Latest content: Democracy, government and law

Deepening intra-Commonwealth trade and investment – and using these opportunities to empower women and young people as entrepreneurs – can help drive economic growth, create jobs and increase the prosperity of Commonwealth citizens. The theme of Commonwealth Trade Review 2018 is ‘Strengthening the Commonwealth Advantage: Trade, Technology, Governance’.

The Commonwealth is far from achieving gender equality when it comes to women in political decision-making roles.

The Judicial Resource Book on Violence Against Women for Asia deepens our understanding of the varying forms of VAWG and raises awareness of the important role that the judiciary can play in tackling them. It is designed to be used by judicial officers and other professionals as a practical contribution towards promoting justice and fairness in the judicial process for women who have been victims of violence.

Law is always in need of reform. To enhance justice and legal efficiency, and contribute to socio-economic development, reform needs to be of a high standard. Across the Commonwealth, there is a need for information and guidance about the different ways in which law reform can be undertaken.

In 1976, recognising that there was a shortage of trained legislative drafters in the Commonwealth, the Commonwealth Secretariat first published a legislative drafting manual aimed at informing those practitioners with little or no previous experience in the skill, and assisting those with some experience who had never considered why drafting needed to be undertaken in a particular way.

The Commonwealth at the Summit: Volume 4 brings together the full text of declarations, statements and communiqués issued by Commonwealth Heads of Government between 2007 and 2015.

Corruption undermines the rule of law, good governance, and sustainable growth and development. Most countries have prohibited all forms of corruption, yet corruption persists due largely to a lack of appropriate strategies and structures to inhibit it. Such strategies include effective and comprehensive legal frameworks to prevent, punish and take the profit out of corruption.

Democratic decentralisation through ‘conventional’ institutions of local government is facing increasing challenges, whether from financial pressures, questions of representativeness, difficult central-local relations and from a perhaps growing belief that local government has failed to realise its potential and there may be better ways of achieving societal goals.

The report of the Commonwealth Observer Mission for the Pakistan elections, held 11 May 2013.

Across the Pacific local councils take a variety of different forms, ranging from traditional village structures to fullyfledged municipalities.

This user-friendly, practical handbook is designed to assist Registrars in the day-to-day performance of their duties, thereby contributing to improving the administration and efficiency of final/appellate, regional and international courts and tribunals.The handbook is divided into four sections: institutional matters; information and document management; the needs of court and tribunal users; and eradicating inefficiencies and abuses of process.

The Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group for the Zambia General Elections.

The Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group for the Seychelles Presidential Election.

Estimates suggest that decentralisation is currently being pursued in over 80 per cent of developing countries worldwide.

This publication reviews the effects of the reforms implemented under the ‘new public management’ programme on the roles and conditions of service of permanent secretaries in the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.

This publication reviews the effects of the reforms implemented under the ‘new public management’ programme on the roles and conditions of service of permanent secretaries and directors in Belize, Guyana, Jamaica and St Lucia.

The Report of the Commonwealth Observer Group for the Uganda Parliamentary and Presidential elections.

This publication reviews the effects of the reforms implemented under the ‘new public management’ programme on the roles and conditions of service of permanent secretaries and directors in Botswana, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia.

This report covers the work of the 53-nation Commonwealth and its principal intergovernmental organisation, the Commonwealth Secretariat, from July 2007 to June 2009.

Human Rights in the Commonwealth presents a comprehensive survey of the state of human rights, as measured by each country’s formal engagement with the main international standards and norms, across the fifty-three member countries of the association.

Until recent times many smaller Commonwealth jurisdictions have turned to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London as their final court of appeal.

Decentralisation is now taking place in the public administrations of most countries of the world.

E-government and e-governance are truly the wave of the future.