00:00The Statute of Westminster of 1931, officially the Act to give effect to certain resolutions adopted at the conferences
00:06Imperial elections held in 1926 and 1930, adopted on 11 December 1931, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom recognizing
00:14the external sovereignty of all nations of the British Empire possessing dominion status, Australia, Canada,
00:20Ireland, New Zealand, Newfoundland and South Africa.
00:23The Statute of Westminster recognizes the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Imperial Conference of 1930, which itself recognized
00:31the external sovereignty of the dominions, acquired in part by the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and their status of
00:37founding member of the League of Nations in 1920.
00:41Consequently, Australia and New Zealand were slow to ratify the statute for the simple reason that their governments...
00:46They saw no point in it, given that they had already acquired broad sovereignty by becoming dominions, and
00:51were reluctant to weaken their ties with the United Kingdom.
00:54Thus, for example, New Zealand, which obtained the right to assert its external sovereignty in 1931, chose not to
01:00ratifying the law only in 1947, 40 years after acquiring dominion status.
01:05Tehara, the encyclopedia created by the New Zealand Ministry of Culture, notes that in the aftermath of the Second
01:11World War II, most New Zealanders did not want there to be a specifically New Zealand citizenship, and
01:16they wanted to remain exclusively British subjects.
01:18It was only in 1977 that the New Zealand Parliament passed a law, the Citizenship Act 1977, which
01:26removed the status of "British subject" from New Zealanders.
01:29The status has several notable consequences.
01:31Following its ratification, the British government can no longer legislate for a dominion, except at the request of
01:37and with the latter's agreement.
01:38Following this agreement, the term "dominion" will gradually fall into disuse, giving way to the term "
01:44Commonwealth realm”, although the name “dominion” has not been formally dropped.
01:48The status also had the effect of creating new crowns separate from those of the United Kingdom.
01:54King George V remained king of each of the dominions, but his title for each dominion became legally distinct.
02:00Thus, for example, his crown as King of Australia officially became separate from his crown as
02:05than King of the United Kingdom.
02:07Since the Statute of Westminster, the heir to the British throne also inherits the Canadian, South African, and other crowns.
02:13the abolition of the monarchy in 1961, Australian and New Zealand,
02:18and any change to the order of succession to the throne requires the consent of the parliaments of each of these countries.
02:23Thus, for example, the British Parliament could not amend the Act of Settlement of 1701 without the agreement of the
02:29Commonwealth realms.
02:30During the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, the dominions were consulted.
02:35After this status, the accession of a British colony to the status of dominion, a kingdom of the Commonwealth, becomes synonymous with independence.
02:42This was the case respectively for India and Pakistan in 1947, Ceylon in 1948, and Ghana in
02:481957, Nigeria in 1960,
02:51Sierra Leone and Tanganyika in 1961, Jamaica, Uganda and Trinidad and Tobago in 1962, Kenya
02:59in 1963, Malawi and Malta in 1964,
03:02Gambia and Rhodesia in 1965, Barbados and Guyana in 1966, Mauritius in 1968, Fiji in
03:091970, the Bahamas in 1973, Grenada in 1974,
03:14Papua New Guinea in 1975, the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu in 1978, Saint Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grandines
03:21in 1979, Antigua and Barbuda and Belize in 1981 and Saint Kitts and Nives in 1983.
03:28Two independent states under British monarchy are linked to the New Zealand monarchy: the Cook Islands since 1965 and Niwe
03:35since 1974.
03:37Today there are 15 Commonwealth realms and the agreement of each of them is necessary to
03:42any modification of the laws of succession to the throne.
