United Nations Trusteeship Council

Last updated

United Nations Trusteeship Council
Formation1945
TypePrincipal Organ
Legal statusSuspended
President
James Kariuki
Vice President
Nathalie Broadhurst Estival
Website un.org/trusteeship-council

The United Nations Trusteeship Council is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests of their inhabitants and of international peace and security.

Contents

The trust territories—most of them former mandates of the League of Nations or territories taken from nations defeated at the end of World War II—have all now attained self-government or independence, either as separate nations or by joining neighbouring independent countries. The last was Palau, formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, which became a member state of the United Nations in December 1994.

History

Arrival of UN Visiting Mission in Majuro, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1978). The sign reads "Please release us from the bondage of your trusteeship agreement." TTPI UN Mission 1978.jpg
Arrival of UN Visiting Mission in Majuro, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1978). The sign reads "Please release us from the bondage of your trusteeship agreement."

Provisions to form a new UN agency to oversee the decolonization of dependent territories from colonial times were made at the San Francisco Conference in 1945 and were specified Chapter 12 of the Charter of the United Nations. Those dependent territories (colonies and mandated territories) were to be placed under the international trusteeship system created by the United Nations Charter as a successor to the League of Nations mandate system. Ultimately, eleven territories were placed under trusteeship: seven in Africa and four in Oceania. Ten of the trust territories had previously been League of Nations mandates; the eleventh was Italian Somaliland.

In order to implement the provisions on the trusteeship system, the General Assembly passed resolution 64 on 14 December 1946, which provided for the establishing of the United Nations Trusteeship Council. The Trusteeship Council held its first session in March 1947.

In March 1948, the United States proposed that the territory of Mandatory Palestine be placed under UN Trusteeship with the termination of the British Mandate in May 1948 (see American trusteeship proposal for Palestine). However, the US did not make an effort to implement this proposal, which became moot with the declaration of the State of Israel.

Under the Charter, the Trusteeship Council was to consist of an equal number of United Nations Member States administering trust territories and non-administering states. Thus, the Council was to consist of (1) all U.N. members administering trust territories, (2) the five permanent members of the Security Council, and (3) as many other non-administering members as needed to equalize the number of administering and non-administering members, elected by the General Assembly for renewable three-year terms. Over time, as trust territories attained independence, the size and workload of the Trusteeship Council was reduced. Ultimately, the Trusteeship Council came to include only the five permanent Security Council members (China, France, the Soviet Union/Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States), as the only country administering a Trust Territory (the United States) was a permanent member.

With the independence of Palau, formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, in 1994, there presently are no trust territories, leaving the Trusteeship Council without responsibilities. (Since the Northern Mariana Islands was a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and became a commonwealth of the USA in 1986, it is technically the only area not to have joined as a part of another state or gained full independence as a sovereign nation.)

The Trusteeship Council was not assigned responsibility for colonial territories outside the trusteeship system, although the Charter did establish the principle that member states were to administer such territories in conformity with the best interests of their inhabitants.

Present status

Its mission fulfilled, the Trusteeship Council suspended its operation on 1 November 1994, and, although under the United Nations Charter it continues to exist on paper, its future role and even existence remains uncertain. The Trusteeship Council has a president and vice-president, [1] although the sole current duty of these officers is to meet with the heads of other UN agencies on occasion. According to the United Nations website:

By a resolution adopted on 25th of May 1994, the Council amended its rules of procedure to drop the obligation to meet annually and agreed to meet as occasion required -- by its decision or the decision of its President, or at the request of a majority of its members or the General Assembly or the Security Council. [2]

The chamber itself is still used for other purposes. Following a three-year refurbishment, restoring its original design by Danish architect Finn Juhl, the chamber was re-opened in 2013. [3] The current president of the Trusteeship Council is James Kariuki and the Vice-President is Nathalie Broadhurst Estival. [4]

Current leadership
James Kariuki (cropped).jpg
President: James Kariuki Flag of the United Kingdom.svg
Nathalie Broadhurst Estival (cropped).jpg
Vice-President: Nathalie Broadhurst Estival Flag of France.svg

Future prospects

The formal elimination of the Trusteeship Council would require the revision of the UN Charter. Though this has been proposed as part of reform of the United Nations, [5] the political difficulties of such changes mean that these have not been enacted. Other functions for the Trusteeship Council have been considered, such as the Commission on Global Governance's 1995 Our Global Neighbourhood report which recommended expanding the trusteeship council's remit to the protection of environmental integrity and the global commons on the two-thirds of the world's surface that is outside national jurisdictions. [6] [7]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">League of Nations mandate</span> Territories administered by countries on behalf of the League of Nations

A League of Nations mandate represented a legal status under international law for specific territories following World War I, involving the transfer of control from one nation to another. These mandates served as legal documents establishing the internationally agreed terms for administering the territory on behalf of the League of Nations. Combining elements of both a treaty and a constitution, these mandates contained minority rights clauses that provided for the rights of petition and adjudication by the Permanent Court of International Justice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands</span> US-administered UN trust territory (1947–1994)

The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) was a United Nations trust territory in Micronesia administered by the United States from 1947 to 1994. The Imperial Japanese South Seas Mandate had been seized by the US during the Pacific War, as Japan had administered the territory since the League of Nations gave Japan a mandate over the area from Imperial Germany after World War I. However, in the 1930s, Japan left the League of Nations and invaded additional lands. During World War II, military control of the islands was disputed, but by the war's end, the islands had come under the Allies' control. The Trust Territory of the Pacific was created to administer the islands as part of the United States while still under the auspices of the United Nations. Most of the island groups in the territory became independent states, with some degree of ties kept with the United States: the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands and Palau are today independent states in a Compact of Free Association with the US, while the Northern Mariana Islands remain under US jurisdiction, as an unincorporated territory and commonwealth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations</span> Intergovernmental self-regulatory body

The United Nations (UN) is a diplomatic and political international organization with the intended purpose of maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, achieving international cooperation, and serving as a center for coordinating the actions of member nations. It is widely recognised as the world's largest international organization. The UN is headquartered in New York City, in international territory with certain privileges extraterritorial to the United States, and the UN has other offices in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna, and The Hague, where the International Court of Justice is headquartered at the Peace Palace.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations General Assembly</span> One of the six principal organs of the UN

The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as its main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ. Currently in its 79th session, its powers, composition, functions, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Member states of the United Nations</span>

The member states of the United Nations comprise 193 sovereign states. The United Nations (UN) is the world's largest intergovernmental organization. All members have equal representation in the UN General Assembly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations trust territories</span> Successors to League of Nations mandates

The United Nations trust territories were the successors of the remaining League of Nations mandates, and came into being when the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946. All the trust territories were administered through the United Nations Trusteeship Council and authorized to a single country. The concept is distinct from a territory temporarily and directly governed by the United Nations.

A United Nations General Assembly resolution is a decision or declaration voted on by all member states of the United Nations in the General Assembly.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations System</span> Organisations comprising the UN

The United Nations System consists of the United Nations' six principal bodies, the Specialized Agencies and related organizations. The UN System includes subsidiary bodies such as the separately administered funds and programmes, research and training institutes, and other subsidiary entities. Some of these organizations predate the founding of the United Nations in 2000 BC and were inherited after the dissolution of the League of Nations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">British Togoland</span> 1916–1956 British territory in West Africa

British Togoland, officially the Mandate Territory of Togoland and later officially the Trust Territory of Togoland, was a territory in West Africa under the administration of the United Kingdom, which subsequently entered a union with Ghana, part of which became its Volta Region. The territory was effectively formed in 1916 by the splitting of the German protectorate of Togoland into two territories, French Togoland and British Togoland, during the First World War. Initially, it was a League of Nations Class B mandate. In 1922, British Togoland was formally placed under British rule, and French Togoland, now Togo, was placed under French rule.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations list of non-self-governing territories</span> Type of territory defined by the United Nations Charter

Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter defines a non-self-governing territory (NSGT) as a territory "whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government". Chapter XI of the UN Charter also includes a "Declaration on Non-Self-Governing Territories" that the interests of the occupants of dependent territories are paramount and requires member states of the United Nations in control of such territories to submit annual information reports concerning the development of those territories. Since 1946, the UNGA has maintained a list of non-self governing territories under member states' control. Since its inception, dozens of territories have been removed from the list, typically when they attained independence or internal self-government, while other territories have been added as new administering countries joined the United Nations or the UN General Assembly (UNGA) reassessed their status.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern Cameroons</span> 1916–1961 British mandate in west-central Africa

The Southern Cameroons was the southern part of the British League of Nations mandate territory of the British Cameroons in West Africa. Since 1961, it has been part of the Republic of Cameroon, where it makes up the Northwest Region and Southwest Region. Since 1994, pressure groups in the territory claim there was no legal document in accordance to UNGA RES 1608(XV) paragraph 5, and are seeking to restore statehood and independence from the Republic. They renamed the British Southern Cameroons as Ambazonia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Regional Groups</span> Geopolitical regional groups of the United Nations

The United Nations Regional Groups are the geopolitical regional groups of member states of the United Nations. Originally, the UN member states were unofficially organized into five groups as an informal means of sharing the distribution of posts for General Assembly committees. Now this grouping has taken on a much more expansive and official role. Many UN bodies are allocated on the basis of geographical representation. Top leadership positions, including Secretary-General and President of the General Assembly, are rotated among the regional groups. The groups also coordinate substantive policy and form common fronts for negotiations and bloc voting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corpus separatum (Jerusalem)</span> 1947 United Nations proposal for international administration of Jerusalem

Corpus separatum was the internationalization proposal for Jerusalem and its surrounding area as part of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly with a two-thirds majority in November 1947. According to the Partition Plan, the city of Jerusalem would be brought under international governance, conferring it a special status due to its shared importance for the Abrahamic religions. The legal base ("Statute") for this arrangement was to be reviewed after ten years and put to a referendum. The corpus separatum was again one of the main issues of the post-war Lausanne Conference of 1949, besides the borders of Israel and the question of the Palestinian right of return.

Chapter XIII of the United Nations Charter deals with the UN Trusteeship Council. It guarantees each of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council a seat on the council as well as those administering trust countries, and as many other members elected by the UN General Assembly as may be necessary to have an equal number of trust-administering and non-trust-administering countries on the Trusteeship Council. The Trusteeship Council is required to make an annual report to the UNGA on each trust territory. With all territories having reached independence, the Trusteeship Council is basically dormant today. There have been proposals to transform it into a trusteeship council of the global commons, although Kofi Annan recommended abolishing it altogether in his report, In Larger Freedom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations General Assembly Fourth Committee</span>

The United Nations General Assembly Fourth Committee is one of six main committees of the United Nations General Assembly. It deals with a diverse set of political issues, including UN peacekeeping and peaceful uses of outer space. However, the issues of decolonization and the Middle East take up most of its time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Israel–Federated States of Micronesia relations</span> Bilateral relations

Israel – Micronesia relations are diplomatic and other relations between the State of Israel and the Federated States of Micronesia. Israel was among the first countries to establish formal diplomatic relations with Micronesia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Security Council Resolution 683</span> United Nations resolution adopted in 1990

United Nations Security Council resolution 683, adopted on 22 December 1990, after recalling Resolution 21 (1947) which approved the Trusteeship Territory of the Japanese Mandated Islands as well as Chapter XII of the United Nations Charter which established the United Nations Trusteeship system, the council determined that, in the light of entry into force of new status agreements for the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and the Northern Mariana Islands, the objectives of the Trusteeship Agreement had been completed and therefore ended the Trusteeship Agreement with those entities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Nations Security Council Resolution 956</span> United Nations resolution adopted in 1994

United Nations Security Council resolution 956, adopted unanimously on 10 November 1994, after recalling Chapter XII of the United Nations Charter which established the United Nations Trusteeship system and Resolution 21 (1947) which approved the Trusteeship Territory of the Japanese Mandated Islands, the Council determined that, in the light of entry into force of a new status agreement for the Republic of Palau, the objectives of the Trusteeship Agreement had been completed and therefore ended the status of Palau as a Trust Territory.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Special Committee on Decolonization</span> UN General Assembly special committee

The United Nations Special Committee on the Situation with Regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, or the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24), is a committee of the United Nations General Assembly that was established in 1961 and is exclusively devoted to the issue of decolonization.

References

  1. "Trusteeship Council Elects President, Vice-President of Seventy-Second Session, Adopts Provisional Agenda". UN.org. 15 December 2017. Retrieved 15 October 2018.
  2. Trusteeship Council
  3. "UN Trusteeship Council Chamber reopens with new hopes for the future, Ban says". UN.org. 26 April 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  4. "Trusteeship Council Elects President, Vice-President of Seventy-Fourth Session, Adopts Provisional Agenda | UN Press". press.un.org. Retrieved 11 December 2023.
  5. "Secretary-General's reform recommendations 'did not go far enough', general assembly told, as debate begins on 'In larger freedom'" UN Press Release GA/10337 April 6, 2005
  6. Shaw, John (11 January 2001). "UN Adviser Says World Must Focus On Sustainable Development". The Washington Diplomat . Archived from the original on 14 February 2005. Retrieved 6 February 2023.
  7. "Our Global Neighborhood: Ch. 7, "A Call to Action"". Global Development Research Center.