United Nations Trusteeship Council

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

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 included in 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 the Trust Territory of Somaliland.

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

In March 1948, the United States announced a trusteeship proposal for the territory of Mandatory Palestine after the expiration of the British mandate as a peaceful solution to the ongoing 1948 Palestine war. However, the US did not make an effort to implement this proposal, which became moot with the Israeli declaration of independence in May 1948.

Under the Charter, the Trusteeship Council was to consist of representatives of United Nations member states administering trust territories and an equal number of representatives of 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, which was a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, 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.