A message from the Chair

Officially the centenary of The Round Table journal (started in the Edwardian era) does not start until 2010. But our preparations, as you can see from our website, are running on apace.

And I thought it would be good to provide a monthly update for readers and supporters of our journal, starting in July 2009 after my re-election for a final year as Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot).

Richard Bourne

View the messages by selecting any of the links below:

December 2009

The captains and kings have departed, and Port of Spain, site of the 21st Commonwealth summit attended by Derek Ingram¹, veteran commentator, has returned to its usual traffic jams, sense of humour and Caribbean vibe. What, following the most spectacular opening ceremony I have ever witnessed at a meeting of Commonwealth Heads, was actually achieved?

The Port of Spain gathering, from 27 to 29 November, will go down as the climate change summit, and the summit which admitted Rwanda as a 54th member state. But it was actually a lot more. It produced a blizzard of documents, some of which may be forgotten on the planes home; a new decade-end review of the Commonwealth, equivalent to those of 1989-91 and 1999-2002; a solution to the angst-ridden struggle over national subscriptions to the Commonwealth Secretariat, which will now be looked at again at five-yearly intervals; a review of the terms of reference of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, the rules committee; and agreement to summit locations for the next six years - Perth, Australia (2011), Sri Lanka (2013) and Mauritius (2015).

Whew! No-one can say that a Commonwealth summit addressed by Ban Ki-Moon, President Sarkozy and a Danish Prime Minister desperate to get leaders to turn up to Copenhagen, let alone a summit which has welcomed the Francophone Rwanda and risks involvement with the chaotic politics of the Great Lakes and Congo, is a 'too timid' association any longer. But will it be able to deliver? At the concluding press conference Secretary-General Sharma appealed to journalists to tell the Secretariat how to manage its PR better. Journalists in Port of Spain, suffering from cancelled press conferences and the ignominy of learning of Rwanda's admission from Kigali, may have much to say.

For The Round Table, whose board had earlier this year discussed whether or not there should be another review of the Commonwealth - the 1991 review underpinned the Harare Declaration on democracy and rights, but the 2002 exercise produced little - we had the pleasure of a great seminar for James Mayall's book of essays on the contemporary Commonwealth², and a fine presentation by one of our centenary Patrons, Sir Shridath Ramphal. The seminar and dinner took place at the Institute of International Affairs, University of the West Indies, with the support of Tim Shaw, its Director.

Sonny Ramphal expressed the hope that the Irish Republic, which had left the Commonwealth just before the London Declaration of 1949, may soon rejoin. Referring to the significant role played by the Irish Free State, as empire became Commonwealth, this was an oblique comment on Rwanda's entry. Might not a post-junta Burma be welcome too?

Richard Bourne

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¹ www.thecommonwealth.org/news/216979/301109ingramcommunique.htm
² www.routledge.com/books/The-Contemporary-Commonwealth-isbn9780415482776