Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting Research Articles

CHOGM 2022: Rwanda hosts a well-organised revival of Commonwealth rituals

ABSTRACT After postponements in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was finally held for two days on 24–25 June 2022 at Kigali, Rwanda. In spite of warnings as to the suitability of the venue and of possible diversion by arguments about global controversies, Kigali hosted an efficient, friendly and colourful week of consultations, with the leaders’ meetings preceded by four non-governmental forums, several significant side events, and pre-CHOGM ministerial meetings. The Republics of Togo and Gabon were accepted as new members. Secretary-General Baroness Patricia Scotland was retained to complete a second four-year term.

The murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa

Ken Wiwa heard of his father's execution in November 1995 while he was in New Zealand, as part of his campaign against the Nigerian government's planned judicial murder of his father and eight other Ogoni leaders. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting was due to be held in Auckland the following week. At the time of his death Saro-Wiwa was the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP), which sought to challenge the situation whereby a community which had contributed to the exchequer an estimated $30 billion in oil revenue found itself without basic amenities, living in a wretched environment, and being daily assaulted by oil exploration. He had accused Shell Oil company, which had a very close relationship with the Nigerian government, of 'waging an ecological war against the Ogoni'. After the executions, Nigeria was roundly condemned by international leaders, as was Shell itself.

Achieving the Promise to Leave No Girl behind in Commonwealth Countries

ABSTRACTThe education Sustainable Development Goal includes a commitment to ensuring that all children – regardless of their gender and circumstances within which they are born – should complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in April 2018 re-affirmed the importance of 12 years of quality education for all, particularly marginalised groups including disadvantaged girls. To inform these commitments, this paper aims to situate the current evidence on girls’ education across the 53 countries in the Commonwealth, with a particular focus on low- and lower-middle income countries where the challenges are the greatest. It identifies the current status of access to school and learning, and highlights trends in domestic and aid financing to support the targets. It then presents evidence on interventions aimed at tackling barriers to girls’ access and learning to achieve the commitments. The paper argues a need not only to focus on gender parity in education – i.e. an equal proportion of girls and boys in school and learning – but also to pay greater attention to the more ambitious target of gender equality, which requires an end to discrimination if a truly level playing field is to be achieved.

CHOGM 2018: A Right Royal Affair

ABSTRACT The 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) was eventful and significant for the Commonwealth and for the host country, the UK. It witnessed an unprecedented rolling out of royalty and royal residences and secured the succession of Prince Charles as the next head of the Commonwealth. It provided the UK with an opportunity to consolidate a traditional old constituency at a time when Brexit is looming large and creating serious uncertainty. A number of significant decisions were taken across the policy agenda and a High Level Review Group on the governance of the Commonwealth Secretariat, set up at the previous CHOGM but unable to complete its work in time, was re-energised and given an expanded mandate. This article notes that the reforms will be important, but questions whether they will be enough to keep the Commonwealth relevant and effective in the face of new global challenges.

The Commonwealth is Getting its Second Wind

This article looks forward to the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in London, April 2018, in light of reflection on the nature of the Commonwealth (‘club, church or beehive?’) and its legacy. Special attention is paid to the significant anniversaries of 2015—Magna Carta, United Nations, end of the Second World War, London Declaration and 50 years of the Commonwealth Secretariat. The author also considers the agendas for CHOGM and the implications for the Commonwealth of Britain’s exit from the European Union (Brexit).

Can nation branding be successful tool for the practice of public diplomacy? A Maltese case study

This article asks whether nation branding can be a successful tool in achieving public diplomacy goals using the recent experience of Malta in the field of cultural diplomacy as a case study. The approach of the small island state towards developing nation branding in order to address public diplomacy aims through politics, public relations and culture is assessed. This analysis is carried out in the framework of the occurrence of a series of international events the country has been preparing to organize and celebrate. These include its participation at the EXPO in Milan in 2015, the hosting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in the same year, presiding over the Council of the European Union (EU) in 2017 and hosting the European Capital of Culture in Valletta in 2018. The increased attention Malta has given to nation branding in order to support its practice of public diplomacy will be reviewed in relation to that of its international relations since Independence in 1964 and its adhesion to the EU in 2004.

LGBTI organizations navigating imperial contexts: the Kaleidoscope Trust, the Commonwealth and the need for a decolonizing, intersectional politics

This article presents the first sustained social analysis of the Kaleidoscope Trust, the UK’s leading social movement organization on LGBTI issues internationally, and its engagement with the Commonwealth – particularly through forming The Commonwealth Equality Network, comprising national NGOs. A contribution is made to sociological and critical analysis of transnational LGBTI movements, through argument for a new analytical framework combining the sociology of human rights with a decolonizing, intersectional approach – beyond the division between optimistic theories extending Western LGBTI progressive politics, or pessimistic postcolonial queer analyses. To investigate organizations’ strategies leading to the Malta 2015 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, the research utilizes sources of data including event observation and website sources, initiating analysis of online environments. The analysis deploys social movement theory to examine how and why Kaleidoscope selected the Commonwealth as a political opportunity structure to engage through strategies of framing and articulation of human rights. Invention of The Commonwealth Equality Network, shaped online and offline by imperial relations between core and periphery, is analysed via transnational public sphere and critical theories and argued to indicate a significant restructuring of global queer politics. It is contended that a consistently decolonizing and intersectional articulation of human rights is needed.

Out of Malta, Beginning Anew

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Malta witnessed high drama in the election of Patricia Scotland as the organisation’s new Secretary-General. This article notes, among other things, that it once again demonstrated the myth that the Secretary-General is chosen on the basis of consensus. In the view of the author, although the conference discussed a number of issues of substance and importance, there is an urgent need to give the Secretariat new collective purpose and vision. Malta, argues the article, provided an important point of departure, and the next CHOGM, to be held in Britain in 2018, offers Commonwealth organisations and civil society an opportunity to make their own unique and enhanced contributions.

Renewing the Commonwealth—A Reform Agenda for a New Secretary-General

A new Secretary-General is to be elected at the Malta Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2015. He—or she—must be a change agent, thought-leader, motivator and manager. This article gives a brief overview of this important position in global affairs and underlines the need for realistic but effective leadership. It sets an agenda for the new Secretary-General, especially in addressing the issues of violent extremism, terrorism and migration.

Introduction: The Commonwealth and the European Union: Norms, Partnerships, Circulations

After Edinburgh in 1997 and Malta in 2005, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) on 27–29 November 2015 will again take place in a European Union (EU) member state.1 As the debate on...

Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983–2009 by Maryse Jayasuriya (review)

Maryse Jayasuriya. Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983-2009. Plymouth: Lexington, 2012. Pp. x, 183. $82.04 CDN. Maryse Jayasuriya's Terror and Reconciliation: Sri Lankan Anglophone Literature, 1983-2009, published relatively soon after Sri Lanka's separatist war ended in 2009, presents a deeply engaging account of twenty-seven-year conflict through literature of local and diasporic Sri Lankan writers. Stating that her study illustrates and examines capacity of literature respond what might seem be unimaginable circumstances, and imagine alternatives and a future beyond them (26), Jayasuriya synthesizes literary analysis, historical narrative, and political commentary with intent of exploring possibilities for reconciliation. In her introduction, Jayasuriya addresses production, reception, and possible impact of English creative writing in Sri Lanka, expressing her desire bring this literature to attention of Western academy but also attention of a Sri Lankan audience (17). implied international reader, she provides context, such as country's ethnic mix--which comprises seventy-four percent Sinhalese, eighteen percent Tamil, and eight percent Muslim--and its 1972 name change from Ceylon Sri Lanka, when Sinhalese was declared official language and Buddhism religion of state, predicating ethnic unrest mainly due language barrier for Tamils. (1) Moreover, Jayasuriya contextualizes literature through significant markers in history of ethnic conflict, such as riots of 1953, eruptions of violence in 1983 and 1988, intervention of Indian Peacekeeping Force (IPKF) in 1987 and their subsequent departure, intensified attacks and suicide bombings by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Norway ceasefire (2002-08), and final overthrow of LTTE in 2009. Jayasuriya states that sufferings of Sri Lankans have gone unnoticed by world due Sri Lanka being a small country and conflict not being on a major scale. Nevertheless, she mentions that the LTTE was proscribed as a terrorist organization by United States, United Kingdom, India, Canada, and most recently, European Union (15). (2) Since her book's publication, however, several events have drawn widespread attention Sri Lanka's politics. These include arrival of 449 Tamil migrants Canada in August 2010; Canadian Liberal Minister of Parliament Bob Rae flying Sri Lanka on a fact-finding mission in June 2009 and being turned back at Katunayake airport by Sri Lankan authorities; Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper boycotting 2013 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo, Sri Lanka, followed by deliberations by other leaders; and a United Nations resolution in 2013 calling for an investigation into human rights violations by Sri Lankan government during last stages of conflict--conducted by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay. For healing and reconciliation be possible, Jayasuriya writes, the wounds of all sides in conflict must be acknowledged (40). In chapter Mourning Terror: Memorials Conflict in Poetry and Film, she holds out hope that [t]he capacity of Sri Lankan Anglophone writing cut across ethnic lines has provided an important opportunity for Sri Lanka's ethnic communities mourn together (66). To that end, she reveals suffering and grief through poetry of local writers Jean Arasanayagam, Kamala Wijeratne, Anne Ranasinghe, Sivamohan Sumathy, Vivimarie Vanderpoorten, and Richard de Zoysa as well as short fiction of Neil Fernandopulle, Nihal de Silva, and Arasanayagam. Jayasuriya asks, Is there any healing possible for a people so inured--and perhaps so immune violence? (54). In her exploration of numerous works that communicate effects of trauma, she calls attention those that convey guilt, not only of perpetrators of violence, but also of silent and passive bystanders who look on, paralyzed by an internalized helplessness or fear of reprisal if they intervene. …

Are you willing to be made nothing? Is Commonwealth reform possible?

A new round of Commonwealth reform proposals commenced at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting of 2009. An ensuing report, titled A Commonwealth of the people: time for urgent reform, contained a long list of proposals that eventually resulted in 2013 in the adoption of the Commonwealth Charter. Many classic international organizations are in need of reform, but this is, of course, challenging. This new Commonwealth reform process will not lead to satisfying changes and will not make it a more relevant actor in global governance. The year 2015 marks the Commonwealth Secretariat's first half-century. We take this symbolic marker to push for a forward-looking exercise, arguing that because the true nature of the Commonwealth is often misunderstood, a better understanding of the organization is essential before embarking on any successful change-management project. In the article we identify four different kinds of Commonwealth: three of a �formal� nature (the official, bureaucratic and the people's Commonwealth) and a fourth �informal� one (Commonwealth Plus). By describing the potential of these four different kinds of Commonwealth, we can anticipate better the challenges with which the Commonwealth network is faced, both internal (including its mandate, its British imperial past and dominance, the organization's leadership and its membership) and external (other international organizations, other Commonwealths, rivalry with regional organizations and the rise of global policy networks). Consequently, this should lead to a better and more sustainable debate about the Commonwealth's future role in global governance.

The Commonwealth in 21st Century Focus

This article examines the health, working and prospects of the Commonwealth from the perspective of the second decade of the 21st century. After a brief survey of the organisation’s history from the London Declaration, it comments on the Eminent Persons Group, the Commonwealth Charter, the Sri Lanka Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and the role and attitude of the British government. It argues, against some recent critics, that the Commonwealth is not an organisation in crisis but one that has reached its maturity and is getting its second wind.

Losing an Empire and Building a Role: The Queen, Geopolitics and the Construction of the Commonwealth Headship at the Lusaka Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, 1979

The queen's role as the head of the commonwealth has evolved over the last 60 years. In this article, we explore the ways in which this position was constructed and negotiated through the queen's presence (and absence) at commonwealth conferences. Utilising the example of the Lusaka Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in 1979—a highly fraught meeting, the queen's attendance at which was hotly contested—we examine narratives present in newspaper and oral history accounts surrounding the queen's role. Placing this event in the context of the broader constitutional and political issues that have surrounded the headship since the creation of this ambiguous office in 1949, we explore the competing interpretations of the meaning of head of the commonwealth and the vexed question of who was responsible for advising the queen in this role. We argue that the example of the Lusaka summit shows that, far from being a crowned non-entity, the queen was an active agent, both shaping a constitutional role for herself that was separate from that as British monarch and becoming enrolled in broader geopolitical scripts.

The Commonwealth after Colombo: Can it Become Meaningful Again?

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) held in Colombo in 2013 was attended by fewer than half the number of Heads of Government. The “retreat” – created as a private meeting of Heads with only the Secretary-General present – was even less well attended by Heads, some of whom left the Meeting early. In part, this situation was due to the controversy that surrounded the hosting of the Meeting by the Sri Lankan government over its human rights record, but that is not the full explanation. In recent years, a North-South divide has crept into way that governments perceive the Commonwealth and its purposes. CHOGM itself has become devalued and has lost the special character that made it appealing to Heads. In arguing that the Commonwealth is in dire crisis, an initiative is proposed for the Commonwealth to be rescued at the 2015 CHOGM in Malta. A strong argument is made for a preparatory process involving Heads of Government representing Commonwealth regions and under the guidance of the Maltese Prime Minister to be launched immediately.

Negotiating with Apartheid: The Mission of the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group 1986

The 1985 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, meeting in the Bahamas, established an Eminent Persons Group to encourage dialogue towards the establishment of a non-racial and representative government in South Africa. The Group visited South Africa and met with leaders of the front-line states, government ministers and black leaders in South Africa and African National Congress leaders in exile. Its report was published as a Penguin Special in June 1986, reputedly the fastest book ever published and an immediate best-seller. The report painted a damning picture of apartheid and galvanised calls for full economic and financial sanctions. It demonstrated the distinctive strengths of the Commonwealth in world affairs.

The Contemporary Commonwealth

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsMalcolm FraserThis article is based on a speech delivered by the author at a seminar and dinner organised by the Round Table in collaboration with Murdoch University, Perth, during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting on 28 October 2011.

Editorial: The Commonwealth at its Turning Point: The EPG Report and CHOGM 2011

The report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) on urgent reform of the Commonwealth dominated the 2011 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth. It is now a seminal document in the ...

The Commonwealth: A Global Network for the 21st Century

This article, based on a lecture delivered in London, sets out why the Commonwealth is important and why it is ideally placed as a network for the future, with a unique role in the 21st century. It argues that the Commonwealth is the ‘world's best soft power network’. The author sets out how the Coalition government in Britain, headed by Prime Minister David Cameron, is actively upgrading its engagement with the Commonwealth and how it is committed to putting the ‘C’ back into the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The article also outlines the UK's hopes for the work of the Eminent Persons' Group, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group and the Perth Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

The Coalition and the Commonwealth

The UK Coalition government, coming to power in May 2010, has already shown a more positive and purposeful approach to the Commonwealth than any of its predecessors. There is every reason for optimism that this will be maintained. This article gives an outline of the work and special character of the Commonwealth and looks forward to the report of the Eminent Persons' Group, the Perth Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth's forthcoming Diamond Jubilee.