The Commonwealth of Nations

Commonwealth of Nations
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"The Commonwealth" redirects here. For other uses, see Commonwealth (disambiguation).
Commonwealth of Nations

Flag

The Commonwealth (blue = present members, orange = former members, green = suspended members)
Headquarters
Marlborough House, London, United Kingdom
Official language
English
Membership
54 sovereign states (list)
Leaders
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Head of the Commonwealth
Queen Elizabeth II(since 6 Feb. 1952)
-
Secretary-General
Kamalesh Sharma(since 1 Apr. 2008)
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Chairperson-in-Office
Patrick Manning(since 27 Nov. 2009)
Establishment
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Balfour Declaration
18 November 1926
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Statute of Westminster
11 December 1931
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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
Websitethecommonwealth.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".

Further Reading (not obligatory)

Contents[hide]
1 History
1.1 Origins
1.2 Remaining members gain independence
1.3 Members with heads of state other than the Sovereign
1.4 New Commonwealth
2 Objectives and activities
3 Structure
3.1 Head of the Commonwealth
3.2 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting
3.3 Commonwealth Secretariat
4 Membership
4.1 Membership criteria
4.2 Members
4.3 Applicants
4.4 Suspension
4.5 Termination of membership
5 Commonwealth Family
5.1 Commonwealth Foundation
5.2 Commonwealth Games
5.3 Commonwealth War Graves Commission
5.4 Commonwealth of Learning
5.5 Commonwealth Business Council
6 Culture
6.1 Sport
6.2 Literature
6.3 Political system
6.4 Symbols
6.5 Commonwealth citizenship
7 Similar organisations
8 See also
9 Footnotes
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
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[edit] History
[edit] Origins

The prime ministers of five members of the Commonwealth at the 1944 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference.
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 take effect— which Newfoundland never did. Australia and New Zealand did in 1942 and 1947 respectively.
[edit] 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 that 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).
[edit] Members with heads of state other than the Sovereign
The issue of countries with constitutional structures not based on a shared Crown but that wanted to remain members of the Commonwealth, came to a head in 1948 with 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.
[edit] New Commonwealth
As the Commonwealth grew, Britain and the pre-1945 dominions 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 aimed at 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]
[edit] Objectives and activities
The Commonwealth's objectives were first outlined in the 1971 Singapore Declaration, which committed the Commonwealth to the institution of world peace; promotion of representative democracy and individual liberty; the pursuit of equality and opposition to racism; the fight against poverty, ignorance, and disease; and free trade.[2] To these were added opposition to discrimination on the basis of gender by the Lusaka Declaration of 1979 (which mostly concerned racism),[11] and environmental sustainability by the Langkawi Declaration of 1989.[12] These objectives were reinforced by the Harare Declaration in 1991.
The Commonwealth's current highest-priority aims are on the promotion of democracy and development, as outlined in the 2003 Aso Rock Declaration,[13] which built on those in Singapore and Harare and clarified their terms of reference, stating, "We are committed to democracy, good governance, human rights, gender equality, and a more equitable sharing of the benefits of globalisation."[14] The Commonwealth website lists its areas of work as: Democracy, Economics, Education, Gender, Governance, Human Rights, Law, Small States, Sport, Sustainability, and Youth.[15]
The Commonwealth has long been distinctive as an international forum where highly developed economies (such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and New Zealand) and many of the world's poorer countries seek to reach agreement by consensus. This aim has sometimes been difficult to achieve, as when disagreements over Rhodesia in the late 1960s and 1970s and over apartheid in South Africa in the 1980s led to a cooling of relations between the United Kingdom and African members.
Through a separate voluntary fund, Commonwealth governments support the Commonwealth Youth Programme, a division of the Secretariat with offices in Gulu (Uganda), Lusaka (Zambia), Chandigarh (India), Georgetown (Guyana) and Honiara (Solomon Islands).
[edit] Structure
[edit] Head of the Commonwealth
Main article: Head of the Commonwealth

Queen Elizabeth II, current Head of the Commonwealth
Under the formula of the London Declaration, Queen Elizabeth II is the Head of the Commonwealth, a title that is currently individually shared with that of Commonwealth realms.[16] However, when the monarch dies, the successor to the crown does not automatically become Head of the Commonwealth.[17] The position is symbolic: representing the free association of independent members.[16] Sixteen members of the Commonwealth, known as Commonwealth realms, recognise the Queen as their head of state. The majority of members, thirty-three, are republics, and a further five have monarchs of different royal houses.
[edit] Commonwealth Heads of Government