From a Minor Issue in Portuguese Colonialism to an International Question

The United Nations played a central role in the world arena when the colonial empires began to crumble in the second half of the twentieth century, leading to a wave of independences in Asia and Africa (Luard 1989). Portugal as a colonising nation would not be immune to the decolonisation process and to the mounting international pressures to grant its domains the right to self-determination (Martins 1995; Santos 2017; Jerónimo and Monteiro 2020). Up to the end of its authoritarian regime – the so-called Estado Novo – Portugal resisted all the UN resolutions on the right to self-determination and independence as applied to the territories it had under its belt, which were considered by the UN as “non-autonomous.” Portugal argued that, after a constitutional reform, they were “overseas provinces” of a unitarian state, and thus should not be considered in the way the UN was imposing (Jerónimo and Costa Pinto 2015). After the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, the new political and military leaders implemented a U-turn in the country’s approach to this issue and initiated a decolonising process which, however, they preferred to carry out without the involvement of the UN, although its principles were upheld, opting to negotiate the transfer of powers directly with the liberation movements (Pinto 2003).

This chapter focuses on the ways in which the Timor-Leste issue was dealt with at the UN, from the moment Portugal was admitted to the organisation in 1955 till 1982.