I was asked to give my opinion on the proposed Charter for the Commonwealth this week (amusingly and inaccurately as a representative of 'the youth').
The first thing that strikes one about the whole thing is the utter ghastliness of the language and structure used - just the preamble reads like a cross between a child's acrostic and a PR man's wet-dream. An aesthetic insult, but also an unneeded signpost to the tensions inherent within the whole project. A couple of sentences of essentially inarguable content would seem far more sensible than the paragraph after paragraph of questionable drivel that they have gone for.
The body of the whole thing suffers from similar problems. Written in classic bureaucrat-ese, it lies somewhere between a political document intended to rouse and unite people towards a cause and a legal text. It seems to want to do both, and fails at each. The quasi-legalistic formulation makes it unreadable and irrelevant to a normal human being - not great qualities in a document defining an organisation already struggling for relevance. As a legal document it is a nightmare given the poor drafting and vague concepts asserted (some of which, such as 'cultural rights' are outright dangerous). To quote Lord Bingham, the rule of law requires that "the law be clear, accessible, and intelligible".
Of course, the sad elephant in the room of the legalistic formulation is that every word in the thing is utterly unenforceable as the Commonwealth is toothless (tusk-less?). That's a reality I wouldn't particularly wish to highlight were I writing the thing. Instead of following the established way of doing things - a way that appeals only those already within the political system - why do the drafters not go a bit freestyle? Write something short and simple that will make sense to anybody and which will allow most people to see why the ideas put forward may be relevant to them.
A further problem arises for the document out of the quasi-legal structure, namely the order of the points made. The numbering of the points is, I'm sure, not meant to reflect their importance, but in a symbolic document symbolism is probably pretty important. The rule of law, freedom of speech, these all come in at the double digits - economic development though, that's number two. I would be the last to discount the importance of economic development for the wellbeing of people; I would just argue that perhaps the rule of law and freedom of expression underly said development and, more importantly, are greater aims for humanity to at least give lip-service to.
On a slightly more political note, the formulation of said point two is really quite an unpleasant one. It prescribes economic development unrestrained by any principles. Is that really what they want the Commonwealth to stand for? China has had fantastic economic development, but does that trump the the obscene inequality in where the proceeds of that development have been concentrated, the organs farmed from prisoners, the homeless peasants, the burning monks? Economic growth that furthers the interests of the poor and the weak, that I can support. Or are we all still pretending to believe in trickle-down economics and the ability of bits of paper filled with 'rights' and 'aspirations' but backed up by no action to protect the downtrodden from the powerful?
That, though, is one of the major problems with the Commonwealth. There is an argument for it being a useful organisation by championing the common people of its member states, providing support and opportunities for them and protecting them by actively working to enforce the rule of law. As it is, though, I can't see it as anything more than a talking shop for powerful people to carve up their exploitation opportunities (with a few nice bits, like scholarships, stuck on the side). Point two highlights this as it provides an excuse for all the wicked things that the politicians and businessmen would like to do. "Sure we are abusing our people a little, but it is necessary so that we can have economic development..." (But I'm sure that never crossed the minds of the nice politicians and businessmen that drafted the thing even once.)
For all the talk of rights and rule of law in the Charter, until that talk is backed up by genuine action to make sure that every man and woman living within the Commonwealth is equal before the law then the thing is not even worth the paper it is written on.
