The United Nations Trusteeship Council is one of the six principal organs of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...

, established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests of their inhabitants and of international peace and security. The trust territories—most of them former mandates of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (LN or LoN; , SdN) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920), Paris Peace ...

or territories taken from nations defeated at the end of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

—have all now attained self-government or

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

, either as separate nations or by joining neighbouring independent countries. The last was

Palau Palau, officially the Republic of Palau, is an island country in the Micronesia subregion of Oceania in the western Pacific Ocean. The Republic of Palau consists of approximately 340 islands and is the western part of the Caroline Islands ...

, formerly part of the

Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands 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 U.S. during the Pacifi ...

, which became a

member state of the United Nations The United Nations comprise sovereign states and the world's largest intergovernmental organization. All members have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The Charter of the United Nations defines the rules for admission of ...

in December 1994.

History

Provisions to form a new UN agency to oversee the

decolonization Decolonization is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby Imperialism, imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. The meanings and applications of the term are disputed. Some scholar ...

of dependent territories from colonial times were made at the

San Francisco Conference The United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), commonly known as the San Francisco Conference, was a convention of delegates from 50 Allied nations that took place from 25 April 1945 to 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, Cal ...

in 1945 and were specified Chapter 12 of the

Charter of the United Nations The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the Secretariat, the G ...

. Those dependent territories (

colonies A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their '' metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often or ...

and

mandated territories 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 th ...

) were to be placed under the international trusteeship system created by the

United Nations Charter The Charter of the United Nations is the foundational treaty of the United Nations (UN). It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, UN system, including its United Nations System#Six ...

as a successor to the

mandate system. Ultimately, eleven territories were placed under trusteeship: seven in Africa and four in

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

. Ten of the trust territories had previously been League of Nations mandates; the eleventh was

Italian Somaliland Italian Somaliland (; ; ) was a protectorate and later colony of the Kingdom of Italy in present-day Somalia, which was ruled in the 19th century by the Sultanate of Hobyo and the Majeerteen Sultanate in the north, and by the Hiraab Imamate and ...

. In order to implement the provisions on the trusteeship system, the

General Assembly A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company. Specific examples of general assembly include: Churches * General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presby ...

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 Mandatory Palestine was a British Empire, British geopolitical entity that existed between 1920 and 1948 in the Palestine (region), region of Palestine, and after 1922, under the terms of the League of Nations's Mandate for Palestine. After ...

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 Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. 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 The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...

, 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

, formerly part of the

, in 1994, there presently are no trust territories, leaving the Trusteeship Council without responsibilities. (Since the

Northern Mariana Islands The Northern Mariana Islands, officially the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), is an Territories of the United States, unincorporated territory and Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States consistin ...

was a part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and became a

commonwealth A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the 15th century. Originally a phrase (the common-wealth ...

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

it continues to exist on paper, its future role and even existence remains uncertain. The Trusteeship Council has a president and vice-president, 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.

The chamber itself is still used for other purposes. Following a three-year refurbishment, restoring its original design by Danish architect

Finn Juhl Finn Juhl (30 January 1912 – 17 May 1989) was a Denmark, Danish architect, interior design, interior and industrial designer, most known for his furniture design. He was one of the leading figures in the creation of Danish design in the 1940s an ...

, the chamber was re-opened in 2013. The current president of the Trusteeship Council is James Kariuki and the Vice-President is Nathalie Broadhurst Estival.

Future prospects

The formal elimination of the Trusteeship Council would require the revision of the

. Though this has been proposed as part of

reform of the United Nations Reform refers to the improvement or amendment of what is wrong, corrupt, unsatisfactory, etc. The modern usage of the word emerged in the late 18th century and is believed to have originated from Christopher Wyvill's Association movement, which ...

, 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 The Commission on Global Governance was an organization co-chaired by Swedish Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson, and former Commonwealth Secretary-General Shridath Ramphal, that produced a controversial report, '' Our Global Neighborhood'', in 1995. ...

's 1995 '' Our Global Neighbourhood'' report which recommended expanding the trusteeship council's remit to the protection of

environmental Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

integrity and the global commons on the two-thirds of the world's surface that is outside national jurisdictions.

Gallery

Decolonization - World In 1945 en.svg, The world in 1945, UN Trusteeship territories are colored green Decolonization - World Today en.svg, The world in 2010, with no trusteeship territories left

References

External links