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The Negotiations for the Future Political Status of Micronesia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2017

A. John Armstrong
A. John Armstrong*
Affiliation:
Of the Virginia Bar Legal Advisor to the President’s Personal Representative for Micronesian Status Negotiations
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Type
Current Developments
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 74 , Issue 3 , July 1980 , pp. 689 - 693
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of International Law 1980

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References

1 Trusteeship Agreement for the Former Japanese Mandated Islands, approved by the United Nations Security Council on April 2, 1947, and by the United States on July 18, 1947, entered into force July 18, 1947, 61 Stat. 3301, TIAS No. 1665, 8 UNTS 189. For a discussion of the Trusteeship Agreement, see S. De Smith, Microstates And Micronesia 131-42 (1970). The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands is the only remaining trusteeship of the 11 originally created by the United Nations and is the only territory placed under the trusteeship system between 1946 and 1950 that was designated as ”strategic.”

2 See Office for Micronesian Status Negotiations, Summary Record of U.S. Micronesian Roundtable Conference 30 (Honolulu, Hawaii, May 18-21, 1977) (message from President Carter dated May 18, 1977). In this message, President Carter announced the administration’s goal to terminate the trusteeship by 1981.

3 The Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands is currently composed of 4 administrative districts, Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia (which include the states of Yap, Truk, Ponape, and Kosrae), the Marshall Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The negotiations for free association are being conducted with the Governments of Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia, and the Marshall Islands. The future status of the Northern Mariana Islands as a United States Commonwealth was determined in 1976. In this note, the term ”Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands” is used in a jurisdictional sense, as distinguished from the term ”Micronesia,” which is used in a geographical sense.

4 The proposed Palau Constitution was submitted to referendum on July 9, 1980, and appears to have been ratified by more than a three-fourths majority. At the time this article went to press, however, the vote had not yet been certified. Ratification of the Constitution has not affected the positions of the Governments of the United States and Palau with respect to the compatibility of the Constitution of Palau and the Compact of Free Association.

5 48 U.S.C.§1681 (1976).

6 UN Doc. A/RES/742 (VIII) 1953; UN Doc. A/RES/1514 (XV) 1960; UN Doc. A/RES/1541 (XV) 1960; UN Doc. A/RES/2625 (XXV) 1970; UN Charter Arts. 1(2), 55, 73(a), 73(b), and 76(b); Trusteeship Agreement, supra note 1.

7 See Universal Postal Union Constitution, July 10, 1964, 22 UST 1056, TIAS No. 7150, 810 UNTS 7; International Telecommunication Convention, Oct. 25, 1973, 28 UST 2495, TIAS No. 8572.

8 See generally Armstrong, , The Emergence of the Micronesians into the International Community:A Study of the Creation of a New International Entity, 5 Brooklyn J. Int’l L. 207 (1979)Google Scholar. Compare Clark, , Self-Determination and Free Association—Should the United Nations Terminate the PacificIslands Trust?, 21 Harv. Int’l L.J. 1 (1980)Google Scholar.