Trusteeship Council. Credit: UN Photo/CCOI
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 26 2021 (IPS) - As a wisecracking cynic once remarked: “The sun would never set on the British empire because God wouldn’t trust an Englishman in the dark“. Perhaps it was an uncharitable remark because most of the British colonies have long gone.
But when i quoted this witticism to a British journalist, he countered: “I am sure it was told by a Scotsman.“
Since Scotland is not a colony, its demand for independence is not a matter of decolonization, which is virtually dead on the UN’s political agenda.
The United Nations, at its very inception 76 years ago, created a Trusteeship Council, one of its main organs, with a mandate to supervise the administration of trust territories as they transitioned from colonies to sovereign nations.