Deciding On CHOGM Venue Two Years Ahead Should Be Discouraged Says Commonwealth Expert
October 17, 2013
Two years is a long time and much could happen in that period to change the attractiveness of a Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) venue, a Commonwealth Expert said recently, referring to the 53 member organisation’s decision to controversially declare Sri Lanka with its failing human rights record host of the 2013 summit.
Sir Ronald Sanders
“The process gives hostages to fortune. While countries could indicate their desire to host a summit, it would be both practical and desirable for the decision on the venue to be taken only within a year before the meeting by a process of the Secretary General taking soundings from governments about the countries that have offered themselves,” said SirRonald Sanders, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London.
Saunders was delivering a lecture entitled ‘The Commonwealth in troubling times’ to mark the 100th Anniversary of the Charter of the Bristol Commonwealth Society at the Mansion House, Bristol on 12 October 2013.
Saunders added that he had recommended to the last Summit in 2011 as a member of the Eminent Persons Group of the Commonwealth, that the position of the two year chair in office should be abolished. “This recommendation was rejected. But, had it been accepted, the Commonwealth would not now be subjected to the criticism of the President of Sri Lanka being Chair-in-Office of the Commonwealth while he and his government defend themselves in the United Nations Human Rights Council,” Saunders noted.
He said it was understandable that Canada was leading the call for a boycott of the Sri Lanka based Summit, since it was Ottawa that had led the Commonwealth membership in its first resistance against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. “This stand by the Canadian government is entirely consistent with its record on upholding Commonwealth values. In 1961, it was Canada that first declared the racist policies of the government of South Africa to be incompatible with Commonwealth values and prompted it to withdraw from the Commonwealth,” he said.
Saunders said it was also Canada in the 1980s that stood alone of all the OECD countries in imposing sanctions on South Africa to help force the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. “Canada also took a lead role alongside African, Asian and Caribbean States in the 1980s and 1990s to bring an end to the minority Ian Smith regime in Southern Rhodesia and later in the struggle to end Apartheid in South Africa,” he notes in his lecture.
