The Trusteeship System and the Trusteeship Council

In one line

The trusteeship system placed certain dependent territories under international supervision with independence or self-government as its object, the Trusteeship Council supervised them, and the system completed its work in 1994 when the last trust territory became independent.

The background

The system did not begin in 1945. Under the Covenant of the League of Nations the colonies detached from the defeated empires after the First World War were placed under mandates, administered by named Powers on behalf of the League, on the principle that the well-being and development of their peoples formed a sacred trust of civilisation. Mandates were graded A, B and C according to the stage of development the Covenant attributed to the territory, and the mandatory reported to a Permanent Mandates Commission.

The Charter kept the idea and changed the machinery: supervision by an organ of the Organization, express objectives including independence, a right of petition, and visiting missions.

Non-self-governing territories: articles 73 and 74

Chapter XI applies to all territories whose peoples have not attained a full measure of self-government, whether or not they are under trusteeship, and it is the part of the Charter that is still capable of operating.

Article 73. Members which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of such territories recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost their well-being, and to that end:

(a) to ensure, with due respect for the culture of the peoples concerned, their political, economic, social, and educational advancement, their just treatment, and their protection against abuses;

(b) to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and the varying stages of advancement;

(c) to further international peace and security;

(d) to promote constructive measures of development, encourage research, and cooperate with one another and with specialized international bodies;

(e) to transmit regularly to the Secretary-General, for information purposes and subject to such limitation as security and constitutional considerations may require, statistical and other information of a technical nature relating to economic, social and educational conditions in the territories for which they are responsible, other than those to which Chapters XII and XIII apply.

Article 73(b) says self-government and not independence, and article 73(e) requires information only on economic, social and educational conditions, not political ones. Both limits were fought over, and the General Assembly's practice, culminating in the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples of 1960, moved decisively past them.