The Commonwealth and its Members
The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of sovereign states which have formed the Commonwealth with partnership to boost their development and advance world peace and justice.
The association has member countries all over the globe, including rich and poor, large and small. The historic link is their common use of the English language and the common culture inherited from their colonial past. This has bequeathed to them similar systems of law, education and government, shared cultural traditions, and the sense of belonging to a family of nations.
All Commonwealth countries accept Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as the symbol of their free association and thus Head of the Commonwealth. The apex of the associationıs activities is the two-yearly meeting of Commonwealth Heads of Government, where the policy and activities of the Commonwealth are decided. (...)
The Commonwealth has no constitution or charter, but members commit themselves to the core statements of belief set out by Heads of Government. (...)
Members: The Commonwealth has 53 member countries with a total population of one-and-a-half billion people. It comprises one-third of the worldıs states and one-quarter of its people. Thirty-two member countries are republics. Sixteen are constitutional monarchies which recognise The Queen as their Head of State. In each of these (except Britain), she is represented by a Governor-General. Five countries have national monarchs. These are Brunei Darussalam, Lesotho, Malaysia, Swaziland and Tonga.Source: The Commonwealth Yearbook 1996 - Copyright ©Hanson Cooke Ltd 1996
Prepared by Michael A. Riccioli
We would like to thank Mr. Peter Emmett for having given us full permission to use extracts from The Commonwealth Yearbook