Commonwealth of Nations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Flag

Headquarters Marlborough House, London, United Kingdom
Official language English
Membership 54 sovereign states (list)
Leaders
 -  Head of the Commonwealth Queen Elizabeth II
(since 6 Feb. 1952)
 -  Secretary-General Kamalesh Sharma
(since 1 Apr. 2008)
 -  Chairperson-in-Office Patrick Manning
(since 27 Nov. 2009)
Establishment
 -  Balfour Declaration 18 November 1926 
 -  Statute of Westminster 11 December 1931 
 -  London Declaration 28 April 1949 
Area
 -  Total 31,462,574 km² 
12,147,768 sq mi 
Population
 -  2005 estimate 1,921,974,000 
 -  Density 61.09/km² 
158.2/sq mi
Website
thecommonwealth.org

The Commonwealth of Nations, normally referred to as the Commonwealth and previously as the British Commonwealth, is an intergovernmental organisation of fifty-four independent member states, all but two of which were formerly part of the British Empire.

The member states co-operate within a framework of common values and goals as outlined in the Singapore Declaration.[1] These include the promotion of democracy, human rights, good governance, the rule of law, individual liberty, egalitarianism, free trade, multilateralism and world peace.[2] The Commonwealth is not a political union, but an intergovernmental organisation through which countries with diverse social, political and economic backgrounds are regarded as equal in status.

Its activities are carried out through the permanent Commonwealth Secretariat, headed by the Secretary-General, and biennial Meetings between Commonwealth Heads of Government. The symbol of their free association is the Head of the Commonwealth, which is a ceremonial position currently held by Queen Elizabeth II. Elizabeth II is also monarch, separately and independently, of sixteen Commonwealth members, which are informally known as "Commonwealth realms".

The Commonwealth is a forum for a number of non-governmental organisations, collectively known as the Commonwealth Family, which are fostered through the intergovernmental Commonwealth Foundation. The Commonwealth Games, the Commonwealth's most visible activity,[3] are a product of one of these organisations. These organisations strengthen the shared culture of the Commonwealth, which extends through common sports,[4] literary heritage, and political and legal practices. Due to this, Commonwealth countries are not considered to be "foreign" to one another.[5]

History

Origins

While not all current members were once British colonies, the Commonwealth is generally considered to be the successor to the British Empire. In 1884, while visiting Australia, Lord Rosebery described the changing British Empire, as some of its colonies became more independent, as a "Commonwealth of Nations".[6]

Conferences of British and colonial Prime Ministers had occurred periodically since 1887, leading to the creation of the Imperial Conferences in 1911.[7] The formal organisation of the Commonwealth developed from the Imperial Conferences, where the independence of the self-governing colonies and especially of dominions was recognised. The Irish Oath of Allegiance, agreed in 1921, included the Irish Free State's "adherence to and membership of the group of nations forming the British Commonwealth of Nations". 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". These aspects to the relationship were eventually formalised by the Statute of Westminster in 1931 (Australia, New Zealand and Newfoundland had to ratify the statute for it to come into effect; which Newfoundland never did and Australia and New Zealand did in 1942 and 1947 respectively).

Remaining members gain independence

After World War II, the British Empire was gradually dismantled to just 14 remaining British overseas territories, still held by the United Kingdom today, partly owing to the rise of independence movements in the subject territories and partly owing to both the British Government's straitened circumstances resulting from the cost of the war and a progressive domestic movement to decolonise. In April 1949, following the London Declaration, the word "British" was dropped from the title of the Commonwealth to reflect its changing nature.[8] Burma (also known as Myanmar, 1948), and Aden (1967) are the only former colonies not to have joined the Commonwealth upon post-war independence. Among the former British protectorates and mandates, those which never became members of the Commonwealth are Egypt (independent in 1922), Iraq (1932), Transjordan (1946), Palestine (most of which became the state of Israel in 1948), Sudan (1956), British Somaliland (which became part of Somalia in 1960, although it has since declared itself independent as Somaliland), Kuwait (1961), Bahrain (1971), Oman (1971), Qatar (1971), and the United Arab Emirates (1971).

Members with heads of state other than the Sovereign

The issue of countries with constitutional structures not based on a shared Crown, but which wished to remain members of the Commonwealth, came to a head in 1948 with the passage of the Republic of Ireland Act 1948 in which Ireland renounced the sovereignty of the Crown[9] and thus left the Commonwealth. However, the Ireland Act 1949 passed by the Parliament of Westminster gave citizens of the Republic of Ireland a status similar to that of citizens of the Commonwealth in UK law. The issue was resolved in April 1949 at a Commonwealth prime ministers' meeting in London. Under this 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, Head of the Commonwealth".

The other Commonwealth countries in turn recognised India's continuing membership of the association. At Pakistan's insistence, India was not regarded as an exceptional case and it was assumed that other states would be accorded the same treatment as India.

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, but their monarchies developed differently and soon became fully independent of the British monarchy. The monarch of each Commonwealth realm, whilst the same person, is regarded as a separate legal personality for each realm.

New Commonwealth

As the Commonwealth grew, Britain and the pre-1945 dominions (a term formally dropped in the 1940s) became informally known as the "Old Commonwealth", and planners in the interwar period, like Lord Davies, who had also taken "a prominent part in building up the League of Nations Union" in the United Kingdom, in 1932 founded the New Commonwealth Movement, of which Winston Churchill was the president.^{[citation needed]} The New Commonwealth was a society which aimed at the creation of an international air force to be the arm of the League of Nations, to allow nations to disarm and safeguard the peace. Some of these ideas were reflected in the United Nations Charter, drafted in Dumbarton Oaks (21 August to 7 October 1944) and San Francisco (25 April to 26 June 1945).^{[citation needed]}

After the war, particularly since the 1960s when some of the Commonwealth countries disagreed with poorer, African and Asian (or New Commonwealth) members about various issues at Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings.^{[citation needed]} Accusations that the old, "White" Commonwealth had different interests from African Commonwealth nations in particular, and charges of racism and colonialism, arose during heated debates about Rhodesia in the 1960s and 1970s, the imposition of sanctions against apartheid-era South Africa in the 1980s and, more recently, about whether to press for democratic reforms in Nigeria and then Zimbabwe.^{[citation needed]}

The term "New Commonwealth" has also sometimes been used in the United Kingdom (especially in the 1960s and 1970s) to refer to recently decolonised countries, which are predominantly non-white and developing. It was often used in debates about immigration from these countries.[10]