In March 2025, Liberation Scotland (LS) announced that a Geneva based NGO called Justice pour Tous Internationale (JPTI) had submitted to the UN on its behalf an ‘Advance Notice about Upcoming Submission of the Petition for Recognition of Scotland as a Non-Self-Governing Territory Under the UN Decolonization Framework’. You can read it here.
The prospect of Scotland being added to the list of 17 dependent territories on the UN’s decolonisation agenda has caused great excitement amongst radical independence supporters but, inevitably with such an arcane subject, there are misunderstandings circulating. So this post is to look at the UN decolonisation process in more detail: What is this list and is it possible for new territories to be added to it? (Spoiler: Yes) If it is, is Scotland eligible? (Spoiler: No) But first a historical timeline of decolonisation at the UN.
1945: Chapter XI of the UN Charter
International oversight of colonial territories first began after the First World War. The two colonial powers amongst the losers of the war – Germany and the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire – were shorn of their colonies which were transferred to victorious powers (principally the UK and France) to be administered under the oversight of the League of Nations (the inter-War forerunner of the UN) under a system known as ‘mandates’[1]
In the aftermath of the Second World War, the League of Nations was replaced by the UN. Such of the LoN mandates as had not already become independent became known as ‘UN Trust Territories’, still under the same administering powers[2] but now overseen by the UN Trusteeship Council under Chapters XII & XIII (Articles 75-91) of the UN Charter.
When the Charter was being drafted in 1945, however, there were some countries (principally the USA and Soviet Union) who favoured extending UN Trusteeship – i.e. oversight – to all colonial territories, including those belonging to the powers unvanquished in either World War (principally the UK and France) in other words. These colonial powers were unenthusiastic about this, naturally, and in the end a rather fudged compromise proposed by the UK was adopted in the shape of Chapter XI of the Charter. This consisted of two articles the material terms of which are:-
Chapter XI: Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories
Article 73
Members of the United Nations which have or assume responsibilities for the administration of territories whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognize the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost […] the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories, and, to this end:
a. […];
b. to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of advancement;
c. […];
d. […]; and
e. to transmit regularly to the Secretary-General for information purposes, […] statistical and other information of a technical nature relating to economic, social, and educational conditions in the territories for which they are respectively responsible […].
Article 74
Members of the United Nations also agree that their policy in respect of the territories to which this Chapter applies, no less than in respect of their metropolitan areas, must be based on the general principle of good-neighbourliness, due account being taken of the interests and well-being of the rest of the world, in social, economic, and commercial matters.
In essence, the colonial powers – or ‘administering powers’ in UN-speak – became obliged by the Charter to recognise that the interests of the inhabitants of their colonies – “Non-Self-Governing Territories” (NSGTs) in the language of Art.73 – were paramount and to promote their wellbeing.
1946: the first list
The administering powers were also obliged under Art. 73 e. regularly to transmit information about their NSGTs to the Secretary-General (SG) of the UN. At its first annual session in 1946, the General Assembly (GA) of the UN adopted Resolution 66 (I)[3] inviting the administering powers to send in their information by 30 June each year and with directions about what the UN and its various organs were to do with it. This resolution proceeded on the recital that information about 36 named NSGTs had already been transmitted by Australia, France, New Zealand, the UK and the USA and that Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the UK had declared their intention to transmit information about 38 more which were also named.
The 74 territories mentioned in Resolution 66 (I) are often referred to as ‘the 1946 list’ of NSGTs but it’s important to understand that it was not some sort of definitive list of them in the sense that, if a territory was on this list, it was a definitely an NSGT and, conversely, if it wasn’t then it wasn’t. It was simply a list of the territories their respective administering powers had conceded in 1946 were NSGTs.[4] And as we shall see presently, there were many NSGTs not on the 1946 list.
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| the 1946 list |
the manner in which Territories referred to in Chapter XI of the Charter [i.e. NSGTs] can become fully self-governing is primarily through the attainment of independence, although it is recognized that self-government can also be achieved by association with another State or group of States if this is done freely and on the basis of absolute equality;
The Resolution also contained guidance on the circumstances in which a territory may be said to have ceased to be an NSGT due to having become either fully independent, self-governing short of fully independent, or an integral part of the ‘metropolitan country’ (as administering powers tended to be referred to in this context). Thus, for example, did the GA recognise in Resolution 748 (VIII) that Puerto Rico had ceased to be an NSGT of the USA due to it having become a ‘Commonwealth’ in association with the USA in 1952. And by Resolution 1469 (XIV) it recognised that Alaska and Hawaii had ceased to be NSGTs by virtue of having become states.[10]
Resolution 742 (VIII) was about how an NSGT got off the list. An equally perplexing question was how did one get on to it. This was provoked by the colonial empires of Portugal and Spain. They only became members of the UN in 1955 so had missed the proceedings just described in 1946-53 but upon joining both declined to transmit information under Art 73 e. of the UN Charter about any of their colonies claiming, unconvincingly, that they were ‘overseas provinces’ of the metropolitan countries rather than NSGTs. This prompted the GA in 1959 to appoint another committee to look in to this.[11] It duly reported and in consequence the GA in 1960 adopted Resolution 1541 (XV) with guidance about when a territory becomes an NSGT as well as when it ceases to be one. The first six principles of this guidance are worth quoting from:-
PRINCIPLES WHICH SHOULD GUIDE MEMBERS IN DETERMINING WHETHER OR NOT [A TERRITORY IS AN NSGT]
Principle I
The authors of the Charter of the United Nations had in mind that Chapter XI should be applicable to territories which were then known to be of the colonial type. […]
Principle II
Chapter XI of the Charter embodies the concept of Non-Self-Governing Territories in a dynamic state of evolution and progress towards a “full measure of self-government”. […]
Principle III
[…]
Principle IV
Prima facie there is an obligation to transmit information [i.e. it’s an NSGT] in respect of a territory which is geographically separate and is distinct ethnically and/or culturally from the country administering it.
Principle V
Once it has been established that such a prima facie case of geographical and ethnical or cultural distinctness of a territory exists, other elements may then be brought into consideration. These additional elements may be, inter alia, of an administrative, political, juridical, economic or historical nature. If they affect the relationship between the metropolitan State and the territory concerned in a manner which arbitrarily places the latter in a position or status of subordination, they support the presumption that [it is an NSGT].
Principle VI
A Non-Self-Governing Territory can be said to have reached a full measure of self-government [i.e. has ceased to be an NSGT] by:
(a) Emergence as a sovereign independent State;
(b) Free association with an independent State [see Principle VII]; or
(c) Integration with an independent State. [See Principle VIII]
Spain took the hint and agreed to transmit information about its colonies[12] without waiting for Res. 1541 (XV) to be passed but Portugal remained obdurate. That prompted the GA to adopt Resolution 1542 (XV) declaring that it considered the Portuguese colonies to be NSGTs.
1960: Resolution 1514 (XV): ‘Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples’
Although Art. 73 of the Charter obliged the colonial powers to recognise the paramountcy of the interests of the inhabitants of their Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGTs) and promote their wellbeing, including by “developing self-government”, it had stopped short of explicitly requiring them to be granted independence. That changed in 1960 by which time the UN now had far more member states who themselves had been colonies before gaining independence in the 1940s and 50s and were inclined to take a more hawkish stance. On the initiative of the Soviet Union,[13] the General Assembly passed Resolution 1514 (XV) entitled ‘Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples’ (‘Decolonisation Declaration’ for short). Its key paragraph is:
5. Immediate steps shall be taken, in Trust and Non-Self Governing Territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence, to transfer all powers to the peoples of those territories, without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire, without any distinction as to race, creed or colour, in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.
A year later, in 1961, disappointed by the lack of progress towards the complete decolonisation Resolution 1514 (XV) had mandated, a further Resolution, 1654 (XVI), was passed setting up a special committee of 17 member states of the UN with the remit to look into the matter and report with suggestions and recommendations to the GA before its next session in 1962. That committee duly made its report to the GA which in consequence passed Resolution 1810 (XVII) enlarging the committee to 24 members which is why it’s still known today as ‘the C-24’ even though it now has 29 members.[14] Its Sunday name is The Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples but – pause for breath – I’m going to refer to it from hereon as ‘the Decolonisation Committee’.
The definition of “colonial countries and peoples” Resolution 1514 (XV) mandated be decolonised and granted their independence is in paragraph 5. of the resolution:-
Trust and Non-Self-Governing Territories or all other territories which have not yet attained independence
There are three categories referred to there. The first (“Trust”) is the UN Trust Territories: they are a closed category which can be ignored for present purposes. The second category is that phrase again – “Non-Self Governing Territories” (NSGT) – the meaning of which had been explicated by the guidance in Resolution 1541 (XV) such that it didn’t include those territories which were self-governing though not fully independent or those (like Guadeloupe and Martinique) fully integrated into the metropolitan country. But then these apparent ‘gaps’ in the definition of NSGT appear to be plugged by the third category in paragraph 5: the catch-all of “all other territories which have not yet attained independence”.
1963: the ‘Preliminary List’
In 1963, the Decolonisation Committee drew up a ‘Preliminary List’ of the various territories it considered the Decolonisation Declaration in Resolution 1514 (XV) applied to. You can read it at the end of the Committee’s 1963 Report (see page 288). The list classified territories under four headings:-
(a) the three remaining UN Trust Territories (UNTTs) not yet independent (New Guinea, Nauru and Pacific Islands)
(b) South West Africa (Namibia: the League of Nations mandate which hadn’t become a UNTT)
(c) the territories declared by GA Resolutions to be NSGTs (the Portuguese and Spanish colonies and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)[15])
(d) the NSGTs about which their administering powers had transmitted information since 1946 – i.e. the 1946 list minus those which had ceased in the interim to be NSGTs by becoming independent, fully self-governing short of full independence (e.g. Puerto Rico) or merged with their metropolitan countries (e.g. the French départements d’outre-mer, Alaska and Hawaii).[16]
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| The 1963 'Preliminary List' |
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| The Duke of Edinburgh and President Kenyatta at the independence of Kenya in 1963. Picture credit: The Republic |
At the beginning of this post I asked the question, is it possible for new territories to be added to the list? The answer to that is an unequivocal ‘Yes’. So the next question is, Is Scotland eligible to be added?
That is far harder to answer but page 5 of Liberation Scotland’s 'Advance Notice'[22] draws attention to Resolution 1541 (XV) which contains the guidance on what is, or is not, a Non-Self-Governing Territory (NSGT) entitled to independence under Resolution 1514 (XV) (that’s not a typing error, by the way: 1541 and 1514 are separate Resolutions) and focuses on Principle IV of the guidance in the former which is:-
Prima facie there is an obligation to transmit information [i.e. it’s an NSGT entitled to independence] in respect of a territory which is geographically separate and is distinct ethnically and/or culturally from the country administering it.
There are two markers there: “geographically separate” and “distinct ethnically and/or culturally” from the administering power. Let’s accept that Scotland is ethnically and culturally distinct from the rest of the UK and look at geographical separation because, to meet the test in Principle IV, a territory has to be both – i.e. ethnically/culturally and geographically separate.
On the latter, the Advance Notice merely cites the long established border between Scotland and England.[23] But the word is geographically separate - not ‘identifiable’ or similar. Despite the fact this is sometimes referred to as ‘the salt water test’,[24] I don’t think one can go so far as to say that being on the same landmass necessarily precludes ‘geographical separation’ in every case. Thus, the USA accepted Alaska was an NSGT until it became a state in 1959. But Alaska was separated from the USA by 500 miles of Canada so it’s a pretty doubtful precedent for Scotland.[25] And remember that, having only ever been on the 1946 list, the UN has never in any sense adjudicated on whether Alaska was or wasn’t an NSGT.
It's tempting, therefore, to say that Scotland’s case falls at the first hurdle of geographical separation but we can’t write it off yet. That’s because the wording of Principle IV is not that, to be an NSGT, a territory must be geographically separate and ethnically/culturally distinct. It says that prima facie it is an NSGT if they are. That suggests there are other possibilities but there aren’t any precedents to guide us (with the dubious exception of Alaska already mentioned). What may be relevant in this regard are the additional factors mentioned in Principle V of Resolution 1541 (XV). I say “may” be relevant because what Principle V says is:-
Once it has been established that such a prima facie case of geographical and ethnical or cultural distinctness of a territory exists, other elements may then be brought into consideration.
The problem is that it has not been established in Scotland’s case that a prima facie case of geographical and ethnical or cultural distinctness exists so, strictly speaking, the other elements in Principle V don’t come into play. But let’s look at them anyway. They are:
These additional elements may be, inter alia, of an administrative, political, juridical, economic or historical nature. If they affect the relationship between the metropolitan State and the territory concerned in a manner which arbitrarily places the latter in a position or status of subordination, they support the presumption that [it is an NSGT].
It’s undeniable there are administrative, political, juridical and historical differences between Scotland and the rest of the UK (less sure about economic, though). And it’s not an exhaustive list of relevant factors (“may be, inter alia”) but the problem this time is that Scotland is not “arbitrarily [placed] in a position or status of subordination”: Scots enjoy exactly the same rights as all other citizens of the UK, particularly as regards such key matters as representation in the UK’s legislature.[26]
There’s a further point which I think LS/JPTI have overlooked in their Advance Notice. That is Principle I of Resolution 1541 (XV) which is applicable even if Scotland can be said to be geographically separate. Recall that Chapter XI (Arts. 73 & 74) of the UN Charter was the one which dealt with “Non-Self-Governing Territories” (NSGTs) which is what the 1960 Decolonisation Declaration (Resolution 1514 (XV)) required to be granted independence. What the first sentence of Principle I says is:-
The authors of the Charter of the United Nations had in mind that Chapter XI [of the Charter] should be applicable to territories which were then known to be of the colonial type.
I stand to be corrected by those (who will be numerous) more knowledgeable about the geopolitics surrounding the drafting of the Charter than me but I very much doubt that places like Scotland were known in 1945 to be “of the colonial type”.
“All other territories which have not yet attained independence”
For all these reasons, I think Scotland’s case for qualifying as an NSGT is almost hopeless. But maybe it’s still not over. That’s because Resolution 1514 (XV), the 1960 Declaration on Decolonisation, doesn’t just apply to NSGTs. It also applies to “all other territories which have not yet attained independence”. What does that mean? Could Scotland qualify as one of these “other territories”?
The guidance in Resolution 1541 (XV) (the Principles – the geographic separateness, the arbitrary subordination etc.) doesn’t apply to them, only to NSGTs. There’s no guidance anywhere (that I’m aware of) about what these other territories might be but remember I said that the Decolonisation Committee had said (or at least very strongly implied) in its 1963 Report (paras. 27-29 on pages 5 & 6) that its 1963 list was complete as regards NSGTs but was ‘preliminary’ in that it still had to add the “other territories which have not yet attained independence”? Well, do we get any help about what “other territories” are from the nature of those that were added to the list post-1963?
Not really, is the short answer to that. So far as I’m aware, the only territories to have been added to the list since 1963 are: French Somaliland (now Djibouti) (1965); Oman (including what’s now the United Arab Emirates) (1965); Puerto Rico (1972);[27] the Comoro Islands (1973); New Caledonia (1986); and French Polynesia (2013). All of these except Oman had been on the 1946 list of NSGTs but had subsequently dropped off it due to becoming internally self-governing.[28] The last two were added to the 1963 list explicitly as NSGTs.[29] The other four were not added explicitly as “other territories which have not yet attained independence” and, from having read its reports, I don’t think the Decolonisation Committee was analysing matters in these terms. All six of these territories would clearly have qualified as NSGTs (known to be of the colonial type in 1945, geographically and ethnically/cultural separate etc.) and none comes remotely close to Scotland’s situation. Generally, I’ve not seen any hint anywhere that the words “other territories which have not yet attained independence” add anything at all to Resolution 1514 (XV) – if I ever had the ear of a Professor of International Law, it’s the first thing I’d want to ask him/her about!
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| The Decolonisation Committee meeting in 1976. Picture credit: UN |
Thus far, I’ve been guilty of attempting to interpret the UN Charter and the various Resolutions as if they were Acts of Parliament. But they’re not. Nor is the Decolonisation Committee (or the General Assembly) a court of law. They are political bodies which operate by a member state, proposing a draft resolution, another member may propose an amendment, there’s a debate and then, if no consensus, a vote. No doubt in deciding how to vote members will have in mind the desirability of upholding international law and previous UN decisions but equally, no doubt, will they be influenced by their political outlooks.
So despite the doubts I’ve expressed in the preceding paragraphs while treating UN documents as if they were laws, it’s possible the Decolonisation Committee might nevertheless ignore precedent, or stretch the Principles in Resolution 1541 (XV) to their limits, or belatedly zero in on the potential of the enigmatic words “other territories which have not yet attained independence” in Resolution 1514 (XV) and decide that Scotland should be added to the decolonisation list because it suits their political agenda to do so. After all, if you count Latin American countries as such, every member state of the Decolonisation Committee (see them here) is itself a former colony except for those consistently staunch allies of the UK: Iran, Russia and China. But if Scotland is a “non-self-governing territory”, then Tibet surely is too: is China going to vote to set that precedent? What about Iran and its Kurdish minority?
A precedent? West Papua
West Papua (WP) is the west half of the island of New Guinea which today is part of Indonesia (the east half is Papua New Guinea). WP remained a Dutch colony when the rest of the ‘Netherlands Indies’ became independent as Indonesia in 1949. Indonesia claimed WP, however, and in 1962 a settlement was reached whereby the Netherlands renounced WP to Indonesia.[30] It was a condition of the settlement that a plebiscite be held in WP as to whether it wished to remain part of Indonesia or become independent but when this was eventually held in 1969, the result in favour of first option was widely regarded to have been rigged by Indonesia. And it’s alleged that separatist tendencies in WP have been ruthlessly suppressed by the Indonesian authorities ever since. There’s a lot more background about WP here.
In 2017, the United Liberation Movement for West Papua presented a petition signed, ULMWP claimed, by 1.8 million people being 71% of WP’s indigenous population (and about a third of its entire population[31]) to the Decolonisation Committee – of which Indonesia was then and still is a member – asking it, amongst other things (text of the petition here – scroll down), to add WP to the Committee’s decolonisation agenda. Now I’ve not been able to find anything about this by searching the UN’s Digital Library and all I’ve got to go on is this article in the Guardian. You can see from that that the petition was rebuffed, although whether as a result of a vote (or consensus) to that effect in the Committee or by its (Venezuelan) chair on his own initiative, I can’t say for sure: I suspect the latter. And you can see that the reasons he gave were, in essence, that the Committee can only deal with the 17 territories already on its list and that, anyway, it would be an unwarranted intrusion in the internal affairs of Indonesia. Needless to say, there was no discussion of the Resolution 1541 (XV) Principles for identifying NSGTs (geographical and cultural separation, known to be of colonial type in 1945 etc.) or whether WP might be one (the first?) of these elusive “other territories which have not yet attained independence”. Or at least if there was any such discussion, it wasn’t reported in the Guardian. As I’ve already said, I don’t believe it is true that the Decolonisation Committee can only deal with the 17 territories currently on the list – that no more can be added to it, in other words – and I find it difficult to avoid the suspicion the chair was simply dropping a political hot potato as fast as he could. [32]
A “full measure of self-government”?
I may come back in a subsequent post to look at what might happen if Scotland was added to the Decolonisation Committee’s list but will conclude this post with two final observations on Liberation Scotland’s ‘Advance Notice’ (AN).
First, LS make much in their arguments in the AN for the inclusion of Scotland in the Committee’s list of NSGTs that Devolution does not afford us that “full measure of self- government” referred to in Art. 73 of the UN Charter. Indeed they call it (page 8 of the AN) the “most critical factor”.
But with respect that’s looking through the wrong end of the telescope. The first question that needs to be asked is whether Scotland is a territory “known to be of the colonial type” in 1945 and whether it is geographically separate and ethnically and/or culturally distinct from the rest of the UK? (Principles I and IV of the NSGT guidance in Resolution 1541 (XV).) Only once you have an affirmative answer to that, does the question of Scotland’s degree of self-government become relevant (Principles V and VI).
LS conclude a section of the AN (beginning at the bottom of page 11) headed “Comparative Precedents in UN Decolonization” with a paragraph which includes the sentence:-
If territories such as New Caledonia, French Polynesia, Tokelau, and Gibraltar remain under C-24 supervision despite varying degrees of self-administration, Scotland’s claim for inclusion is both legally sound and politically justified.
But these places are still on the list because they were “known to be of the colonial type” in 1945 and are geographically separate and ethnically and/or culturally distinct from their respective administering powers: the lack of full self-government is why they remain on the list, not what got them on to it in the first place.[33]
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| Picture credit: Wikipedia |
Second – and finally – at the top of page 10 of the AN, LS correctly point out that Resolution 1514 (XV) – the Decolonisation Declaration which the Decolonisation Committee exists to implement – has another paragraph which explicitly says:
2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Scots are a ‘people’ so that means we’ve the right under international law to self-determination and be independent irrespective of all the geographical separation and whether we were thought of as a colony in 1945 stuff, right?
Wrong.
That paragraph of Resolution 1514 (XV) can’t be taken at face value. There is a vast corpus of academic literature on the right to self-determination in international law (screengrab below of one page of footnotes in one book on the topic) and the following is typical of introductory paragraphs:-
In spite of [self-determination’s] long history, there are few other principles in international law the status, content and scope of which are so uncertain, and so contested.[34]
But in essence, it boils down to this: as a ‘people’, Scotland does have a right to self-determination but, not being a territory to which Resolution 1514 (XV) applies, it does not (except in limited circumstances I’ll come to in a minute) have a right to secede from the UK. That apparent contradiction is squared by it being the case that Scotland’s right to self-determination consists of a right to have autonomy within the UK. The limited circumstances which entitle a ‘people’ to secede from a state is that they are being oppressed: that’s called ‘remedial secession’. This is discussed in the context of Scotland in the opinion of Professor Robert McCorquodale commissioned by former Alba MP Neale Hanvey in 2023 which you can read here.
Now Liberation Scotland may feel they can make the case that Devolution is not what it seems and that Scotland is indeed being oppressed entitling it to realise its legal right to self-determination by remedial secession. But that doesn’t fall within the remit of the UN’s Decolonisation Committee.
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| February 2025 sitting of the Decolonisation Committee. Picture credit: United Nations Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs |
[1] Perhaps the most famous League of Nations mandate was Palestine, an Ottoman territory placed under the administration of the UK. It’s now Jordan, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. There’s a list of all the LoN mandates here.
[2] Except in the case of the South Seas Mandate (former German islands in the Pacific) administered as a League of Nations mandate by Japan but transferred after WW2 to the USA as the Pacific Islands Trust Territory. The UNTTs also included a single territory of a losing colonial power in Second World War: Italian Somaliland which continued to be administered by Italy as a UNTT until, merged with British Somaliland, it became independent as Somalia in 1960. And one LoN mandate didn’t become a UNTT or independent after WW2: South West Africa (now Namibia) which had been a German colony then an LoN mandate held by South Africa. But after WW2, South Africa refused to enter into UN Trusteeship or grant independence to SWA and just illegally occupied it until it became independent in 1990 after the end of apartheid.
[3] The bracketed roman numeral in the number of a resolution refers to the number of the annual session of the General Assembly (GA) in which it was passed, starting with I in 1946. Since the 31st session (1976), the format has been 31/1234. So if you want to know the year a resolution was passed in, add the roman numeral or the number before the slash to 1945. You can find all GA resolutions by session here.
[4] Despite this, there are statements in more recent years which seem to imply some sort of official, definitive status for the 1946 list: for example, the International Court of Justice referring to it as “the list of non-self-governing territories drawn up by the General Assembly (resolution 66 (I) of 14 December 1946)” [emphasis added] in para. 170 of its 2019 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the separation of the Chagos Archipelago from Mauritius in 1965. And the recital in Resolution 67/265 adding French Polynesia to the list in 2013: “Recalling that French Polynesia, as the former French Establishments in Oceania, was originally considered a Non-Self-Governing Territory in General Assembly resolution 66 (I) of 14 December 1946”. The recital to Resolution 41/41 adding New Caledonia to the list in 1986 captures the true position much more accurately: “Recalling its resolution 66 (I) of 14 December 1946, in which the General Assembly noted that information had been transmitted by Member States regarding Non-Self Governing Territories, including information transmitted by the Government of France on New Caledonia and Dependencies, under Article 73 e. of the Charter of the United Nations”
[5] They were Malta (UK) and Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guyana, St Pierre & Miquelon, La Reunion, New Caledonia, French Establishments in Oceania (now called French Polynesia) and India, and French Indo China (France): see page 127 of the SG’s 1949 Annual Report. The USA also didn’t transmit information about the Panama Canal Zone again after 1946 on the basis that sovereignty of it was in the Republic of Panama rather than the USA: see this report by the SG.
[6] Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guiana and La Reunion which became integral parts of France as départements d’outre mer in 1946 and still are. See Annex I on page 648 of the Decolonisation Committee’s 1966 Report for the subsequent history of France ceasing to transmit information about its other NSGTs with the full chapter and verse here.
[7] See here for a summary of the British and French governments’ positions regarding all these territories. That paper also discloses that the British government had never transmitted information about Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) or Burma in 1946 or 1947 due to their high level of internal self-government even though these countries didn’t become independent until 1948.
[9] See 1951 Report of the Special Committee on Information transmitted under Article 73 e of the Charter (see page 41); Resolution 567 (VI); Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Factors (Non-Self-Governing Territories)(1952); Resolution 648 (VII); Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Factors (Non-Self-Governing Territories)(1953);
[10] By Resolution 2870 (XXVI), the GA ruled that a territory did not cease to be an NSGT until it (the GA, not the administering power) decided it was no longer one.
[11] Resolution 1467 (XIV)
[12] Ifni (an enclave on the west coast of Morocco: returned to Morocco in 1969), Spanish Sahara (the coast of West Africa between Morocco and Mauretania: occupied by these two countries since 1976 and disputed by them with locals) and Fernando Po & Rio Muni (independent in 1968 as Equatorial Guinea).
[13] Which is ironic as the Soviet Union was arguably one of the greatest colonial empires of all.
[15] Britain had never transmitted information about Southern Rhodesia because it took the view it had been fully internally self-governing (almost, but not quite, on a par with the likes of Canada, Australia etc.) since 1923, albeit on the basis of a franchise which, although not explicitly racist, was based on property qualifications which in practice excluded the majority African population. But that didn’t wash with the UN which affirmed by Resolution 1747 (XVI) that SR was indeed an NSGT within the meaning of Chapter XI of the Charter.
[16] Malta was back under category (d) due to the self-government which had led Britain to stop transmitting information about it in 1947 having been withdrawn due to political tensions on the island and Britain consequently having resumed transmitting information about it. There are also two other new names under category (d) on the 1963 list which didn’t appear in 1946. Both were parts of territories which had appeared in 1946: (1) Cocos (Keeling) Islands (administering power Australia): in 1946 they were part of the Malayan Union, all the rest of which had become independent as Malaya in 1957 (now part of Malaysia). Prior to that, Britain had transferred the islands to Australia; and (2) Niue Island (New Zealand): in 1946, it was part of the Cook Islands.
[17] At paragraph 29 on page 6 of its 1963 Report.
[18] See paras. 27-30 on pages 5 and 6 of the 1963 Report.
[19] See paras. 137-142 on page 21 of its 1964 Report.
[20] See paras. 62-64 on page 9 of the Decolonisation Committee’s 1965 Report. French Somaliland had been on the 1946 list of NSGTs but France had ceased transmitting information about it in 1957 due to its having achieved internal self-government: see pages 648-649 of the Committee’s 1966 Report.
[21] See GA Resolution 67/265. French Polynesia was also on the original 1946 list (as ‘French Establishments in Oceania’) but France had ceased transmitting information about it in 1947 due to its having achieved internal self-government: see pages 648-649 of the Committee’s 1966 Report.
[22]I’m not sure which of Liberation Scotland or Justice Pour Tous Internationale authored the Advance Notice. I suspect it was primarily the former which is why I refer to it as their (LS’s) Advance Notice even though it was submitted to the UN on their behalf by JPTI and runs in their (JPTI’s) name.
[23] Page 5. They also mention under this heading Scotland’s separate legal system and jurisdiction etc. north of that boundary but that is an aspect of our distinct culture rather an our geographical separation.
[25] The Advance Notice bewilderingly instances (page 5) Gibraltar and New Caledonia as examples of territories which have qualified as NSGTs “despite geographical proximity to the administering power”. New Caledonia is an island in the Pacific so about as geographically separate from its administering power, France, as it’s possible to be. And Gibraltar’s administering power is the UK, not Spain.
[26] In so far as there are differences between the rights of Scots and the citizens of the rest of the UK, that is either because of the Treaty of Union which brought the UK into existence (e.g. preservation of Scots Law and judiciary) or as a result of Devolution (e.g. the allegation that Scots pay higher taxes than elsewhere in the UK) which, I think it’s uncontroversial to say, exists with the consent of a clear majority of Scots.
[27] Puerto Rico seems to have occupied an anomalous position in that, without actually adding it to the list as such, the Decolonisation Committee appears nevertheless to have had Puerto Rico on its agenda and has dealt with it as if it were on the list from 1972 down to the present day. In many years, the Committee has passed a resolution on Puerto Rico instead of recommending a draft resolution for the General Assembly to pass as is its usual procedure with the territories actually on the list. Puerto Rico is always been dealt with separately in the Committee’s annual reports, hidden under the heading “Question of the list of Territories to which the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples is applicable” (see for example the 2024 Report at page 12). And the infographic “Decolonisation – the annual cycle” here (scroll down) talks of “17 Non-Self-Governing Territories (NSGTs) & Puerto Rico”.
[28] Although only in the case of Puerto Rico did the UN agree that it had ceased to be an NSGT: see Resolution 748 (VIII) of 1953. As regards the rest of them, it simply didn’t argue the point with France as the administering power.
[29] See Resolution 41/41 for New Caledonia and 67/265 for French Polynesia: the wording of the latter was that FP “remained” an NSGT not withstanding France its having dropped off the 1946 list.
[30] Via a brief transition period 1962-63 when West Papua was under the direct control of the UN itself.
[31] If the total population of WP in 2017 was about the same as the 5.6 million Wikipedia gives as the mid-2022 estimate.
[32] It occurred to me that the Committee Chair was perhaps speaking only in procedural terms – that the Committee could not consider adding a territory to the list without first being authorised to so by the General Assembly (GA) in plenary session, in other words. That’s maybe implied by his words as reported by the Guardian: “That list is issued by the General Assembly.” But the Committee’s remit included (Resolution 71/122) “[seeking] suitable means for the immediate and full implementation of the [Decolonisation Declaration] … and in particular: (a) [formulating] specific proposals to bring about an end to colonialism …” which one would have thought might include hearing petitioners such as West Papua, assessing their claim and making a recommendation to the GA about how their case might be dealt with. And almost every year since 1963 there has been a section in the Committee’s annual report headed “Question of the list of Territories to which the Declaration is applicable” even if that has been largely a matter of form and the Committee’s approach has been to be merely reactive to external suggestions for additions to the list. In terms of precedent, French Somaliland (Djibouti), the Comoro Islands and (subject to the comment made in footnote 27) Puerto Rico were all added to the 1963 list by the Committee without prior authority from the GA and the Committee certainly entertained the question of adding New Caledonia in 1986 without prior authority although the decision was ultimately taken by the GA. And, after all, the original 1963 ‘Preliminary List’ was drawn up by the Committee on its own initiative. This factsheet issued by the UN says (Question 6) says, albeit without citation of any Resolution to that effect that “The decision to add a territory to the list of NSGTs lies in the hands of the Member States administering such Territories or the General Assembly.” So, all in all, while it may be the case that a territory can’t formally be added to the list without the GA’s permission, I’m not at all sure it’s true to say the Committee can’t even entertain any suggestion for such an addition without prior authority from the GA.
[33] At the risk of labouring this point, if, conversely, the situation was that Scotland was on the list, and the UK was trying to remove it because of Devolution, the 2014 referendum etc., and LS was opposing that, then their citation of precedents such as New Caledonia et al would be entirely to the point.
[34] Self-Determination in the International Legal System - Whose Claim, to What Right? (2023) by Tom Sparks at page 3.
