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The United Nations and Colonialism: A Tentative Appraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Harold Karan Jacobson
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Colonialism, at least as it is generally defined in the United Nations as Western rule of non-metropolitan areas, is rapidly being brought to a close. As a consequence, within a few years some of the activities of the United Nations will be reduced to almost insignificant proportions. Seven of the eleven territories that were once included within the trusteeship system have already achieved self-government or independence, and another, Ruanda-Urundi, will soon attain that goal. Unless new territories are added, only Nauru, New Guinea, and the Pacific Islands will remain under trusteeship. The list of territories which according to the General Assembly are subject to the provisions of Chapter XI of the Charter has not been cut as drastically, but in terms of the number of people involved, the reduction is equally impressive. Even with the high rate of population growth and the addition of the Spanish and Portuguese dependencies, the number of people living in such areas is about one-fifth of the 1946 figure of 215,000,000. With a few important exceptions such as Kenya, Uganda, Nyasaland and the Rhodesias, and Angola and Mozambique, the territories which in the UN's view “have not yet attained a full measure of self-government” are small and have populations of less than one million. It has already been recommended that the future of the Department of Trusteeship and Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories and the possibility of allocating its duties to other departments be reviewed in the light of these developments.

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International Organization , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , Winter 1962 , pp. 37 - 56
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1962

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References

1 British Togoland elected to join Ghana, which became independent in 1957. The French Cameroons, French Togoland, and Italian Somaliland attained independence in 1960. The trusteeship for the British Cameroons was terminated in 1961 when the Northern Cameroons became part of the Federation of Nigeria on June 1 and the Southern Cameroons joined the Republic of Cameroun on October 1. Tanganyika became independent December9, 1961. Western Samoa gained that status January 1, 1962.

2 See the report of the Committee of Experts on the Activities and Organization of the Secretariat: Document A/4776, p. 61–62.

3 India and the United Nations (New York: Manhattan, 1957), p. 101Google ScholarPubMed.

4 See for example: Fox, Annette Baker, “International Organization for Colonial Development,” World Politics, 04 1951 (Vol. 3, No. 3), p. 340–368, p. 353–354Google Scholar; and, Hayden, Sherman S., “The Trusteeship Council: Its First Three Years,” Political Science Quarterly, 06 1951 (Vol. 66, No. 2), p. 226–247, p. 229–230Google Scholar.

5 New York Times, May 8, 1945.

6 For a few examples see Goodman, Elliot R., “The Cry of National Liberation: Recent Soviet Attitudes Toward National Self-Determination,” International Organization, Winter 1960 (Vol. 14, No. 1), p. 92–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 On the one occasion when the question of the USSR's participating in a visiting mission was formally raised, the Soviet representative immediately replied that “his delegation would be unable to take part …” (Trusteeship Council Official Records [5th session], p. 257Google Scholar). The discussion occurred in July 1949. It concerned the composition of the mission which would visit the trust territories in the Pacific in the late spring and early summer of 1950.

8 In the 1952 election the USSR was defeated by China, 27–24, on the second ballot. In 1955 China won a place over the USSR again, this time on the first ballot. Three years later, the Soviet Union again seriously offered its candidacy, but withdrew at the last moment in favor of Ghana so as not to split the vote against China. Tactically the move was successful as China was not elected.

9 The Sudanese draft resolution defining the terms of reference of the Economic Commission for Africa (Document E/L.780 and Rev.I) gave membership to both the United States and the USSR. The African states which were then in the UN strongly supported this provision. The USSR was eager to serve on the Commission. The United States, however, argued that membership on the Commission should be limited to the states of Africa and the relevant metropolitan powers. The Council finally rejected the paragraph in question by a vote of 5 (Indonesia, Poland, Sudan, USSR, and Yugoslavia) to 12 (Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, France, Greece, Mexico, Netherlands, Pakistan, United Kingdom, and the United States) with one abstention (Finland) (ECOSOC Official Records [25th session], p. 86Google Scholar). ECOSOC Resolution 671 (XXV) April 29, 1958, provides that membership on the Commission is open to independent states in Africa and to states which have responsibilities for territories in Africa as long as these responsibilities continue.

10 Annette Baker Fox foresaw this at an early date and urged the United States to take advantage of it. See “International Organization for Colonial Development,” p. 340–341.

11 The best treatment of the way in which the United States has met this dilemma is Good, Robert C., “The United States and the Colonial Debate,” in Wolfers, Arnold (ed.), Alliance Policy in the Cold War (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1959), p. 224–270Google Scholar.

12 For a detailed description of several instances in which allies put pressure on the United States see Senator Wayne Morse's supplementary report to the Committee on Foreign Relations on his experiences as a delegate at the fifteenth session of the Assembly: The United States in the United Nations: 1960—A Turning Point (Washington, D. C: Government Printing Office, 1961)Google Scholar.

13 See Jacobson, Harold Karan, “Our ‘Colonial’ Problem in the Pacific” Foreign Affairs, 10 1960 (Vol. 29, No. 1), p. 56–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For a sample of this opinion see SirBurns, Alan, In Defense of Colonies: British Territories in International Affairs (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1956Google Scholar). Sir Alan served as the delegate of the United Kingdom to the Trusteeship Council for nine years and also participated in the General Assembly. Even Sir Alan's more moderate successor, Sir Andrew Cohen, has occasionally shown signs of similar feelings. See his British Policy in Changing Africa (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1959)Google Scholar.

15 This has been graphically illustrated by two statistical analyses: Hovet, Thomas Jr, Bloc Politics in the United Nations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 141Google Scholar; and, Rieselbach, Leroy N., “Quantitative Techniques for Studying Voting Behavior in the UN General Assembly,” International Organization, Spring 1960 (Vol. 14, No. 2), p. 291–306Google Scholar, p. 300–306. For a more detailed analysis of the position of the Latin American states see: Houston, John A., Latin America in the United Nations (New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1956), p. 162–221Google Scholar.

16 Latin American concern for Italy was an important ingredient in the decisions relating to the Italian colonies. The sympathy which some of these states felt for France appears to have been a major factor in the General Assembly's decision, at its sixth session in Paris in 1951, not to discuss the Moroccan dispute. In 1956 the Latin American relationship with Spain and Portugal apparently was the key factor in the General Assembly's reinstitution of the requirement that certain categories of decisions regarding non-self-governing territories required a two-thirds majority for adoption.

17 See the interesting analysis of the reactions of the African states to the UN's actions concerning the Congo: Good, Robert C., “Four African Views of the Congo Crisis,” Africa Report, 06 1961 (Vol. 6, No. 6), p. 3–4, 6, 12, 15Google Scholar.

18 See Murray, James N. Jr, The United Nations Trusteeship System (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1957)Google Scholar; Sady, Emil J., “The United Nations and Dependent Peoples,” in Asher, Robert E. and others, The United Nations and the Promotion of the General Welfare (Washington, D. C: The Brookings Institution, 1957), p. 815–1017Google Scholar; and Toussaint, Charmian Edwards, The Trusteeship System of the United Nations (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1956)Google Scholar.

19 The United Kingdom threatened to withdraw from participation in the committee if it were given this power (General Assembly Official Records, Fourth Committee [10th session], p. 108–109Google Scholar). The UK and other colonial powers have also used this threat to block proposals that the committee be given permanent status.

20 Or as Fox, Annette Baker put it: “The Trusteeship Council tends to ventilate existing practices rather than to analyze alternative solutions for problems perplexing conscientious administrators.” (“International Organization for Colonial Development,” p. 347Google Scholar.) One wonders, though, whether the administering authorities would have been willing to accept a different role for the Council.

21 It can be expected that the anticolonial forces will continue to advance similar demands even after colonialism as such passes. The resolution that the International Labor Organization adopted in the summer of 1961, on the prompting of Nigeria, which recommended that the Union of South Africa withdraw from membership (ILO Conference, Provisional Record, 1961 [45th session], No. 38, p. viGoogle Scholar. The resolution was adopted by a vote of 163 to 0, with 89 abstentions), and the actions against this country at the sixteenth session of the General Assembly are surely an indication of things to come. To the anticolonial forces, it will be a continuation of the same battle.

22 General Assembly Resolution 447 (V), December 12, 1950.

23 See Finkelstein, Lawrence S., “Trusteeship in Action: The United Nations Mission to Western Samoa,” International Organization, 05 1948 (Vol. 2, No. 2), p. 268–282CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 See Harper, Norman and Sissons, David, Australia and the United Nations (New York: Manhattan, 1959), p. 193–196Google Scholar.

25 For analyses of this issue see the Secretariat study concerning the implementation of UN recommendations concerning trust territories (Document A/1903 and Adds.I and 2); Bates, Margaret L., “Tanganyika: The Development of a Trust Territory,” International Organization, 02 1955 (Vol. 9, No. 1), p. 32–51Google Scholar; and Chidzero, B. T. G., Tanganyika and International Trusteeship(London: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar.

26 See the interesting discussion of this matter in Fox, Annette Baker, “The United Nations and Colonial Development,” International Organization, 05 1950 (Vol. 4, No. 2), p. 199–218CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Certainly the 1954 visiting mission to East Africa which suggested, inter alia, that Tanganyika should become self-governing or independent in less than 20 years (Trusteeship Council Official Records [15th session], Supplement No. 3, “Report on Tanganyika,” p. 67–68Google Scholar) had a profound effect on the Tanganyika African National Union (see Adam, Thomas R., “Trusteeship and Non Self-Governing Territories,” in Eagleton, Clyde and Swift, Richard N. (ed.) Annual Review of United Nations Affairs, 1955–1956 [New York: New York University Press, 1957], p. 117–140, p. 125 ff.)Google Scholar.

28 See Emerson, Rupert, From Empire to Nation: The Rise to Self-Assertion of Asian and African Peoples (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Among other things we know very little about the reactions of the inhabitants of dependent territories to the United Nations. The only detailed analysis of this question is: Wedgwood, Camilla, “Attitudes of the Native Peoples of Papua and New Guinea to the United Nations 1945–1954,” Appendix D in Australia and the United Nations, p. 384–400Google Scholar.

30 Fletcher-Cooke, John, “Some Reflections on the International Trusteeship System, With Particular Reference to its Impact on the Governments and Peoples of the Trust Territories,” International Organization, Summer 1959 (Vol. 13, No. 3), p. 422–430, p. 430CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 See ibid., p. 427; and Ernst B. Haas, “Dynamic Environment and Static System: Revolutionary Regimes in the United Nations” (paper read at the 1961 Convention of the American Political Science Association), note 47.

32 See Calvocoressi, Peter, Survey of International Affairs, 1949–1950 (London: Oxford University Press, 1953), p. 545Google Scholar.

33 See the fascinating study by Taylor, Alastair M., Indonesian Independence and the United Nations (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

34 From Empire to Nation, p. 399. The nationalist forces clearly recognized this. In 1952 the French censorship disclosed two letters which were allegedly written by DrBourguiba, Habib in 1950 (Le Figaro, 04 7, 1952)Google Scholar. In them Dr. Bourguiba told Mr. Abed Bouhafa, a representative of the Arab League in the United States, among other things, that violence alone would force the United Nations to consider Tunisian affairs.

35 France certainly acted this way in 1952. See Stebbins, Richard P., The United States in World Affairs, 1952 (New York: Harper, 1953), p. 362Google Scholar.

36 See the place accorded to it in General Assembly Resolution 742 (VIII), November 27, 1953, “Factors Which Should Be Taken Into Account in Deciding Whether a Territory Is or Is Not a Territory Whose People Have Not Yet Attained a Full Measure of Self-Government.”

37 For a detailed description of the UN's involvement in one of these cases see Coleman, James S., “Togoland,” International Conciliation, No. 509, 09 1956, p. 1–91Google Scholar.

38 See Sady, Emil J., “The United Nations and Dependent Peoples,” p. 914Google Scholar.

39 It may well be though if Western Samoa is a harbinger. Certainly independence does not mean the same thing for Western Samoa—an area with 1,130 square miles of land and a population of about 106,000—as it does for larger and more populous territories, such as Tanganyika.

40 For example, the list mentions eligibility for UN membership as one criterion. It is hard to believe, however, that full membership would be appropriate. More thinking needs to be done along the lines of Lincoln P. Bloomfield's suggestionof associate membership. See The United Nations and U.S. Foreign Policy: A New Look at the National Interest (Boston: Little, Brown, 1960), p. 199–200Google Scholar.

41 See Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation; Millikan, Max F. and Blackmer, Donald L. M., The Emerging Nations: Their Growth and United States Policy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1961)Google Scholar; and Niebuhr, Reinhold, The Structure of Nations and Empires (New York: Scribner's, 1959)Google Scholar.

42 See Hadwen, John G. and Kaufmann, Johau, How United Nations Decisions are Made (Leyden: A. W. Sythoff, 1960), p. 109–111Google Scholar.

43 See particularly General Assembly Resolutions 1414 (XIV) and 1415 (XIV), December 5, 1959.

44 For general descriptions of the UN's Civilian Operations in the Congo see General Assembly Official Records (16th session), Supplement No. I, ”Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 16 June 1960—15 June 1961,” p. 47–51Google Scholar; and “Chaos Averted in the Congo,” United Nations Review, 09 1961 (Vol. 8, No. 9), p. 29–31Google Scholar.

45 See Claude, Inis L. Jr, “The United Nations and the Use of Force,” International Conciliation, No. 532, 03 1961, p. 325–384, p. 376–379Google Scholar; and Holmes, John, “The United Nations in the Congo,” International Journal, Winter 1960–1961 (Vol. 16, No. 1), p. 1–16Google Scholar. For a discussion of some of the legal aspects of the UN's playing this role see Miller, E. M., “Legal Aspects of the United Nations Action in the Congo,” The American Journal of International Law, 01 1961 (Vol. 55, No. 1), p. 1–28Google Scholar.

46 See especially Document S/4417, “Second Report by the Secretary-General on the Implementation of Security Council Resolutions S/4387 of 14 July 1960 and S/4405 of 22 July 1960.”

47 See Claude, Inis L. Jr, Swords into Plowshares: The Problems and Progress of International Organization (New York: Random House, 1959, 2d ed.), p. 341–371Google Scholar; and, Haas, Ernst B., “The Attempts to Terminate Colonialism: Acceptance of the United Nations Trusteeship System,” International Organization, 02 1953 (Vol. 7, No. 1), p. 1–21Google Scholar.

48 See Emerson, Rupert, From Empire to Nation, p. 272–292Google Scholar; and Millikan, Max F. and Blackmer, Donald L. M., The Emerging Nations, p. 68–90Google Scholar.

49 UNCIO Documents (Vol. 8), p. 143–146Google ScholarPubMed (see also the milder revision, p. 155–159), 133–134, 137–142, and 147–149 respectively.