The American Anti-Colonial Tradition And

The American Anti-Colonial Tradition and International Accountability for Dependent Peoples: A Study of the American Role in the establishment of the League of Nations Mandates System and the United Nations Trusteeship System, by Kenneth Joseph Cosgrove To be submitted for the degree of Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in the University of London, 1 UMI Number: U048625 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Dissertation Publishing UMI U048625 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 fM£S£S F 6 8 Kenneth Joseph COSGROVE 1990 Abstract of a thesis to be submitted for the degree of Ph.D. at the London School of Economics in the University of London This thesis examines the American anti-colonial tradition’s role in establishing the principle of international accountability for administering dependent peoples in the League of Nations mandates and the United Nations trusteeship systems. Where relevant, British ideas and schemes are compared with American ones in so far as this helps to understand the latter and where the final outcomes were based on Anglo-American compromises. It contributes to the literature on international relations in two main areas. First, it analyses the formulation, development and inter-relation of the American anti colonial tradition and international accountability. Second, it is the first study of the interplay of those two concepts within the context of differing Anglo-American views on creating the mandates and trusteeship systems. There are eight chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the main objectives and themes. Chapters 2 and 3, the conceptual heart of the thesis, examine imperial and colonial relationships, the American anti-colonial tradition, and international accountability for dependent peoples. Chapter 4 focuses on the interplay of those concepts and the American role in establishing the League mandates system. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 do the same regarding the United Nations trusteeship system. Chapter 7 also contains a postscript on trusteeship developments since 1945. Chapter 8 summarises the thesis* conclusions. Throughout, the methodological approach is analytical and historical rather than theoretical. 2 The overall conclusion is that so long as the national interests of the United States were protected, the American anti-colonial tradition did play the major role in establishing the principle of international accountability within both the mandates and the trusteeship systems. The determination and anti-colonial sentiments of Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were especially important. American policy was usually based on the right of all peoples to freedom; the practical application of this precept hastened the demise of Western European-style colonialism. 3 CONTENTS Page 4 Chapter 1. Introduction 6 i. Objectives and Perspective 6 ii. Methodology and Chapter Summaries 18 iii. Sources and Contribution to Knowledge 23 Chapter 2, Colonialism and the American Anti-Colonial 27 Tradition i. Imperial, Colonial and Neo-Colonial 30 Relationships ii. The Nature of the American Anti- 43 Colonial Tradition iii. Anti-Colonialism and American Policy 51 Chapter 3. International Accountability for the 92 Administration of Dependent Peoples i. The Sacred Trust Principle 93 ii. International Accountability 107 iii. The Vital American Contribution to 133 the Concept of International Accountability Chapter 4. The United States and the League of Nations 143 Mandates System i. The Proposals on Dependent Peoples 147 which the United States brought to the Paris Peace Conference ii. The American Role in the Creation of 155 the League of Nations Mandates System at the Paris Peace Conference iii. American Involvement in the League 169 Mandates System iv. An Overall Survey 180 Chapter 5. Franklin Roosevelts Administration and 195 the Trusteeship Principle i. Trusteeship in the Americas 197 ii. The United States Original Plans 202 for United Nations Trusteeship iii. President Roosevelt and International 219 Trusteeship iv. Great Britain and the Postwar Future 234 of Dependent Peoples 4 Chapter 6, Conflict and Resolution: Annexation or 252 Trusteeship i. Military Objections to Trusteeship 253 ii. The Continuing Anglo-American Dialogue 260 iii. Towards an American Consensus 276 iv. The Trusteeship Proposals Brought 296 by the United States to the San Francisco Conference Chapter 7. San Francisco and Beyond 311 i. The San Francisco Conference 312 ii. The Constitutional Aspects of United 334 Nations Concern with Colonial Problems Chapter 8. The United States and International 360 Accountability: An Overall Assessment Appendices. 1. The American Empire (Map) 371 2. The Allocation of League Mandates 372 3. Territories Under United Nations 373 Trusteeship 4. The League of Nations Covenant and 374 Dependent Peoples 5. The United Nations Charter and 376 Dependent Peoples Bibliography. 382 5 Chapter 1 ; Introduction 1• Objectives and Perspective This thesis examines the role of the American anti colonial tradition in the evolution of the principle of international accountability for the administration of dependent peoples. It focuses on the tradition*s part in establishing the mandates system of the League of Nations as set forth in Article 22 of the Covenant and the trusteeship system of the United Nations as enshrined in Chapters XI, XII, and XIII of the Charter. Events since the establishment of the United Nations trusteeship system at the San Francisco Conference of 1945 and the submission of the original trusteeship agreements in 1946/47, lie outside the main purview of the thesis. They are outlined in Chapter 7, however, in so far as they throw light on the response of the United States to the efforts of the anti-colonial powers to bridge the constitutional gap in the Charter and give the United Nations comparable powers over non-self-governing to those it possessed over trust territories. This culminated with the establishment in November 1961 of the Special Committee to report on the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples of December 1960. The thesis is confined primarily to examining ’official* and ’semi-official* American sources for ideas and plans regarding international accountability, mandates, and trusteeship. The methodological approach is analytical rather than theoretical. Throughout, the emphasis is not on the facts as such and what actually happened, but rather on analysing the issues raised by the inter-play of the two concepts, the American anti-colonial tradition and international accountability for dependent peoples. 6 The Anglo-American dimension. Where relevant, British schemes are examined in so far as they help to understand American ones, were in marked contrast to them, or because the final outcome was based on an Anglo-American compromise. This comparison is undertaken because Great Britain, the foremost colonial power in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, was the country against which much of American anti-colonial sentiment was directed. Great Britain and the United States, moreover, were the two powers who made the greatest contribution to the principle of international accountability for dependent peoples. An important intellectual distinction between American and British blueprints should be underlined. Although a generalisation, there is an element of truth in the contention that whereas British stands on colonial issues tended to move from specific to more general conceptions, the Americans were more inclined to be influenced by conceptual propositions in particular matters. For example, during the Second World War, the British Colonial Office’s views regarding independence and/or self-government were based largely on its understanding of the lessons to be drawn from the experience of specific colonies and the evolution of the white Dominions to autonomy within the British Empire and Commonwealth. The attitudes of many officials within the State Department to such questions as the future of Indo china, however, in part were determined by the intellectual constraints of concepts like the Mopen door'*, ,fthe right of all peoples to independence1', and the general ethos of American anti-colonialism. If this intellectual distinction is borne in mind when probing their wartime policies regarding international accountability, then it is easier to appreciate more fully the occasional mutual incomprehension which the Americans and the British had for each other's proposals• A further point is that when comparing American and British plans, clear analytical threads may well now be drawn 7 which at the time were by no means apparent to the actual people dealing with them. Another complication is that it is not always clear, nor was it always clear at the time to the protagonists themselves (even within their own planning circles), whether differing American and to a lesser extent British proposals on international accountability were to

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