A message from the Chair
This section was first started by Richard Bourne to give a monthly update for readers and supporters of The Round Table journal on developments leading up to the centenary celebrations of our journal (started in the Edwardian era).
Due to its popularity, it is now being continued by the new Chair of the editorial advisory board, (known since the early twentieth century as the Moot), Stuart Mole.
View the messages by selecting any of the links below:
January 2012
I start the New Year in Cambridge, at Sidney Sussex College where The Round Table is holding its post-CHOGM conference. A weak winter sun lights up the College's old stonework and its neatly-manicured quadrangles. This is an old Puritan college, whose most famous student was Oliver Cromwell (though he apparently preferred sport to study). After his death and the end of a rather different Commonwealth in 1660, the Lord Protector's body was dug up by the servants of a restored monarchy. His decaying cadaver was hanged at Tyburn and his severed head stuck on a pole in Whitehall (though it is safe to assume that Cromwell didn't feel a thing). Centuries later the withered bonce came into the possession of the college. This awesome relic of the Commonwealth was then buried somewhere beneath the chapel, in what the Master and Fellows hope will be its final and undisturbed resting place.
This January we gather to dissect the Commonwealth of Nations, recently returned from its summit (or Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting - CHOGM) in Western Australia. The Perth CHOGM has attracted widely divergent reviews. Some (including the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Kamalesh Sharma) count it a 'landmark' summit, firmly setting the Commonwealth on the path of renewal and reform. Others are much gloomier. This is puzzling, and we spend the first day of the conference on a detailed analysis of CHOGM's outcomes (or outputs, as one speaker wisely advises).
By the second day of the conference, there is a much more united and positive view about the achievements of Perth. The negative perceptions, it seems, are rooted in something more than a tally of boxes successfully ticked.
First, the handling of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) Report ("A Commonwealth of People: Time for Urgent Reform") was disastrous. The report was not released into the public domain until exasperated EPG members took matters into their own hands and started distributing copies themselves. The treatment of this group of genuinely eminent Commonwealth figures - most of whom had taken the trouble to travel to Australia especially to present their report - was seen as cavalier and consideration of their report by Foreign Ministers perfunctory. Although Heads of Government later rescued the situation, making sure that the report's recommendations were treated with greater seriousness, the damage was done. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that a report of this complexity and importance ought to have merited far better preparation and analysis than was apparent in Perth. And the frustration and disappointment of - at the very least - a missed opportunity lingers on.
The second source of negativity arises from the considerable scepticism that the Commonwealth has the digestive capacity, the collective will or the necessary leadership to tackle the major challenges of implementation facing the association.
- First, there is the fate of the 43 recommendations of the EPG report (nearly half the total) remitted to Foreign Ministers for their consideration and recommendation. EPG member Sir Ron Sanders is not alone in fearing that these proposals will be "kicked into the high grass".
- Second, there is the public consultation agreed by leaders on the proposed Commonwealth Charter. This is supposed to be a pan-Commonwealth exercise, organised nationally in each member country, and engaging civil society and the general public. With February looming, there is no indication that this has started; and yet, on the current timetable, it is due to be concluded by March. This is clearly an impossibility.
- Third, the Commonwealth's democracy and human rights watchdog, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), received a highly welcome make-over in Perth, with new direction, enhanced powers and new membership. Three months on, though, it has yet to meet; and has not yet selected its new Chair (who must work with the Secretary-General on other pressing mandates). The report which spells out CMAG's new role (and which was presented to, and accepted by, Heads of Government in Perth) remains under lock and key in Marlborough House (the home of the Commonwealth Secretariat), despite assurances that it would be made public.
There is much more on the reform agenda than these three issues, important though they are. And time is not on the Commonwealth's side. The world cannot stand still - and global challenges cannot be suspended - while the Commonwealth leisurely picks its way through its 'to do' list.
The harsh reality is that 2012 will be the make or break year - and 'implementation' will be the single watchword.
Stuart Mole