{"id":1950,"date":"2010-01-28T14:24:35","date_gmt":"2010-01-28T14:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/?p=1950"},"modified":"2011-01-22T22:35:07","modified_gmt":"2011-01-22T22:35:07","slug":"a-stronger-voice-for-the-commonwealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/2010\/01\/a-stronger-voice-for-the-commonwealth\/","title":{"rendered":"A stronger voice for the Commonwealth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG) would like to see the Commonwealth speaking more publicly and acting with greater authority on serious or persistent violations of Commonwealth values, including democracy, the rule of law and human rights. In an interim statement, issued after its second meeting held in London on 25-26 October, the Group said it would also be calling on leaders to endorse measures to strengthen the role and functions of the Secretary-General and the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">\u201cWe want the Commonwealth to continue to be a powerful voice with moral authority speaking out on major issues, but it needs the tools to do it,\u201d said the Group\u2019s Chairperson, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi of Malaysia. The EPG pointed out that quiet, \u2018behind-the-scenes\u2019 diplomacy was fully compatible with appropriate public pronouncements.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: small;\">The meeting also considered the possibility of creating a Commonwealth Charter to strengthen commitment to Commonwealth values and set the organisation\u2019s future direction, and it discussed the urgent need for the Commonwealth to address HIV\/AIDS as a health, human rights and economic development priority.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group (EPG) would like to see the Commonwealth speaking more publicly and acting with greater authority on serious or persistent violations of Commonwealth values, including democracy, the rule of law and human rights. In an interim statement, issued after its second meeting held in London on 25-26 October, the Group said [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10673,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[64,42],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10673"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.global-briefing.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}