The United States, the United Nations, and Micronesia: Questions of Procedure, Substance, and Faith
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Michigan Journal of International Law Volume 11 Issue 1 1989 The United States, The United Nations, and Micronesia: Questions of Procedure, Substance, and Faith Harry G. Prince Hastings College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil Part of the International Law Commons, Military, War, and Peace Commons, National Security Law Commons, and the Transnational Law Commons Recommended Citation Harry G. Prince, The United States, The United Nations, and Micronesia: Questions of Procedure, Substance, and Faith, 11 MICH. J. INT'L L. 11 (1989). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol11/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Michigan Journal of International Law at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Michigan Journal of International Law by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE UNITED STATES, THE UNITED NATIONS, AND MICRONESIA: QUESTIONS OF PROCEDURE, SUBSTANCE,, AND FAITH Harry G. Prince* In undertaking to place under trusteeship a territory of such strategic importance to the United States as these islands, the United States is expressing its faith in the United Nations.' INTRODUCTION On November 3, 1986, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed that the United States had satisfied its obligations under the trusteeship agreement for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, or Microne- sia.2 The Proclamation verified that the Trust Territory had evolved into four new entities with new relationships to the United States: the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands under the sover- eignty of the United States and the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau as states in free association with the United States. 3 While it is true that * Professor of Law, Hastings College of Law. The author wishes to express appreciation to Professor Roger S. Clark for his insightful comments on an earlier draft, and to Rachel A. Van Cleave, Hastings Class of 1989, and Brad Kane, Hastings Class of 1990, for their invaluable research assistance. The author is also indebted to the staff of the Hastings Law Library for exceptional assistance in locating resource materials. I. Statement of Warren Austin, United States Representative to the United Nations Security Council, upon presentation of draft Trusteeship Agreement for the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. 2 U.N. SCOR (113th mtg.) at 410 (1947) [hereinafter "Statement of Warren Austin"]. 2. See Proclamation No. 5564 (Nov. 3, 1986), 51 Fed. Reg. 40,399-400 (1986) (relating to Trusteeship Agreement for the Former Japanese Mandated Islands, July 18, 1947, 61 Stat. 3301, T.I.A.S. No. 1665, 8 U.N.T.S. 189). Micronesia includes more than 2000 islands in three groups, the Marshalls, the Carolines, and the Marianas. The Trust Territory includes all of Micronesia except Guam, Nauru and Kiribati. The islands are spread over three million square miles but have a combined land area of only 700 square miles. The population of the Trust Territory was estimated to be 164,304 in 1986. 1986 Report of the Government of the United States of America on the Administration of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, 54 U.N. TCOR, U.N. Doc. T/ 1909 (1987). 3. More specifically, the Trusteeship Agreement was declared to be no longer in effect with respect to the Northern Marinas, the Federated States, and the Marshall Islands. Because Palau had not completed its internal process for approving new relations with the United States, see infra notes 226-258 and accompanying text, the Trusteeship Agreement remained provisionally applicable solely to Palau. The four political communities are described in more detail below, see infra notes 141-144, and will be referred to in this article as "states" or "emerging states" with- out prejudice to the question of whether they qualify for statehood under international law. Michigan Journal of InternationalLaw [Vol. 11:11 the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations had previously con- cluded that the United States had satisfied its obligations under the Trusteeship Agreement, 4 the United States did not obtain the approval of the Security Council, the body which is generally viewed as holding ultimate responsibility under the United Nations Charter for ensuring that a strategic trust obligation has been properly fulfilled.5 This recent action by the United States Government has raised questions of both substance and procedure. Has the United States lived up to its obligations under the Trusteeship Agreement to foster the educational, social, political and economic development of the Trust Territory to a point where self-government and termination of the trust is appropriate? Are the proposed arrangements for post-trust relations between the emerging states and the United States consistent with United Nations principles of self-determination? Can the Trus- teeship Agreement be validly terminated without the approval of the Security Council? Arguments can be made on both sides of all three questions. Substantively, the United States has built schools and hos- pitals, spurred the formation of constitutional governments, and pro- vided large amounts of financial assistance. Still, the emerging states continue to be without much hope of future economic self-sufficiency, the infrastructure of roads and government facilities is often charged as being inadequate, and the traditional culture has given way to the advent of violent crimes, increasing suicide rates, and other social mal- adies generally attributed to Western influence on the territory. Most significantly, there are charges that nuclear weapons are being forced onto the territory of one state, and that there has been a lack of ade- quate compensation for injuries caused by nuclear testing in another state. 4. T.C. Res. 2183 (LIII), 53 U.N. TCOR Supp. (No. 3) at 14-15, U.N. Doc. T/1901 (1986). For text of resolution see appendix B, infra. The resolution was adopted by a vote of three in favor (France, United Kingdom, and the United States) and one against (the Soviet Union). China, as had been its practice prior to 1989, did not take part in the proceedings. See 23 U.N. Chronicle 67 (1986). In 1987 and 1988 the Trusteeship Council, by similar votes of three to one, reaffirmed its position in the 1986 resolution that termination of the Trusteeship Agreement is appropriate. See 55 U.N. TCOR (1657th mtg.) at 18, U.N. Doc. T/PV. 1657 (1988), (adopting draft resolution found in U.N. Doc. T/S.1266 (1988); 54 U.N. TCOR (1640th mtg.) at 8, U.N. Doc. T/PV. 1640 (1987) (adopting draft resolution found in U.N. Doc. T/L. 1260 (1987)). China participated in Trusteeship Council proceedings for the first time in 1989. See 56 U.N. TCOR (1671st mtg.) at 26, U.N. Doc. T/PV.1661 (1989), and joined the majority in voting 4 to I essentially to reaffirm the 1986 resolution. See 56 U.N. TCOR (1671st mtg.) at 31, U.N. Doc. T/ PV.1671 (1989) (adopting resolution found in U.N. Doc. T/L.1270 (1989)). Further Trusteeship Council acquiescence in the United States' unilateral efforts at termination is found in its dis- patch of a visiting mission which visited only Palau, as the sole remaining portion of the Trust Territory. See Report of the United Notions Visiting Mission to Palau, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, 1989, 56 U.N. TCOR Supp. (No. 1), U.N. Doc. T/1935 (1989). 5. See infra notes 51-108 and accompanying text. Fall 1989] Micronesia The proposed post-trust relations between the United States and the emerging states also are subject to mixed review. The new statuses seem certainly to reflect, as a general matter, the free choices of the majority of the people in the Trust Territory. But when measured against United Nations norms for self-determination, as defined by the Charter, General Assembly resolutions and past practice, the post- trust arrangements arguably concede too much to the United States for the new entities to be deemed to have achieved the proper level of self-government. Charges of neo-colonialism, in fact, have been made with regard to the commonwealth relationship with the Northern Ma- riana Islands. Procedurally, the overwhelming weight of opinion is that Security Council approval is essential to the legal termination of the Trustee- ship Agreement. Neither the Trusteeship Agreement nor the United Nations Charter, however, explicitly requires such a step. And quite notably, the United States Government is well on the path to terminat- ing the Trusteeship Agreement, effectively and probably irreversibly, 6 whether such action is procedurally correct or not. 6. While this article focuses on issues relating to de jure termination of the Trusteeship Agreement, the prospect of de facto termination of trusteeship status looms large in present considerations of the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of the Marshall Islands. These two emerging states present an increasingly plausible claim for statehood. Both the Mar- shall Islands and the Federated States can allege satisfaction of the four basic requirements for statehood: a permanent population, a defined territory, internal government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. See I. BROWNLIE, PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC INTERNA- TIONAL LAW 74-75 (3d. ed 1979). The element most likely to be challenged is that of capacity to engage in foreign relations because the United States has substantial rights relating to security and defense of the emerging states. See infra notes 200-212 and accompanying text. The grant of a right to intervene in a state's territory for defense purposes, however, should not be deemed to spoil the otherwise independent nature of the grantor state.