The secrecy of the Commonwealth Secretariat: Time for reform

By Andrew Smith, (Intern, Human Rights Advocacy Programme, CHRI):


After more than 60 years in existence, the Commonwealth Secretariat (the Secretariat) continues to operate in an environment of secrecy, largely insulated from public scrutiny and the full involvement of civil society organisations.

Over a decade has passed since the right of access to information was recognised as ‘legal’ and ‘enforceable’ at the 1999 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Its importance has since been reiterated at the 2007 CHOGM and Commonwealth bodies have described it as “fundamental” and “a cornerstone of democracy and good governance.” A model law has also been drafted to assist domestic legislators.

However, the Secretariat’s own information disclosure practices fall far short of international standards. Comparable organisations such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the European Union and the Council of Europe have all adopted comprehensive access to information policies with many progressive provisions. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is currently reforming its disclosure policy.

The comparison highlights that the Secretariat’s disclosure practices do not adhere to international best practice standards, that they do not adequately serve its goals of democracy, freedom and sustainable development and that the need for reform is urgent.

Most interstate policies adopt strong object clauses, affirming their commitment to access to information as a fundamental human right. Further to this, their common aim is to maximise the ‘effectiveness’, ‘quality’ and ‘legitimacy’ of their organisation’s output through increased transparency, civic engagement and accountability.

The World Bank states that its commitment to openness is “driven by a desire to foster public ownership, partnership, and participation in operations and is central to achieving the Bank’s mission to alleviate poverty and to improve the design and implementation of their projects and policies.”

The European Union reflects this sentiment, emphasising the importance of openness in its democratic system. As publicly funded organisations, they recognise the democratic right of their stakeholders to hold them to account.

The UNDP identifies its stakeholders as the parliaments, tax payers and public of their donor and programme countries.

The World Bank and IMF both report increased demand for accountability following the financial crisis, the former promising to hold itself to the same human rights standards it expects of its member states.

The Secretariat is a publicly funded body mandated to act in the ‘common interest of the people’. As such it must adopt an access to informational policy which facilitates civic engagement and accountability. This will increase the legitimacy of the Secretariat as a democratic organisation and improve the effectiveness of its policy outcomes.

The rhetoric of the object clauses are mostly supported by substantive policy provisions. Whilst not entirely compliant with international standards, they are substantially more progressive than the Secretariat’s practices.

The Secretariat currently operates a ‘positive list’ approach to disclosure, voluntarily publishing a limited range of documents on its website on a routine basis. Documents include ministerial communiqués, commonwealth declarations, newsletters, speeches, statements, reports and strategic documents.

This discretionary ‘positive list’ policy presumes the confidentiality of undisclosed documents without considering the nature of the information’s content or the interests at stake. All of the aforementioned interstate organisations have abandoned ‘positive lists’ in favour of the principle of ‘maximum disclosure’.

The World Bank regards this as the ‘paradigm shift’ in its policy whilst the Council of Europe explains that now “transparency is the rule and confidentiality the exception.”

The principle of maximum disclosure is formulated to maximise the availability of information, guaranteeing access to information as a fundamental human right. The principle has two features.

Firstly it presumes that all information is eligible for disclosure on request, unless specified under the exemption schedules.

Secondly, there must be an obligation to routinely publish a specified list of documents. Applying this obligation to as broad a range of documents as possible at various developmental stages facilitates civil society involvement whilst reducing the costs associated with information requests. All of the aforementioned policies comply with both features of the maximum disclosure principle.

The Secretariat must broaden its practice of routine disclosure, establish it as a duty and reverse the presumption of confidentiality for unpublished documents. This would represent a substantial departure from current practice and a positive step towards compliance with international standards.

The presumption of disclosure is not absolute and is constrained by the principle of limited exemptions. Confidentiality may be upheld in narrowly defined circumstances for the protection of legitimate interests from specified harms. This requires a case by case assessment and does not permit blanket exclusions based on official classifications or document type.

The Council of Europe schedule is weakest, excluding all classified information from disclosure. The World Bank refuses to disclose information falling within its schedule as it “could” cause harm, presuming confidentiality and failing to engage in an individual assessment of relevant interests. Some exemptions are overly broad, including those relating to ‘corporate administrative matters’ and ‘deliberative information’.

Similarly, the UNDP excludes ‘draft documents’ entirely, limiting the scope for civil society engagement.

The European Union has two exemption schedules. The first complies with international standards, citing legitimate interests. It is also the only schedule with a ‘severability clause’, allowing for the partial publication of documents. A second schedule entirely excludes ‘sensitive documents’ from disclosure due to their confidentiality statuses.

It is critical that exemptions are subject to a ‘public interest override’. If the public interest in disclosure is greater than the likely harm, then there must be an obligation to disclose. The UNDP and Council of Europe policies both lack public interest overrides. The World Bank only provides a discretionary override which can also be reversed to withhold information otherwise routinely disclosed.

The European Union only provides a public interest override for two categories of ‘interests’ under its first schedule and none under the second. The Secretariat must note that these policies fail to provide adequate safeguards against the abuse of the limited exemptions principle.

Documents ‘excluded’ from disclosure must only retain their confidentiality for as long as the public interest demands. Retention schedules must also be available to respondents whose applications are refused. Documents that are scheduled for destruction are presumed to be of no use to the originator, and therefore disclosure cannot be deemed harmful to the public interest.

It is the Secretariat’s blanket policy to retain the confidentiality of all undisclosed documents for thirty years. They are then only made publicly available subject to the Secretariat’s discretion and the consent of concerned third parties. None of the interstate organisations analysed have a default thirty year declassification period.

The European Union and the Council of Europe both set thirty years as the maximum period for refusing disclosure. Within this limit, the European Union provides that excepted material may only remain confidential for the period which it remains harmful.

The Council of Europe and World Bank adopt tiers of confidentiality with limitation periods dependant on document type. The former has periods of one, ten and thirty years and the latter has periods of five, ten and twenty years.

The UNDP does not specify its declassification periods. When initiating reforms the Secretariat must strive to disclose confidential information as promptly as the public interest test allows.

International standards require that refusals to disclose documents are accompanied with reasons and the availability of two tiers of appeal. The independence of the second tier must be guaranteed. The Secretariat has no procedure for requesting documents and therefore no appeals mechanism.

The European Union provides the opportunity for a ‘confirmatory request’ to the original decision maker followed by an appeal to an Independent Ombudsman or the Court of First Instance. This does not apply to ‘sensitive documents’.

The World Bank and UNDP provide for a first review by an internal panel and a secondary review by an independent panel. The World Bank only permits appeals where a prima facie case is made of a policy violation or where there is a public interest case to be made for disclosure. Appeals on the latter ground may not be heard by the secondary panel, meaning the public interest is never determined independently.

The Council of Europe does not have an appeals mechanism. The Secretariat must incorporate a two tier appeals mechanism with a guarantee of independence into its information disclosure policy.

Information request procedures must be accessible and user-friendly, communicating decisions or the requested documents promptly and at a reasonable price. The aforementioned policies all adopt provisions to this effect.

The Secretariat only permits access to unpublished public documents by appointment at the library of its London headquarters, refusing to provide copies. This is extremely restrictive for the majority of commonwealth citizens. Increased accessibility must become a reform priority.

The Secretariat has the opportunity to advance to the forefront of international transparency and democratic standards by adopting a progressive access to information policy. It must undertake reforms immediately in the spirit of transparency with the maximum involvement of Commonwealth stakeholders.

This consultation, along with an assessment of existing access to information policies and model laws, will greatly assist the Secretariat in remedying the deficiencies of its current practices and enable the Commonwealth to better pursue its goals of freedom, democracy and sustainable development.

March 30, 2010

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Bahamas Blog International

How realistic is it for the Caribbean to join the G20?

By Dr Isaac Newton and Debbie Douglas:

In the Caribbean, schisms have opened up over such pressing issues as immigration, foreign policy agendas, borrowing from the IMF, implementation of the Caribbean Court of Justice, viability of the Caribbean Single Market Economy, and leadership clarity over regional direction.

More worrisome are: inadequate critical discussions on national and regional issues over the development of the region, preferred worldview that excellence is imported and things foreign are superior, and threats over sub-regional and regional splits on South American alliances.

But excluded from serious public debates are priorities such as ecological security, fiscal scare, die-hard poverty and rising debt. The paradox is that year after year, the Caribbean spends wasteful resources on conferences that do not yield positive outcomes.

Yet, in this climate, some conscientious political analysts and social scholars attempt to differentiate local realities from global trends. They are on a mission to decipher where points of intersection could help clarify, the key variables needed for the Caribbean to forge its own success pathway.

Against this wider backdrop, former Antigua and Barbuda diplomat, Sir Ron Sanders has written two articles: “Can the Caribbean rely on the G20?" and "Who is listening when the Caribbean speaks?”

We have read Sir Ron Sanders’ admirable endeavors to support Caribbean leaders by articulating why they should be given a place at the table where decisions that affect them, directly and indirectly, are made. Such places include the G20, the IMF, and the World Bank.

We know that the Caribbean has played a significant historical role in providing resources that European countries and the USA used to catapult their societies into advanced economies. We are aware also that the Caribbean continues to advance ideals of democracy, with geographic strategic value for Europe and North America. From this angle, we resonate with Sanders’ righteous anger, for rallying against wrongheaded attitudes that arrogantly dismiss the Caribbean and arbitrarily victimizes poor regions.

We particularly embrace Sanders’ enormous optimism, and praise his outstanding passion for envisioning the Caribbean as qualified to enter into the G20 circle. But we are aware of the dizzying nature of how unlikely his goals are to be attained. Added to that, is the unsentimental cost of the possibility of being slighted by the major powers of the world.

There is a difference between a coconut tree and a lamp post-- both are firmly planted in the ground-- one has roots but the other does not. In the same way, Sanders’ desire may be exceedingly earnest but his declaration appears incredibly inaccurate. For the Caribbean to execute its lofty goal of achieving G20 status, it must be willing to put vital steps in place to get there.

At best, Sanders’ articles contribute to our understanding of how geo-politics and ethics are deeply connected to our conceptions of sustainable development and identify. At worst, his ideas illustrate how the Caribbean itself, fails to create added value to penetrate world shaping institutions like the World Bank, the IMF and the G20.

First, the G20 nations deliberately set up structures to protect self interests; they are not too much concerned with building bridges or even recognizing how their fate and the Caribbean’s destiny are interlinked. When shoring up their faltering economies, being charitable towards the Caribbean, is the last thing on their minds.

Second, the very nature of G20 is discriminatory. It is designed for well developed and highly integrated economies both to support each other and to superimpose their collective financial agendas on the rest of the world. The Caribbean’s economies are too meager and far too insignificant to be considered worthy of inclusion.

Third, although ‘a little leak can sink a big ship’, Caricom seems inept, to reverse president Jean Bertrand Aristide’s ousting, when outside powers, unseated a democratically elected leader, from amongst its rank. It took an African country to offer him a place of refuge.

Fourth, until the Caribbean gets its strategic intelligence, market integration, immigration freedom, and innovative educational practices act together, our future seems dismal. Caribbean leaders must concentrate on internally derived development solutions, and on the capacity to ignite the genius of its people, both at home and abroad, to facilitate its growth. Since these dynamics are not in place, why should the most powerful countries in the world, listen to the Caribbean or take our issues seriously?

The fact that so much is at stake, yet we continue to fight ever so often, over narrow terrain of resources and interests, knowing full well, that such infighting has dire consequences for our collective future, suggests that our moral compass is not set in the direction of self-empowerment.

We have our internal work cut out for us, and maybe feelings of being flatly ignored, is a clarion call to explore possibilities for sustainable unity, which is essential for regional advancement.

Perhaps the time to shift strategy and begin to rethink, how to fashion our destiny, from the inside out, while not dismissing the supreme value of finding relevant global partners, to harness mutually beneficial interests, has come.

Sanders’ highly ambitious enterprise, and remarkably, in these difficult economic and social times, places the cart before the horse. Therefore, we read his unique advocacy, more as an investment in encouragement, than as a signature of regional readiness and achievement.

The sentiments in his articles imply that our self-promoting agendas, (we can’t even get the China/Taiwan issue straight) that foster regional hierarchies and that work counter to the need to be critically conscious about the way forward, must be first clarified.

Invisibly and thence consciously, until we nurture a strong sense of ‘regionhood,’ which is indissolubly tied to the power of representation, we will be left out of important decision making processes.

Essentially, the Caribbean must find productive methods of listening to each other. We must speak with one voice by packaging indigenous issues in convincing frameworks to the G20, the World Bank and the IMF. This will increase our clout.

There is plenty of merit for the Caribbean wanting to have its own representation in international gatherings. We can no longer simply react to policies. We must provide intelligent input to shape and implement them. But to have our concerns addressed realistically, depends on our perceived and real weight.

For example, what are we bringing to the international table and how are we communicating added value? Do we have the leadership to build a sustainable regional economy to earn a place at the G20? Do we invite our most competent people to represent our views at the World Bank and the IMF?

No one will listen to us, if we continue to be disunited and needy. In short, we have a lot of growing to do, before we develop the capital to get the deference and high regard needed to wield influence on the global landscape. We wonder, what will quicken in our souls, given how far from the G20 mark we are, for us to realize that seven requests, of wanting to be included, do not an invitation make?

Ultimately, the Caribbean needs to cultivate a robust self-confidence to excel at prosperity-generating ideas. We must also learn to model a quest for excellence through virtues of mutual affirmation, cultural creativity, justice and fairness, critique and rejuvenation.

In essence, the Caribbean must find strategies to ensure that its place in the global-mix is not compromised. Preserving our best cultural features, should involve arresting the attention of global players, in our pursuit of ambitious exploits.

While some amongst us are worrying about the big questions—like, ‘How to develop the Caribbean as a major world force?’ Caribbean leaders have smaller concerns to tackle—‘How to harness and unify the Caribbean’s best energies (human and natural) for its own survival?

Perhaps we must earn inclusion, before we demand it. We need to unite, define our regional interests, build our economies to attain G20 status, and carve out a strategy that advances our needs/wants effectively, to rightly gain the possibility of a place at the table.

Dr Isaac Newton, an international leadership and management consultant, is a graduate of Harvard, Princeton and Columbia, and Debbie Douglas, a legal analyst and government relations consultant, is a graduate of McGill University, Stockholm University and University of London.



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Bahamas Blog Bahamas

Who's listening when the Caribbean speaks?

By Ronald Sanders:

In Turkey, where meetings of the IMF and the World Bank were held during the week of October 4th, Caribbean Finance Ministers raised with the First Deputy Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, John Lipsky, their concerns about “the need for better representation and participation of small, developing countries in key meetings and fora such as the G20, where decisions that can significantly impact these small economies are frequently made”.

But, Caribbean representation in the already overcrowded G20 will not happen without a strong case being made and accepted by governments currently at the table.

Similarly, much needed reform of the IMF and World Bank to benefit the Caribbean appears remote.

At the Bank/Fund meetings, the President of Guyana, Bharat Jagdeo, as current Chairman of CARICOM, led a team of Prime Ministers from the Bahamas, Barbados and St Lucia to make a case to the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, that special attention should be paid to relieving and restructuring the debt of the highly indebted, vulnerable, middle income countries of the region.

And, Barbados Prime Minister, David Thompson, speaking at the formal meeting was emphatic that “limited access to World Bank funding has forced many middle income Caribbean countries to borrow in the private capital markets at substantially higher rates and shorter repayment terms”. Mr Thompson recommended that “further consideration be given to this issue of access by middle income countries to financing from the multilateral financial institutions.”

All of this is right. The entire Caribbean region is facing a serious reversal of its economic and social progress arising from a number of factors. It is true that one of the significant factors is poor economic management and decision-making by some of their governments, and this is a concern that Caribbean countries must themselves address.

The external factors are also real. Not least among them is the point raised by both Jagdeo and Thompson that the classification of Caribbean states as middle-income countries disqualifies them from concessionary financing from the international financial institutions and forces them into the commercial market for borrowing.

But, is anyone really listening? The moment for effective reform of international institutions is fast receding. Those industrialised nations that pledged themselves to reform in the wake of last year’s financial crisis are quickly retreating from their pledges as their economies begin to pick-up. The creation of the G20 and the provision of some additional resources to the IMF appear now to be the most they will do.

The new resources for the IMF are insufficient and, in any case, are not targeted to middle income countries such as those in the Caribbean; they are focussed on low income countries and on bigger countries such as those in Europe and Mexico.

A so called Flexible Credit Line has been introduced by the IMF “for countries with very strong fundamentals, policies, and track records of policy implementation”. Caribbean countries will not qualify for among the criteria are: a track record of steady sovereign access to international capital markets at favourable terms, and sound public finances including a sustainable public debt position.

Why these criteria should be relevant instead of ones that recognise the need to stimulate stagnant economies and provide support for social welfare programmes speaks to the anachronistic role of the IMF which still operates as an agency of the victors of World War 11, despite all the rhetoric.

As for the World Bank, the Turkey meeting deferred any increase in its capital until next year. Therefore, the Bank is faced with a limited lending capacity, and in this scenario, countries such as those in the Caribbean that are designated middle-income are not a priority.

Caribbean Heads of Government and Finance Ministers raising their concerns with Heads of the International Financial Institutions and in the formal sessions of the Bank/Fund meetings was absolutely right. They do not get much chance to do so, Caribbean countries have no seat of their own on the Boards of these bodies where they are represented by Canada. And, while Canada may be a sympathetic ally, there is no substitute for authentic argument from high representatives of Caribbean countries themselves.

In this connection, the prospect of any reform of the international financial institutions that would benefit the Caribbean in terms both of representation at the highest levels and change in IMF conditionalites and World Bank criteria for concessionary financing, does not appear to be on the cards anytime soon.

This is why Caribbean countries should adopt a collective and cohesive approach to this issue devoting resources to a joint and continuous diplomatic effort to put their case forcefully to the international community at every opportunity.

It is well within the region’s capacity to establish a task force of public sector and private sector professionals, under the umbrella of a special unit of the CARICOM Secretariat, to undertake this task. The task force could be mandated to produce documentation with all the necessary rigour for presentation to the Boards of the International Financial Institutions and to influential governments. Much of this work has already been done by a group established last year under Caribbean Development Bank President, Compton Bourne.

In turn, high regional representatives led by one or other of available Heads of Government could be appointed to engage the international community in an intense campaign on the basis of a well-debated and agreed CARICOM strategy.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference in Trinidad in November presents a unique opportunity to make the Caribbean case to five Heads of Government of G20 countries – Australia, Britain, Canada, India and South Africa. They may not get far with Australia and Britain, but India and South Africa with whom they have close links, and Canada with whom they share a common neighbourhood should listen.

The Commonwealth Secretariat has itself done a great deal of work on small states and reform of International Financial Institutions. The November Commonwealth Summit, therefore, is an excellent forum for the Caribbean to advance a cohesive campaign.

October 9, 2009

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Bahamas Blog Bahamas