Description
Book SynopsisFulfilling the Sacred Trust explores the implementation of international accountability for dependent territories under the United Nations during the early Cold War era. Although the Western nations that drafted the UN Charter saw the organization as a means of maintaining the international status quo they controlled, newly independent nations saw the UN as an instrument of decolonization and an agent of change disrupting global political norms. Mary Ann Heiss documents the unprecedented process through which these new nations came to wrest control of the United Nations from the World War II victors that founded it, allowing the UN to become a vehicle for global reform.
Heiss examines the consequences of these early changes on the global political landscape in the midst of heightened international tensions playing out in Europe, the developing world, and the UN General Assembly. She puts this anti-colonial advocacy for accountability into perspective by making connectio
Table of Contents
Introduction: Toward International Accountability for All Dependent Territories
1. Laying the Groundwork: International Interest in Non-Self-Governing Territories
2. Fits and Starts: The Contours of International Accountability Emerge
3. Organizational Foundations: The Committee on Information Becomes Operational
4. Rhetoric and Routine: The Last Vestiges of Western Dominance
5. Taking Off the Gloves: New UN Activism in the Chapter XI Territories
6. Power Shifts: The Full-On Drive for Accountability
7. Crossing the Rubicon: Proponents of Accountability Take Control
8. Activism Triumphant: Achieving International Accountability for All Dependent Territories
Conclusion: International Accountability Assessed
