of the Secretariat.
The present secretary-general is Patricia Scotland, Baroness Scotland of Asthal, from Dominica, who took office on 1 April 2016, succeeding Kamalesh Sharma of India (2008–2016).
The first secretary-general was Arnold Smith of Canada (1965–75), followed by Sir Shridath Ramphal of Guyana (1975–90), Chief Emeka Anyaoku of Nigeria (1990–99), and Don McKinnon of New Zealand (2000–2008).
The Rt Hon Patricia Scotland QC is the sixth Commonwealth Secretary-General. She was born in Dominica and was their candidate for the post at the 2015 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. She is the second Secretary-General from the Caribbean and the first woman to hold the post.
Commonwealth citizenship and high commissioners – In recognition of their shared heritage and culture, Commonwealth countries are not considered to be “foreign” to each other, although the technical extent of this concept varies in different countries.
In addition, some members treat resident citizens of other Commonwealth countries preferentially to citizens of non-Commonwealth countries. Britain and several others, mostly in the Caribbean, grant the right to vote to Commonwealth citizens who reside in those countries.
Performance
The Association of Commonwealth Universities is an important vehicle for academic links, particularly through scholarships, principally the Commonwealth Scholarship, for students to study in universities in other Commonwealth countries.
The Commonwealth Games, a multi-sport event, is held every four years; Birmingham is set to be the host for 2022 Commonwealth Games.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is responsible for maintaining the war graves of 1.7 million service personnel that died in the First and Second World Wars fighting for Commonwealth member states. Founded in 1917 (as the Imperial War Graves Commission), the Commission has constructed 2,500 war cemeteries and maintains individual graves at another 20,000 sites around the world.
The Commonwealth of Learning (COL) is an intergovernmental organization created by the Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning/distance education knowledge, resources, and technologies.
The Commonwealth Local Government Forum (CLGF) is a global local government organization, bringing together local authorities, their national associations and the ministries responsible for local government in the member countries of the Commonwealth.
