British Commonwealth of Nations

Dominion autonomy and the transformation of the empire into the new British Commonwealth of Nations were born of the First World War. The Imperial Conference of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster of 1931, which would give a legal definition to the dominions’ new status, confirmed that Great Britain and the dominions were autonomous communities, equal in law, in no way subordinate one to another, and freely associated as members of the Commonwealth. Canada, like the other dominions, could develop a diplomatic service and a foreign policy of its own.