Is the Commonwealth an International Organisation?

Abstract

THE Commonwealth Nations has, late, seemed to baffle the writers on the Law Nations, or at least to be regarded by them as no-go area. A general work contains no more than passing reference to it, if that. Or one encounters defeatist observation such as that Eagleton: What this Commonwealth is it would be hard to say. It has no constitution, no no headquarters. ' Conversely, one finds, in the most recent and exhaustive the works on Commonwealth law, but one or two references to law. 2 This is not to complain that the writers are at fault, or have given short measure. They are concerned with other matters. Certainly, too, the Commonwealth relationship is unusual, perhaps unique. 3 But what exactly is it, today? Eagleton's despairing cry was raised in 1957, and things have changed since then. very name has almost disappeared, British having been dropped as Anglo-centric, and of Nations as redundant. Within the Commonwealth except in the Commonwealths Australia, and, now, the Bahamas and Dominica it is enough, in most contexts, to speak simply The Commonwealth. Outside, it obstinately remains British. title suggested by Patrick Gordon Walker, one its principal latter-day architects iih the political sphere, was The Euro-Afro-Asian Commonwealth.4 That idea has not caught on. changing name indicates fundamental changes in the nature the Commonwealth association. These will be examined as this study progresses, so far as significant for its main purpose, which is to assess the status the contemporary Commonwealth in the field. A convenient approach is to consider whether it is an international organisation, term in common use in law. question has been foreshadowed. Fawcett, in 1963, described the Commonwealth as a kind