“We Defend Nations Not Tribes”: The United Nations and Statecraft in Somalia under Trusteeship, 1950-60

Established at the San Francisco Conference in 1945, the International Trusteeship System (ITS) of the United Nations played an important part in the decolonization of former enemies’ colonies. The ITS was based on a mix of two criteria: international supervision of Trust Territories and accountability for their administrations. Conventionally, its policies have been seen as promoting institutional, economic, social, and political development in the forms of self-government or independence and paving the way for ending colonial rule worldwide. Yet, very little is known on the ways in which these policies were formed, discussed and put into practice.

Focusing on the Trust Territory of Somalia (1950-60), this paper discusses some of the ITS features and technicalities. In particular, it looks at the tensions within the day-to-day engagement between the Trusteeship Council (through which the ITS functioned), the Trust Power, the UN Advisory Council, and the representatives of communities under trusteeship. It points to the structural limitations and ambiguities of the ITS as well as its inability to sanction or control its supervising and administrating bodies. Lacking the necessary power to encourage the co-operation between the Trust Power and the members of the UN Advisory Council, the ITS soon became a site in which different and often conflicting ideas of administration clashed reducing both its effective and negotiation power.