The Modern Commonwealth at 60: Identity and Relevance in Perspective

C'est un plaisir et un privilège d'être de retour à l'Institut Charles V.

Mes félicitations à Mélanie Torrent et Virginie Roiron pour maintenir la combustion de la flamme du Commonwealth en France. Je sais bien que ce n'est pas facile. Même dans les pays membres du Commonwealth, c'est un véritable défi que de garder le profil public du Commonwealth visible. Pour avoir une conférence de ce genre dans un état non-membre, et ce pour la deuxième fois, est une réalisation remarquable.

Two recent events may have helped to sharpen the Commonwealth’s profile in this country.

One was President Sarkozy’s brief appearance at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Trinidad and Tobago last November. President Sarkozy, together with Prime Minister Rasmussen of Denmark and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, addressed a special session of the CHOGM on Climate Change on 27 November. If anybody had told me eight months ago that a French President would attend a Commonwealth Summit, I would probably consider the person insane! But he did -- and a great deal more media interest was generated in CHOGM as a result.

The other development was the admission at the same meeting, though well after the French President’s plane had taken off, of Rwanda as the Commonwealth’s 54^th member. Here was a nation without any historical or administrative link with another Commonwealth country being admitted on an exceptional basis. I doubt if this would have passed unnoticed at the Quai d’Orsay. I can certainly confirm that it has been noted with interest at the Organisation Internationale de la Francphonie.

So one could perhaps legitimately claim that in 2009, at the age of 60, far from joining the ranks of pensioners, the modern Commonwealth has been making waves.

This makes the theme of this Conference very topical. What is the relevance of the Commonwealth at 60? How has its identity evolved over these six decades? Is that identity still distinct and recognisable or is it becoming blurred?

Most of you will have seen the report of the Royal Commonwealth Society on The Commonwealth Conversation, published on Commonwealth Day earlier this month. This has been billed as the largest ever public consultation on the future of the Commonwealth. Its main conclusion is that bold reform and greater investment are needed if the Commonwealth is to fulfil its potential.

Among the recommendations made in the Report are that the Commonwealth must “walk the talk” on the values and principles it espouses; that it needs to prove its worth by measuring and demonstrating its impact; that it must exploit its particular strengths and not spread its resources too thinly; that its must communicate its identity, purpose and achievements in a more simple and comprehensible way; and that it must reach out to a wider audience.

There is not much in the Commonwealth Conversation report that is dramatically new. There are also elements that could be considered matters of opinion, not fact. But the Conversation has definitely been helpful in enhancing awareness of the Commonwealth and there is much to be welcomed in its conclusions, especially the call for greater resources for an organisation that has “a workforce half a percent of the United Nations and an annual budget less than one percent of the UK Department of International Development.”

Where one could seriously take issue with the report is with the implicit suggestion that the Commonwealth is, somehow, in need of urgent life-support. Having worked for the organisation for two decades now, that is not a diagnosis to which I subscribe.

Indeed, I believe it is fair to claim that the Commonwealth has defied the prophets of doom and survived many obituaries in order to remain relevant and credible. It has done so by consistently evolving and adapting to changing needs and new challenges over the last sixty years. It must, of course, continue to do so.

The London Declaration of 1949 was itself very early testimony to the fact that the Commonwealth has sought to keep up with the times. It revealed an organisation that was not short on ambition, one that was willing to take a bold leap to remain contemporary and relevant.

The identity of the Commonwealth is, of course, strongly rooted in its historical origins. If there was no British Empire, there would not have been a Commonwealth. But 1949 showed that the Commonwealth was not afraid to take a giant leap from orthodoxy to modernity.

The British Commonwealth died that year and a new multi-polar Commonwealth was born. It was a price that Britain itself did not find too high to pay in order to retain the membership of the Commonwealth’s largest member, India. It turned out to be a winning investment, as it opened the way to many more independent republics in the years to come. From the eight in 1949, we are 54 today.

The coherence and resilience of the association was tested at least twice again in later years over issues that pitted Britain, the ‘mother country’ so to speak, against other members, threatening in each case to break the Commonwealth apart.

The first was over the issue of UDI in Rhodesia in 1965, which led to the first ever emergency summit of Commonwealth leaders, and the first ever such meeting taking place outside the UK, in Lagos in 1966.

The second was about two decades later when the UK, under Mrs Thatcher, again found itself completely isolated over the issue of apartheid in South Africa.

In each case, the Commonwealth managed to achieve consensus and to prevent a dangerous rupture, showing maturity and farsightedness.

In 1989, when Ostpolitik and Perestroika were triggering profound changes in international relations, and every country and every international organisation was seeking to review its role and relevance, the Commonwealth instituted a high-level appraisal by ten Heads of Government, under the stewardship of the Prime Minister of Malaysia.

This culminated with the Report on the Commonwealth in the 1990s and Beyond, that in turn led to the Harare Declaration at the 1991 CHOGM in Zimbabwe, which redefined the Commonwealth’s fundamental values. Harare represented the view that the Commonwealth of the post Cold-War era would work to promote democracy, fundamental human rights, the rule of law, the independence of the judiciary, just and honest government, gender equality and sustainable development.

Of those values, the one that stood out and became the new flagship for the Commonwealth was democracy. Unlike what happened after the 1971 Singapore Declaration, this time the Commonwealth meant business. Within weeks of the Harare summit, President Kaunda – the father of independent Zambia – lost the first multi-party elections in his country and accepted the people’s verdict.

Since 1991, a dozen countries have moved from being one-party or military-ruled states to multi-party democracy. Some have suffered a relapse, but have been made to pay a heavy price for it. By and large, every country that has been suspended from the Commonwealth has sought to engage with it and to be reinstated.

The Harare Declaration was incomplete without the Millbrook Action Programme that came four years later. Millbrook made it an offence to seriously and persistently violate the Harare Principles and created a watchdog in CMAG. The Commonwealth became a trailblazer in applying peer pressure, with a sanctions regime for derogations from constitutional rule that even the UN does not possess to this day, that some other inter-governmental organisations, including the OIF, have tried to emulate with mixed success, and that yet others will probably never dare to contemplate.

Even before the Millbrook Action Programme was adopted and CMAG created, Commonwealth leaders showed their seriousness of purpose by summarily suspending Nigeria from membership for the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and his fellow Ogoni activists. That the Commonwealth’s largest African country could be so treated, with another African leader – Nelson Mandela – leading the censure campaign, was another bold and identity-staking move by the Commonwealth, the tremors of which were felt far and wide.

The tremors have since been felt, to varying degrees on the Richter Scale, by other countries – by Sierra Leone, Fiji, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. Fiji remains suspended from the Commonwealth as we speak.

Hand in hand with the promotion of democracy has been the development of Commonwealth ‘good offices’, an area where the Commonwealth has also proven its comparative advantage. That countries support – and actually seek – the organisation’s engagement to help address internal conflict situations is a measure of the enormous trust that the Commonwealth can generate.

1995 was a defining CHOGM not just because Nigeria was suspended and CMAG was created. It was also the CHOGM at which the Commonwealth admitted Mozambique, opening its doors to a country that some felt did not fit naturally.

The same summit asked for an intergovernmental committee on Commonwealth membership to be established, whose recommendations were considered at the 1997 CHOGM in Edinburgh. That summit also considered applications from Rwanda, Yemen and the Palestine National Council. They were all left on the shelf.

It took fourteen years for Rwanda to gain admission, and not before a second, higher-level review of membership criteria and procedures presided over by former Jamaican Prime Minister P J Patterson, and a much fuller discussion by Heads of Government of the Patterson Committee’s recommendations at Kampala in 2007.

Cameroon, Mozambique and now Rwanda are in the Commonwealth – some diehards feel that the Commonwealth is diluting its identity. Others believe that it is reshaping that identity and that the Commonwealth should not hesitate to open its doors more widely to those who can add value. That debate will go on well into the night. What I can say is that Mozambique and Cameroon have been serious and active members of the Commonwealth -- and I have no doubt that Rwanda will be the same.

What are the core elements of a Commonwealth identity? We have already talked about common historical roots for most countries, which have also meant a common language and shared institutions and traditions; I spoke about consensus as an operating procedure, which makes the value of such a diverse grouping – representing every continent, every level of development, every interest group, nations large and small, every race and culture -- self-evident. I mentioned that democracy had become a flagship, including a key determinant of whether an applicant country is allowed to join the association. I also alluded to the trusted partner status that the Commonwealth enjoys.

There are other elements that one could highlight. One of the reasons the Commonwealth has been successful and effective is that it is not over-formalised. Unlike at the UN, there is no Commonwealth Charter. Commonwealth meetings promote direct and spontaneous dialogue, not set-piece interventions. Much of the CHOGM now takes place in Retreat mode, where the atmosphere is very informal and where no record is kept, except of the outcomes.

Bureaucratic procedures at the Commonwealth Secretariat are generally far less complex and time-consuming than in some other international organisations. The Commonwealth Fund for Technical Cooperation, for example, responds to requests – especially from small states -- relatively swiftly and flexibly, while also respecting the need for cost-effectiveness and for demonstrable results.

This brings me to another defining characteristic of the Commonwealth, which is the fact that well over half its membership consists of small states. Ask any Prime Minister of a small state in the Commonwealth and they will tell you how important the Commonwealth is to them – this is not just because they can rub shoulders with their counterparts from the larger states on a basis of equality, but because the Commonwealth can assist their countries in areas where better endowed organisations often say ‘no’.

The Commonwealth’s relevance and identity are also integrally tied up with its civil society dimension. It must be remembered that in the same breath that leaders created the Commonwealth Secretariat, they also established the Commonwealth Foundation, the most remarkable admission that relations among professional and civil society organisations, which the Foundation fosters and promotes, were just as important as those between member governments.

Over the years, space for civil society in the Commonwealth has constantly expanded, with the Commonwealth People’s Forum now an established feature of the landscape that surrounds CHOGM.

It is equally relevant to acknowledge that since 1997 the Commonwealth has sought to enhance the profile of the corporate sector and promote commercial and investment links. The Commonwealth Business Council is now a well-established and active organisation and intra-Commonwealth trade now accounts for some 23% of global trade. The proportion for investment flows within the Commonwealth is similar.

What I have sought to portray is an organisation that considers identity a dynamic concept, not a static one, one that retains its intrinsic attributes but also moves with the times. It does so precisely in order to maintain relevance and credibility.

However, I would be less than realistic if I were to suggest that the Commonwealth’s relevance and effectiveness were beyond reproach and to be taken for granted. The organisation does have to deal with many challenges that have the potential to undermine it.

One such challenge is ensuring the unwavering commitment of its larger members, many of which feel they have other fish to fry. While the Commonwealth enjoys special attention in its smaller states, there is often a lack of strong political commitment visible in some larger countries. There is also a lot of public apathy and ignorance, as the Commonwealth Conversation has confirmed.

Another challenge is the constant struggle to keep the organisation relevant to all its members, and to maintain the delicate balance between democracy and development. The old Commonwealth puts particular emphasis on the comparative advantage the Commonwealth enjoys in promoting democracy and good governance. The small states and least developed countries consider Commonwealth development assistance to be the bread and butter issue for them.

The constraint of resources is another constant bugbear. The combined budget of the Commonwealth is of the order of about £45 million. As the RCS pointed out, that is one percent of the annual aid budget of the UK Department for International Development. Indeed, it is smaller than one desk officer in DfID handles. Howsoever cost-effective we might be, how far can we really go on a shoestring budget?

J'ai soulevé un certain nombre de questions ce matin, touchant à la fois des questions liées à l'identité et à la pertinence du Commonwealth. Je suis impatient d’écouter les présentations qui suivront durant cette session, et surtout provenant des gens bien plus érudits que moi-même. J'espère que je vous ai donné quelques éléments de réflexion et que je n’ai pas vous laissé encore plus confus !

Merci.