Commonwealth značenje | engleski leksikon

The (British) Voluntary association of 51 countries and their dependencies that once formed part of the British Empire and are now independent sovereign states. They are all regarded as “full members of the Commonwealth”. Additionally, there are some 20 territories that are not completely sovereign and remain dependencies of the UK or another of the fully sovereign members, and are regarded as “Commonwealth countries”. Heads of government meet every two years, apart from those of Nauru and Tuvalu; however, Nauru and Tuvalu have the right to participate in all functional activities. The Commonwealth has no charter or constitution, and is founded more on tradition and sentiment than on political or economic factors.
Queen Elizabeth II was the formal head but not the ruler of 16 member states in 1994; 5 member states had their own monarchs; and 30 were republics. The Commonwealth secretariat, headed from Oct 1989 by Nigerian Emeka Anyaoko (1933– ) as secretary general, is based in London. The secretariat's staff come from a number of member countries, which also pay its operating costs.
On 15 May 1917 Jan Smuts, representing South Africa in the imperial war cabinet of World War I, suggested that “British Commonwealth of Nations” was the right title for the British Empire. The name was recognized in the Statute of Westminster 1931, but after World War II a growing sense of independent nationhood led to the simplification of the title to the Commonwealth.
Body politic founded on law for the common “weal” or good. Political philosophers of the 17th century, such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, used the term to mean an organized political community. In Britain it was specifically applied to the regime (the Commonwealth) of Oliver Cromwell 1649–60.
Unincorporated community in Virginia (USA).

The official name of some states in the United States (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky), and associated territories (Puerto Rico).
A state; a body politic consisting of a certain number of men, united, by compact or tacit agreement, under one form of government and system of laws.