Commonwealth of Peoples
The Commonwealth of Peoples is a single, discrete actor in international affairs and thus functions for the purposes of most foreign powers as a single sovereign state. However, according to its own laws and history, the Commonwealth is an intergovernmental and supranational union of ten sovereign states established in its final form by the New Amsterdam Treaty of 2006.
The Commonwealth has a common foreign policy. With the exception of the Danaan embassies to Pantocratoria and Excalbia and the embassies each member state has to each other member state, all foreign diplomatic missions of Commonwealth members were placed under the control of the Commonwealth Secretariat for External Affairs shortly after the establishment of the Commonwealth. Ambassadors to the Commonwealth are accredited to the President of the Commonwealth Council of State and are initially received in the Castillo de Madero in Madero Cabello although most embassies are actually located in New Amsterdam.
The Commonwealth also has a common currency, the dollar, although no member state is required to adopt it and some have preferred to keep their own local currencies. However, the economies of all members do stand behind the dollar through the Commonwealth Economic Council. Custom checks have been abolished at some of the Commonwealth's internal borders and passport control has been abolished at nearly all of them, creating a single space of mobility for work, travel and investment.
The Commonwealth's activities touch on all areas of public policy. In some, such as agriculture and commerce is resembles a lose federation. In others, such as domestic policy, it resembles an international organization. However, in the areas of foreign policy and defense, the Commonwealth functions as a single state.
Status
The Commonwealth of Peoples has an almost completely unified foreign and defense policy. It is a single discrete actor in almost every area of international affairs. It accredits and received ambassadors, declares war and makes peace and signs treaties all on its own authority. No other supranational or alliance has this level of unity in international affairs.
The entire Commonwealth does not share a Chief of State, although the President of the Council of State formally presides over the organization. However, one individual, Owain ap Cunedda, is Emperor of Nabarro Abarca, High King of the Resurgent Dream and King of Gandara, Jagiella, Sahor and Marlund, uniting these members with one another in a way in which they are not united with the other Commonwealth member states.
The entire Commonwealth also does not share a currency, although the Commonwealth Dollar is the official currency of all but three states. However, one of those three is the Resurgent Dream, the most economically powerful member.
The most important difference between the Commonwealth and a nationstate, however, is that the individual Commonwealth members remain masters of the treaties. This means that all Commonwealth institutions only exist as creatures of treaties voluntarily signed by the members, that any member can withdraw provided they give five years notice and that no act of the Commonwealth can give to the body any additional powers over members beyond what has been freely surrendered by treaty. Because of this, more than any other consideration, it is probably most accurate to classify the Commonwealth as a sui generis (unique) actor on the international scene.
Current issues
Because the Commonwealth is of recent origin, the number one issue confronting it is to forge a common identity which will allow it to act in a united and decisive fashion and to maintain its integrity as an organization. The Commonwealth is making some small attempt to justify itself to ordinary people using its miniscule public relations budget. However, most of the responsibility for earning the Commonwealth the permanent loyalties of its inhabitants will fall on the politicians in each member state who negotiated the formation of the Commonwealth and on the Commonwealth's ability to work effectively and provide results.
Another major issue is the division of responsibility between large states and small ones. Large states feel that it is undemocratic for the the billion plus people of the Resurgent Dream or Nabarro Abarca to have a vote equal to that of Hipolis with its population of fewer than a million. Small states, for their part, feel that the Commonwealth is an organization not of people but of equal sovereign states and that it is among states that power should be divided democratically. Correspondingly, many small states feel that the veto power of the three largest members on issues of war and peace is undemocratic.
The Commonwealth also faces the issue of how to incorporate the foreign policies of member states into the new common foreign policy. As things currently stand, a number of exceptions have been made for individual states. The Resurgent Dream has been allowed to keep its own embassies in Pantocratoria and Excalbia and to continue accepting Pantocratorian and Excalbian embassies in its own right. Likewise, Finara has been allowed to maintain friendly, although strictly non-military, relations with Iesus Christi even though the Commonwealth as a whole views that nation in a hostile light.
The Commonwealth also struggles with the issue of defining the person in regard to such controversial subjects as non-human sentience, the unborn, artificial intelligence and persons in a permanent vegetative state. While no nation in the Commonwealth has the sort of anti-non-human genocidal policies found in the Reich, only the Resurgent Dream and Hipolis make sentient species a protected category like race or gender. Gandara, Sahor and Laneria are the only members which recognize a woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion, while most of the other members recognize the fetuses right to life instead. The Resurgent Dream is the only nation to fully recognize artificial intelligences. All members recognize that a person retains their full natural dignity as a person in a permanent vegetative. However, exactly what this means in practice varies from member to member.
The Commonwealth is also troubled by the past human rights abuses of Adoki and Marlund and by the fear that security risks, international criminals and people sympathetic to the Sons of the Reformation and comparable organizations might have positions of trust under the Commonwealth or its member governments. These issues are currently being investigated by the Truth and Justice Committee headed by Beatrice Wake.
Origins and history
One of the most serious problems confronted by the Commonwealth is that its members do not all share a common origin or history prior to the foundation of the Commonwealth. In fact, many Commonwealth nations had histories of military conflict with one another. Laneria had been at war with both Adoki and Marlund during World War II. Adoki and Marlund had been at war with one another during the First Ambaran War. The Resurgent Dream and Adoki had been at war with Marlund during the Second Ambaran War. Nabarro Abarca and Laneria had been at war with one another in the First World War.
Within the larger Commonwealth, however, some of the members have much closer ties. Nabarro Abarca, the Resurgent Dream, Gandara, Marlund, Sahor and Jagiella all share a monarch. In the case of Gandara, Sahor and Jagiella, this is because they were initially settlements in the territory of Sahor, which the Resurgent Dream took over in response to Pantocratorian Ambaran prompting. In terms of shared loyalty, this has led some to classify the Commonwealth as consisting of three concentric circles. In the center are the Resurgent Dream, Gandara, Jagiella and Sahor, linked more closely with one another than with any other nation. The second circle consists of these nations as well as Nabarro Abarca and Marlund, not as close as the inner circle but still closer than the Commonwealth as whole. After this comes to entire Commonwealth, sharing no loyalty to a single Chief of State.
Ultimately, the Commonwealth members do not have a shared past. If the Commonwealth is to be a success, they must instead base their unity in a shared future, in shared ideals and in a genuine commitment to one another. Given the intense controversies plaguing the Commonwealth in its early stages, this remains uncertain.
Demographics
The Commonwealth of Peoples is a densely populated, culturally and ethnically diverse union of 10 member states. The populations of these member states speak over 100 different languages, belong to over a hundred different definable ethnic groups and follow a wide variety of different religious traditions. The current population of the Commonwealth is 4.661 billion. The population is rising steadily and is expected to pass 5 billion by the end of 2006.
