Commonwealth, the (British)

Voluntary association of 53 sovereign (self-ruling) countries and their dependencies, the majority of which once formed part of the British Empire and are now independent sovereign states. They are all regarded as ‘full members of the Commonwealth’; the newest member being Mozambique, which was admitted in 1995. Additionally, there are 13 territories that are not completely sovereign and remain dependencies of the UK or one of the other fully sovereign members, and are regarded as ‘Commonwealth countries’. The ceremonial head of the Commonwealth is Queen Elizabeth II and (from 2008) its secretary-general is former Indian high commissioner to the UK, Kamalesh Sharma.

Heads of government meet every two years, apart from those of Nauru and Tuvalu; however, Nauru and Tuvalu have the right to take part in all functional activities. The Commonwealth, which was founded in 1931, has no charter or constitution, and is founded more on tradition and sentiment than on political or economic factors. However, it can make political statements by withdrawing membership; a recent example was Nigeria's suspension 1995–99 because of human-rights abuses. Fiji was readmitted in 1997, ten years after its membership had been suspended as a result of discrimination against its ethnic Indian community.

In 1917 Jan Smuts, representing South Africa in the Imperial War Cabinet of World War I, suggested that ‘British Commonwealth of Nations’ was the right title for the British Empire. The name was recognized in the Statute of Westminster in 1931, but after World War II a growing sense of independent nationhood led to the simplification of the title to the Commonwealth.

In 2000 Queen Elizabeth II was the formal head but not the ruler of 17 member states; 5 member states had their own monarchs; and 33 were republics (having no monarch). The Commonwealth secretariat, headed from 2000 by London-born Canadian Don McKinnon as secretary general, is based in London. The secretariat's staff come from a number of member countries, which also pay its operating costs.

The first countries of the old British Empire to gain independence were Canada (1867), Australia (1901), New Zealand (1907), and South Africa (1910), but their status was uncertain until defined by the Statute of Westminster (1931) which established the equal relationship between the four dominions and Britain.

Commonwealth ties, once important politically, militarily, and economically, are now mainly cultural and economic, although the latter have weakened considerably with the transformation of Empire into Commonwealth.