United Nations trust territories

Not to be confused with List of territories governed by the United Nations.

"Trust Territory" redirects here. For the novel, see Trust Territory (novel).

The United Nations trust territories were the successors of the remaining League of Nations mandates, and came into being when the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946. All the trust territories were administered through the United Nations Trusteeship Council and authorized to a single country. The concept is distinct from a territory temporarily and directly governed by the United Nations.

Palau District Police greet the UN Visiting Mission to the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1973)

Arrival of UN Visiting Mission in Majuro, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (1978). The sign reads "Please release us from the bondage of your trusteeship agreement."

UN trust territories by trustee

Modern successor states of UN trust territories

  Modern states composed solely of former trust territories

  Modern states composed partially of former trust territories

The one League of Nations mandate not succeeded by a trust territory was South West Africa, at South Africa's insistence. South Africa's apartheid regime refused to commit to preparing the territory for independence and majority rule, as required by the trust territory guidelines, among other objections. South-West Africa eventually gained independence in 1990 as Namibia.

All trust territories have either attained self-government or independence. The last was Palau, formerly part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, which became a member state of the United Nations in December 1994.

Trust territories (and administering powers)

Former German Schutzgebiete

All these territories previously were League of Nations mandates.

Trust territories	United Nations Trusteeship Power	Prior name	Prior sov.	Comments	Current state
British Cameroon	United Kingdom	Kamerun	German colonial empire	Following a plebiscite, Northern Cameroons became part of Nigeria in May 1961 and Southern Cameroons joined Cameroon in October 1961.	Nigeria
					Republic of Cameroon
French Cameroon	France			Achieved independence as Cameroon in 1960.
Territory of Nauru	Australia, New Zealand, United Kingdom	German New Guinea		Granted independence from Australia (administering authority) in 1968.	Nauru
Territory of New Guinea	Australia			In 1975, it was legally unified with the Territory of Papua and granted independence as Papua New Guinea. The western half of the island, formerly Dutch and now part of Indonesia, was never part of either territory.	Papua New Guinea
Ruanda-Urundi	Belgium	German East Africa		Separately gained independence in 1962 as Republic of Rwanda and Kingdom of Burundi.	Republic of Rwanda
					Republic of Burundi
Tanganyika Territory	United Kingdom			Granted independence in 1961. Federated with the former British protectorate Zanzibar in 1964 to form Tanzania.	United Republic of Tanzania
French Togoland	France	Togoland		Became independent as Togo in 1960.	Togo
British Togoland	United Kingdom			This territory was merged in 1956 with the British colony of the Gold Coast, which was granted independence as Ghana in 1957.	Ghana
Western Samoa	New Zealand	German Samoa		Granted independence in 1962, known since 1997 simply as Samoa.	Independent State of Samoa

Former Japanese possessions

Trust territories	United Nations Trusteeship Power	Prior name	Prior sov.	Current state	Comments
Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands	United States	South Seas Mandate	Empire of Japan	Northern Mariana Islands	Became US Commonwealth in 1986.
				Marshall Islands	Became an associated state of the United States after signing a Compact of Free Association in 1986.
				Federated States of Micronesia	Became an associated state of United States after signing a Compact of Free Association in 1986.
				Palau	Became an associated state of United States after signing and ratifying a Compact of Free Association going into effect in 1994.

Former Italian possessions

Trust territories	United Nations Trusteeship Power	Prior name	Prior sov.	Current state	Comments
Territory of Somaliland	Italy	Italian East Africa	Italian Empire	Somalia	In 1960, the Trust Territory merged with the State of Somaliland to form the Somali Republic

Proposed trust territories

• Jerusalem: Under the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine, Jerusalem would have become a corpus separatum territory under United Nations Trusteeship Council administration. Both Palestinian Arabs and the Yishuv opposed this solution.
• Korea: In wartime talks, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed that Korea be placed under an American–Soviet trust administration. The plan was eclipsed after Roosevelt's death on 12 April 1945, although it was expressed in the December Moscow Conference, and caused considerable civil unrest in Korea.^[1]
• Vietnam: Roosevelt also proposed that French Indochina be placed under an international trusteeship as an alternative to French colonial rule and immediate independence.^[2]
• Italian Libya: Between 1945 and 1947, the Soviet Union made various proposals that Tripolitania be placed under Soviet trusteeship for ten years, or a joint trusteeship with the United Kingdom and the United States, or that Libya as a whole become an Italian trusteeship.^[3]
• Mandatory Palestine: The United States government under Harry Truman proposed a UN trusteeship status for the Mandatory Palestine in 1948.^[4][5]
• Ryukyu Islands and Bonin Islands: the Treaty of San Francisco included provisions which provided the United States the right to convert its administration over the Ryukyu and Bonin Islands into a trust territory, but it never did so before sovereignty was voluntarily reverted to Japan.^[6]

See also

• List of territories governed by the United Nations