Did any UK declaration of war extend automatically to Australia?
Upvote:4
Yes - because a declaration of war is an act of parliament.
As noted in the Statute of Westminster (1931):
...
And whereas it is in accord with the established constitutional position that no law hereafter made by the Parliament of the United Kingdom shall extend to any of the said Dominions as part of the law of that Dominion otherwise than at the request and with the consent of that Dominion:
And whereas it is necessary for the ratifying, confirming and establishing of certain of the said declarations and resolutions of the said Conferences that a law be made and enacted in due form by authority of the Parliament of the United Kingdom:
...
3. It is hereby declared and enacted that the Parliament of a Dominion has full power to make laws having extra-territorial operation.
4. No Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom passed after the commencement of this Act shall extend, or be deemed to extend, to a Dominion as part of the law of that Dominion, unless it is expressly declared in that Act that that Dominion has requested, and consented to, the enactment thereof.
...
10.
(1) None of the following sections of this Act, ... shall extend to a Dominion to which this section applies as part of the law of that Dominion unless that section is adopted by the Parliament of the Dominion, and any Act of that Parliament adopting any section of this Act may provide that the adoption shall have effect either from the commencement of this Act or from such later date as is specified in the adopting Act.
Section 3 above, granting authority to enact "laws having extra-territorial operation", is the explicit authority to have a foreign policy distinct from that of the United Kingdom - including enacting declarations of war.
So in short, as a consequence of the Statute of Westminster - subsequent to the adoption by each Commonwealth nation as noted in section 10.1, which only occurred for Australia in 1942 - no act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (which per force include any and all declarations of war) "shall extend to any of the said Dominions as part of the law of that Dominion otherwise than at the request and with the consent of that Dominion".
Hence, as noted in the Australian Statue of Westminster Adoption Act (1942), the Australian Parliament expressly stated its acceptance (already de facto) and consent to the United Kingdom Declaration of War on Nazi Germany in September 1939.
This answer to the question "When did Australia declare war on Germany in WWII" provides additional background.
More post
- 📝 Why were the Franks so successful in projecting power?
- 📝 Why did sailing ships so often employ Chinese cooks?
- 📝 What do "roses" represent in the history of Protestant vs Catholic conflict?
- 📝 What do historians infer about the world view of the ancient Egyptians based on the prophecy of Neferty?
- 📝 Do we know who graduated from the University of Mexico in the 1700s?
- 📝 What are the themes of post-WW2 Polish immigration to the United States?
- 📝 The Battle of Britain
- 📝 Why did quill pens persist until the early 19th century despite the capacity to make metal dip pens?
- 📝 Why wasn't there French irredentism or pan-fransicm?
- 📝 why Israel has not used its nuclear arsenal against hamas?
- 📝 Who started trams in Delhi?
- 📝 What was Poland's posture during the Seven Years' War?
- 📝 Why didn't the Ottomans besiege Malta after 1565?
- 📝 What was the first printed material owned and kept in Kamchatka?
- 📝 Who invented the aeroplane?
- 📝 Why did Chrstianity spread so easily?
- 📝 What stopped the British from granting independence to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands?
- 📝 What was this weapon (or its mechanism), that Iraq was accused of having in the 1990's, called?
- 📝 What was the actual value of tea destroyed during the Boston Tea Party?
- 📝 Did the Portuguese and the Spanish have slaves on European soil working for them?
- 📝 When did armies seriously consider tank-vs-tank warfare to be possible?
- 📝 Why do the bases of these pillars have grooves in them?
- 📝 What was the population of the Parthian Empire around (AD) 1 CE?
- 📝 What Calendar was used in Carthage?
- 📝 Holocaust reparations & liberation bill
- 📝 Has the "lion dormant" ever been used in heraldry?
- 📝 What activity would convey the Burma railway & Hanoi Hilton POW project?
- 📝 How would a strength report be collected from a brigade?
- 📝 What were Greek and Roman sails made from?
- 📝 What is the most historically prevalent reason of states dissolving, other than military activity?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Did any UK declaration of war extend automatically to Australia?
- 📝 When did the practice of formal declaration of war start?
- 📝 Did any country threaten war on the US because they didn't pay their debt after the Revolutionary War?
- 📝 When did Australia declare war on Germany in WWII
- 📝 Did France actually intend to colonise West Australia and were any resources assigned to this objective prior to 1829?
- 📝 Did any of the US States ever attempt to secede, aside from American Civil War times?
- 📝 Did the citizens of US really back the declaration of war on Japanese Empire as it was implied by F.D. Roosevelt in his Pearl Harbor Speech?
- 📝 Did World War II-era bombs actually whistle?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 When did humans develop the ability to sail any direction regardless of wind direction?
- 📝 Why did Hitler declare war on the USA?
- 📝 How did such a relatively minor event as the assassination of an archduke start World War I?
- 📝 Why did Civil War officers tell their men to "aim low"?
- 📝 Did the Soviets excel in one area of weaponry during World War II?
- 📝 When did FDR announce he was running a 3rd time, and was there any outrage?
- 📝 How did the Nazis plan to defeat America during World War II?
- 📝 Did the King of Siam offer war elephants to the Union during the Civil War?
- 📝 What did Germany do in World War II about the different rail gauge in the Soviet Union?
- 📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?
- 📝 Why did Chamberlain act to appease Hitler leading up to the outbreak of World War 2?
- 📝 Did the Romans leave any technical instruction manuals behind?
- 📝 How did the American Civil War help the U.S economy recover from the Panic of 1857 given that civil wars are extremely destructive?
- 📝 Did the Pope's crossbow and archery bans have any effect?
- 📝 Why did the Royal Society in 1771 believe that a continent further south than Australia should exist?
- 📝 When did Britain learn about the American Declaration of Independence?
- 📝 Did any British working class men have the vote before 1918?
- 📝 Which war games did Napoleon practice with his generals?
- 📝 Why didn't China assist in the Vietnam War like they did in Korea?
- 📝 Is it true that Germans in World War 2 did not suffer punishment for refusing genocidal orders?
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union or its satellite states have any broadcast propaganda media for an international audience?