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Trusteeship in Action: The United Nations Mission to Western Samoa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Lawrence S. Finkelstein
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Extract

Since the United Nations Charter was agreed upon at San Francisco, with its provisions for a system of trusteeship for certain dependent territories, there has been considerable conjecture concerning the impact which this new machinery might have on “the colonial problem.” Extravagant claims have been made that this crystallization of the concept of collective responsibility was a panacea, that it could provide a suitable resolution for the forces which have for so long exercised a disturbing influence on our society. The trusteeship system has been compared both favorably and unfavorably with the League of Nations mandates system. It has been both lauded and condemned before it has had an opportunity to demonstrate what, if any, are its capacities.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , June 1948 , pp. 268 - 282
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1948

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References

1 For text of the petition see Supplement to the Trusteeship Council Official Records (1st year, 1st session), p. 65–7.

2 Rules of Procedure of the Trusteeship Council, document T/l/Rev. 1, Rule 76.

3 For complete terms of reference of the mission, see document T/43, p. 2.

4 The Fautua are the descendents of the former royal families of Samoa. In virtue of their high prestige and authoritative position in the Samoan society, they have been accorded the position of advisors to the Administrator. At present, there are three Fautua.

5 This Fono was modelled after a standing in stitution, the Fono of Faipule, a council of the representatives of the several Samoan districts who are named in accordance with Samoan customs. It has exercised purely advisory functions.

6 The unhappy circumstances attending the Mau uprising were considered intermittently by the Permanent Mandates Commission, particularly during its Twelfth, Thirteenth, Sixteenth and Nineteenth Sessions. The Commission acquiesced in New Zealand's decision to deport the alleged European instigators. New Zealand sent two investigating commissions to the territory, with Sir Carl Berendsen, now New Zealand répresentative on the Trusteeship Council, participating in the second.

7 The mission's conclusions were an attempt to reconcile the elements, some of them conflicting, which it had discovered in the extremely complicated Samoan pattern and which involved the administering authority, the Europeans and, of greatest importance, the Samoan population. It should be explained first that distinction between Samoans and Europeans is legal rather than ethnic. The purely European population is extremely small, and consists almost exclusively of Government officials and missionaries. The greater part of the so-called European population is of mixed origin. Its importance derives rather from its relative sophistication in commercial and government matters than from its numbers. There is no major race problem in Samoa, although some complaints were heard about discrimination in favor of Europeans.

8 Document T/111, December 18, 1947.

9 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “The United Nations and Non-Self-Governing Territories,” International Conciliation, No. 435, 11 1947, p. 725.Google Scholar