Catalogue description Records of International Organisations and Western Departments of the Commonwealth Relations Office

The organisation of the Commonwealth Relations Office, following that of the Dominions Office, was originally into functional departments, and part of Division A dealt with Commonwealth and UK relations with various international and western organisations, and issues relating to such global matters as military and civilian uses of nuclear energy, disarmament and human rights.

As much of this work focused on the United Nations, whose headquarters were in New York, it was administratively convenient to combine work relating to Canada in the same department, and in 1949, following the first major reorganisation of the Office, a Western and United Nations department was set up in the Foreign Affairs Division.

In 1958, the departments were reorganised within the Foreign Affairs Division. The United Nations Department was established independently, while a new Defence and Western Department was set up, unifying the closely allied fields of relations with the United Nations and the various defence organisations (particularly the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation). This arrangement was not found to work well in practice, however, and in 1960 the Defence Department was again established as a separate department, and a new Western and Middle East Department was formed, still within the Foreign Affairs Division.

In 1963-1964, as the pace of British decolonisation in Africa speeded up, matters relating to Africa generally were removed from the Africa and Political Division and a new United Nations and General Africa Department was formed. This structure was short-lived, however, and was dropped in the major reorganisation of the Office in 1964. General African matters were passed to the Far East and West Africa Division, and a new Western, Constitutional and General Division was established to replace the Foreign Affairs Division. It consisted of two general departments (Constitutional and Protocol, and Nationality and General) and a unified United Nations, Western and Middle East Department.

In September 1965, in the final reorganisation before the end of the Office, the Division was renamed the General Division, maintaining its previous responsibilities and responsibility for migration matters, but the United Nations, Western and Middle East Department continued unaltered.