1 The fourth entity is Palau. See infra note 7.

2 TC Res. 2183 (LIII), 53 UN TCOR Supp. (No. 3) at 14, UN Doc. T/1901 (1986).

3 As it turned out, the Council’s action was a little premature in respect of Palau, since its approval of the Compact had not then, and has not yet, been given.

4 See Report of the Trusteeship Council, 23 June–23 October 1974, 29 UN GAOR Supp.(No. 4) at 22–25, UN Doc. A/9604 (1974). Since the present trust is a strategic one, the Council’s recommendation must, of course, go to the Security Council. Under Article 83, paragraph 3 of the Charter, the Security Council is to avail itself of the assistance of the Trusteeship Council to “perform those functions of the United Nations under the trusteeship system relating to political, economic, social, and educational matters in the strategic areas.” The day–to–day supervision of the Trust Territory has been left to the Trusteeship Council since 1949, just as the General Assembly left the day–to–day supervision of the other trust territories to the Trusteeship Council, but reserved to itself the power to make determinative decisions such as those on termination.

5 UN Doc. S/18424(1986).

6 The Marianas, at least, had apparently been proceeding on the basis that the Security Council needed to take action. See UN Doc. T/Com. 10/L.366 of Oct. 21, 1986, which contains a recommendation from the Marianas House of Representatives to the Security Council that, subject to certain understandings, the trusteeship be terminated in respect of the Marianas. In fact, representatives of the Northern Marianas Task Force on Termination (created by the Marianas legislature) made lengthy oral petitions to the Trusteeship Council on May 13, 1987 for Security Council action leading to termination, subject to their understandings—some 6 months after the trusteeship was supposed to have been terminated as to them. See UN Doc.T/PV.1627 (1987). There is apparently a serious dispute raging between the Northern Marianas and the United States as to what the relationship between the parties is.

7 The Compact was again defeated in a referendum held in Palau in December 1986. The author of this letter was one of a group of international nongovernmental observers at that referendum. See Report of the International Observer Mission, Palau referendum, December1986 (International League for Human Rights and Minority Rights Group, New York, May1987). A referendum on June 30, 1987 also failed. A later effort to amend the nuclear control provisions of the Constitution so that the Compact could be approved by a 50% majority was being litigated in Palau early in September.

8 Presidential Proclamation No. 5564, Nov. 3, 1986, 51 Fed. Reg. 40,399 (1986), excerpted in 81 AJIL 405 (1987).

9 See UN Doc. T/1909 (1987).

10 This proclamation appears in the 1986 report of the Administering Authority, id. at 276–77. I am not aware of any similar documents on the Marsha]Is or the Marianas.

11 An examination of the original materials of the relevant proceedings in San Francisco in1945, 10 UNCIO Docs., failed to shed any light on the intent of the founders. However, a leading secondary source on the Charter, apparently written with the aid of American State Department material not generally available, says this about the discussion of amendment and termination:

Russell, R. & Muther, J., A History of the United Nations Charter: The Role of the United States 1940–1945, at 837 (1958)Google Scholar.

12 This is true even if one takes a narrow dictionary definition of the terms. Black’s Law Dictionary defines “alteration” as “[variation; changing; making different. A change of a thing from one form or state to another; making a thing different from what it was without destroying its identity.” It defines “amendment” as “[a] change, ordinarily for the better . . . . An amelioration of the thing without involving the idea of any change in substance or essence.” Whether the removal of the three entities from the trusteeship would be a change “for the better” is perhaps debatable; that it is a change of the Agreement is not disputable.

13 2 UN SCOR (23d mtg.) at 476 (1947). And see the further discussion at 2 UN SCOR (31 stmtg.) at 669–80 (1947). The ambassador’s statement may be regarded either as a solemn unilateral promise, which is binding under the doctrine of the Nuclear Tests Cases, or as subsequent practice by the parties within the meaning of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. Either way, it is strongly supportive of the U.S. obligation to submit the question to the Security Council.

14 Trusteeship Agreement for the Former Japanese Mandated Islands, Art. 15, 8 UNTS 189.

15 Report of the United Nations Visiting Mission to Observe the Plebiscite in Palau, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, UN Doc. T/1886, at 39 (1986).

16 See, e.g., S. Rep. No. 596, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 5 (1976) (“According to documentation supplied to the Foreign Relations Committee, the Department of State recognizes it is obligated to seek Security Council approval of termination of the trusteeship agreement”); Micronesian Compact of Free Association: A Review of H.J. Res. 620: Hearing Before the House Comm. On Foreign Affairs, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 109 (1984); Letter from Andrew Voung, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, to the International League for Human Rights (May 10,1978); Report of the Trusteeship Council to the Security Council, 33 UN SCOR Spec. Supp.(No. 1) at 81, UN Doc. S/12971 (1979).

17 No. 543–81L (Cl. Ct. filed Aug. 8, 1983). The Department’s basic position is that the nuclear claims should be terminated as a result of the coming into effect of the Compact with the Marshall Islands. It relies in particular on section 177 of the Compact and the Agreement made pursuant to it between the United States and the Marshall Islands, which provides for the termination of the suits. There are those who believe that the Administering Authority has acted the way that it has to try to speed up the process of putting an end to these troublesome suits.

18 I am puzzled by the conceptual difference between “misspeaking” and making an erroneous assumption, but it is plain that Ambassador Austin’s statement is now being disavowed.

19 As the U.S. representative in the Trusteeship Council (and President of the Council) put it in 1948:

Sayre, , Legal Problems Arising from the United Nations Trusteeship System, 42 AJIL 263, 289 (1948)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This is precisely what the General Assembly has done in each case. See Opinion of the Legal Counsel on the Question of the Termination of the Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of New Guinea, 1974 UN Juridical Y.B. 181; and see Marston, , Termination of Trusteeship, 18 Int’l & Comp. L.Q. 1 (1969)Google Scholar; Mchenry, D., Micronesia: Trust Betrayed 45–51 (1975)Google Scholar; MacDonald, , Termination of the Strategic Trusteeship: Free Association, the United Nations and International Law, 7 Brooklyn J. Int’l L. 235, 258 (1981)Google Scholar.

20 See, most recently, GA Res. 41/13 (Oct. 31, 1986). And note the application of this principle in the case of New Caledonia, GA Res. 41/41 (Dec. 2, 1986).

21 International Status of South West Africa, 1950 ICJ Rep. 128, 141–43 (Advisory Opinion of July 11).

22 See Clark, , Self determination and Free Association—Should the United Nations Terminate the Pacific Islands Trust?, 21 Harv. Int’l L.J. 1 (1980)Google Scholar; Rodriguez, Orellana, In Contemplation of Micronesia: The Prospects for the Decolonization of Puerto Rico under International Law, 18 U. Miami Inter-Am. L. Rev. 458 (1987)Google Scholar. But see Hills, , Compact of Free Association and Micronesia: Constitutional and International Law Issues, 18 In t’l Law. 583, 602–06 (1984)Google Scholar. And note the dispute between the Marianas and the United States over what their deal is. See note 6 supra. Marianas officials obviously see an active, continuing role for the United Nations in this matter.

23 UN Doc. A/42/6, sec. 3, at 14 (1987).

24 Thus, at their May 1987 meeting, the states of the South Pacific Forum decided to admit the Federated States and the Marshall Islands as full members of the Forum. Some members of the Forum that agreed with this decision nonetheless expressed the view that the trusteeship is still in force. The Forum has always regarded itself as flexible on membership matters, being able to accommodate the Cook Islands and Niue, states in free association with New Zealand, albeit a different form of free association from that involving the new Micronesian entities. It is likewise able to accommodate the less than completely sovereign Federated States and Marshalls.