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Colonialism, Political Development, and the UN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Rupert Emerson
Rupert Emerson
Affiliation:
An honorary member of the Board of Editors of International Organization, is Professor of Government and Research Associate, Center for International Affairs, Harvard University.
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Extract

The United Nations two decades after San Francisco is a very different body from the one which its creators fashioned, and it is a reasonable presumption that there were none or virtually none who presided over its creation who foresaw even dimly what it would become in the short span of twenty years. In particular, few could have believed at that time that the tidal wave of anticolonialism would sweep so drastically over the domains of the imperial powers and leave behind in its wake an organization so largely populated by the new Asian and African states which emerged from the deluge. It is also one of the significant elements in the situation that few could have imagined that the process of decolonization could be carried through with so little needed in the way of violent struggle by the colonial peoples and so much conceded in peaceful acquiescence by their colonial masters. One of the world's great revolutions has been accomplished with a minimum of revolutionary action and sacrifice.

Information

Type
II. Cooperation and Conflict
Information
International Organization , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , Summer 1965, pp. 484 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1965

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References

1 Gilchrist, Huntington, “Colonial Questions at the San Francisco Conference’, The American Political Science Review, 10 1945 (Vol. 39, No. 5), p. 987CrossRefGoogle Scholar. He suggested, however, that at least potential independence must be included in the pledge to develop free political institutions.

2 Sady, Emil J., The United Nations and Dependent Peoples (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution, 1956), p. 24Google Scholar.

3 The nearest approach to a legally acceptable ground for the repeated request that the colonial powers submit reports on political conditions was that since they were committed by Article 73 (b) to develop self-government and take other political steps, the Assembly could rightfully demand that it be kept informed as to what was being done.

4 In a number of colonies, elections or other forms of popular consultations were held prior to independence which gave people an opportunity to express their opinions, but these were organized and run by the responsible colonial government. One to which attention might particularly be called was the referendum on the De Gaulle Constitution in October 1958 which gave the French colonies an opportunity to opt out by voting “no’ and which was utilized for that purpose by Guinea.

5 For a statistical examination of anticolonialism and the corresponding decline of pro-colonial sentiment as reflected in Assembly voting in the first sixteen sessions, see Rowe, Edward T., “The Emerging Anti-Colonial Consensus in the United Nations’, The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 09 1964 (Vol. 8, No. 3), pp. 209–230CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Breaking these sessions down into eight sets of two each—the first and second, third and fourth, etc.—and rating roll-call votes in terms of their anticolonial or pro-colonial character, he presents a tabulation in which the highest anticolonial vote of a set of sessions rises fairly steadily from 38.6 percent of the membership in the first two sessions to a peak of 79.8 percent in the fifteenth and sixteenth sessions (1960–1961), whereas the lowest anticolonial (or highest pro-colonial) vote declines in the same period from 47.4 percent to 1.9 percent.

6 See Emerson, Rupert, Self-Determination Revisited in the Era of Decolonization (Occasional Papers in International Affairs, No. 9) (Cambridge, Mass: Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, 12 1964)Google Scholar.

7 The impressive full title of this body 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.

8 See Yearbook of the United Nations, 1963 (United Nations: Office of Public Information, 1965), p. 443Google Scholar.

9 One effect of the use of the term “independence’ in this resolution was to enable the Committee to continue to belabor the United Kingdom concerning Southern Rhodesia, a territory commanding much UN attention, which the United Kingdom has claimed is self-governing and hence beyond the range of corrective British action but which had not become independent.

10 UN Document A/5446, Annex I.

11 See, for example, General Assembly Resolution 742 (VIII) of November 27, 1953, which lists “factors indicative of the attainment of independence or of other separate systems of self-government.’.

12 See UN Monthly Chronicle, 07 1964 (Vol. 1, No. 3), pp. 35–43Google Scholar. The text of the resolution is given on p. 35. It is also contained in UN Document A/AC.109/86.

13 See the Secretary-General's speech of May 30, 1956, at McGill University in United Nations Review, 07 1956 (Vol. 3, No. 1), p. 12Google Scholar. He further referred to this scheme in the Introduction to the Annual Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization, 16 June 1955–15; June 1956 (General Assembly Official Records [11th session], Supplement No. 1A), p. 5Google Scholar.

14 Modern Egypt (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1908), Vol. II, p. 304Google Scholar.