Palau Compact implementation urged - Compact of Free Association

UN Chronicle, Sept, 1994

In asking the United States, in consultation with the Government of Palau, to agree on a date "on or about 1 October 1994" for the full entry into force of the Compact of Free Association, the Trusteeship Council on 25 May suspended its sixty-first session (24 and 25 May, New York).

In one of two resolutions adopted without a vote, the Council noted that the people of Palau--the last remaining territory of the Trust Territory of the Pacific islands under the Trusteeship System--had "freely exercised their right to self-determination" in a 9 November 1993 plebiscite, observed by the Council's visiting mission, and had chosen, by a 68-per cent majority vote, free association with the United States.

The United States Government, the resolution said, had "satisfactorily discharged its obligations" as the Administering Authority, and thus it was appropriate to terminate its Trusteeship Agreement on a date greed upon by the two.

"We have made our own decision and we are ready to embark on the journey of independence with confidence", Palau President Kuniwo Nakamura stated.

William Wallace of the United States, said that the Compact would be implemented as soon as domestic legal requirements were met. Primary among them was that the plebiscite results be free of legal challenge in Palau.

In its report (T/L.1293), the Trusteeship Council expressed the hope that in the near future the Administering Authority would take up the matter of the Trusteeship Agreement termination with the Security Council.

Under that Agreement, signed in 1947, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands was designated as a "strategic area". In December 1990, the Security Council terminated the Agreement for three of the four entities comprising the Trust Territory: the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands, which had both approved Compacts of Free Association with the United States; and the Northern Mariana Islands, which had opted for Commonwealth status.

Palau, the fourth entity, had seven plebiscites between 1983 and 1992. Although each time the majority of voters--between 60 and 73 per cent--had supported and approved the Compact, it failed to gain the 75 per cent required by the Territory's Constitution for it to become law. In a 4 November 1993 referendum, voters endorsed a constitutional amendment lowering the required percentage from 75 to "50 plus one" per cent.

A `noble task'

By its second resolution, the Trusteeship Council amended its rules of procedure. It would now meet as and where the occasion might require, by its decision or its President's decision, or at the request of a majority of its members, the General Assembly or the Security Council. In introducing the text, France said the change did not mean the end of an institution. The Trusteeship Council would be able to assemble normally if circumstances arose.

In closing remarks, Trusteeship Council President Hubert Legal of France said that the body had performed an important task by having modified its rules of procedure to "drop the obligation to hold annual sessions without involving the dangerous task of rewriting the United Nations Charter. The Trusteeship Council will continue to exist as a memory of a noble task performed with dignity", he stated.