Law of the Commonwealth

Abstract

The most important factor in Commonwealth relations is the principle of Commonwealth consultation and co-operation which has given birth to what is generally known as the inter se doctrine of the Commonwealth association.¹ Accordingly the member states of the Commonwealth do not consider each other as foreign countries. Nevertheless, membership of the Commonwealth association does not necessarily affect the primary legal capacities and personality of member states any more than does membership of an international organisation, and indeed, has less effect than membership of some organisations, for example, the EEC, which has a slight federal element, albeit on a treaty basis. The emphasis is on a community of states in which the absence of a rigid legal basis of association is compensated by the bonds of common origin,² colonial experience and solidarity of mutual interests. It follows that Commonwealth relations, which if subsisting between any of the independent member states of the association and foreign countries would be regarded as international relations governed by international law, are flexibly conducted on the basis of the regular and effective machinery of consultation and exchange of information. In 1946 the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Meeting put on record their conviction that the existing methods were ‘preferable to any existing arbitral machinery’ which ‘would not facilitate, and might even hamper, the combination of autonomy and unity which is characteristic of the Commonwealth and is one of their great achievements’.³