New York, 9 April 1968
Confidential
Australian membership of the Committee of Twenty–four
A reading of the Department’s All Posts Savingram AP30 of 6th March, 1968,1 leads me to put to you the following further comments on Australia’s interests as a member of the United Nations Special Committee on Colonialism.
It was in the light of what seemed to be the imminent carrying out of a United States decision to leave this Committee that you decided early this year to seek the views of the Minister on our own membership. The considerations set out for the Minister and summarized in Savingram AP30 hardly amount to a full presentation of the views expressed on this subject by this Mission. Our points of differences of opinion and presentation are summarized in the attached paper.
The current decision is apparently that, despite some disadvantages to Australia, we should remain a member of the Committee of Twenty-four so long as the United States and the United Kingdom retain their membership.
Our first point is that both these countries have interests very different from our own which they believe they serve by membership of the Committee of Twenty-four. In the case of the United States, they have their relationships with the African States to consider and in addition their own internal race problem which they must consider in relation to any international moves which would arouse African criticism. I would judge that having come to the brink of leaving the Committee last December and then withdrawing from that decision, the United States will not be likely to reverse this decision unless they suffer some serious afront in the Committee.
As for the British, they have widespread and substantial economic and political interests in the African Continent which we do not share. Caradon’s2 views will prevail in the present Government and these are strongly in favour of cooperating, as he sees it, with the African members of the United Nations.
If it is a question of support by Australia for Britain and America in the Committee of Twenty-four, all we can say is that the very small group of members of the Committee which are prepared to speak and vote against the majority would not be affected much by the replacement of Australia, presumably by some other Western European member. We have had no pressure at all from the British or the Americans to stay on the Committee in order to support them.
As I see it, the two points of importance for Australia in regard to the Committee of Twenty-four are firstly, the extent to which that Committee discusses the Territory of Papua–New Guinea and secondly the possible relationship between the Committee of Twenty-four and the Trusteeship Council.
As we have pointed out, Papua–New Guinea does not loom large on the Committee’s agenda. When this territory is dealt with then the attitudes which Australia has expressed in the Committee on other colonial matters are likely to act to our detriment. The weakness of our position is that Australia is obliged to take attitudes and decisions on a number of questions of little direct concern to ourselves which harm our general image in the minds of the Afro-Asian majority.
So far as concerns the Trusteeship Council it is hard to see how, in the light of the Charter, the Council can be pushed to one side, but the attempt will be made to down-grade its importance and to up-grade the Committee of Twenty-four as the most representative United Nations body concerned with colonial matters. This attempt is assisted so long as the Committee of Twenty-four includes the permanent members of the Security Council, except France and China, and the remaining administering power of a trust territory, Australia. We have some interest in the down-grading of the status of the Committee of Twenty-four and this would have been achieved if the U.S.A., Australia and the United Kingdom had all left early this year.
As you will know, the structure of the Committee’s sub-committees will be the same this year as last and Australia will again be a member of the second sub-committee, which deals with Pacific territories: In general these are territories in whose future Australia has some interest, and it could be argued that we have a role to play in discussion of them both in the sub-committee and later in the Committee itself.
Our participation in the sub-committee’s discussions has not however been fruitful in the past, and while we should keep an open mind over the next six months I doubt that achievements in this area will outweigh the disadvantages of our continued membership of the Committee, which I have outlined above. To recapitulate, these disadvantages are that our continued membership adds weight to the view that the Committee could take over the role of the Trusteeship Council, and causes us to take attitudes and decisions on a range of issues not of direct concern to us, and on which our attitudes are sharply at variance with those of the Afro-Asian majority in the Assembly.
We should watch critically the performance of the Committee over the period up to the Twenty-third Session in September this year, and then take a decision as to whether Australia, independently of what the United States and the United Kingdom might decide about membership, should decide to give up membership of the Committee of Twenty-four as from the end of this year.
Our notification of withdrawal should be made to the Secretary-General by December of this year, and it might prove expedient to leave that action until after the Fourth Committee and perhaps the General Assembly have finished their discussions about Papua–New Guinea. Developments concerning the future of the Trusteeship Council could of course affect this proposed timing.
I should be glad to have your further comments.3
Attachment
ARGUMENTS AGAINST AUSTRALIA’S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE COMMITTEE OF TWENTY-FOUR PUT FORWARD IN SUBMISSION TO THE MINISTER OF 20TH FEBRUARY, 19684 AND IN A.P. SAVlNGRAM 30 OF 6TH MARCH, 1968
Argument
(i) Withdrawal alone would undoubtedly attract to us considerable odium, not only in the Committee of Twenty-four, itself, but in the Trusteeship Council, in the Fourth and possibly other Committees and in the Plenary.
Comment
The importance of the Committee of Twenty-four as a body of the General Assembly of the United Nations can be overestimated. Although the African and Arab representatives in the Committee participate vigorously in its work and hope to see it achieve certain goals with relation to Africa, and particularly the problems of southern Africa, its proceedings have become so stereotyped that it is not followed with particular attention by, for example, the great majority of Western European, Latin American or Asian delegations. It seems to us that an independent decision by Australia to withdraw on the grounds that it did not feel that it had a positive further contribution to make to the work of the Committee need not attract any great or lasting attention, let alone odium, to Australia, even among African delegations.
[ matter omitted ]
Argument
(ii) We cannot expect our friends in the Committee of Twenty-four-the United States and the United Kingdom—to defend our position or state our case in regard to Papua–New Guinea and the Cocos Islands as fully and effectively as we ourselves are in a position to do. (Indeed on some issues our friends might be embarrassed if they spoke as strongly as we would wish them to speak.)
Comment
Leaving the Committee will not make it any less feasible for us to speak ourselves before the Committee on Papua–New Guinea, or on any other Australian territory with which the Committee might decide to concern itself. The administering power is expected to take part in the debate when a particular territory is being considered and is accorded full rights to speak, reply, present information and so on.
In fact there has been consideration given in the past (paragraph 11 of submission to Minister of 14th December) to the question of whether, were we to leave the Committee, we should continue to be willing to present our case on Papua–New Guinea before it.
If it were decided that it was not in Australia’s interest to present its case on Papua–New Guinea before the Committee of Twenty-four, it would be all the more difficult to avoid doing so if we remained a member of the Committee.
Nevertheless we consider at this stage that it would be in our interests to play down the implications of a decision to withdraw by announcing that we would continue to participate, as a non-member and as the administering power, in the discussion of our territories.
Argument
(iii) If there is now a prospect that the Committee will adopt more reasonable attitudes it is in the general Western interest that we should cooperate with the USA and Britain in influencing the Committee in more constructive, responsible directions.
Comment
The present Chairman and Vice-Chairman, Mestiri of Tunisia and Raouf of Iraq,5 are improvements over the office bearers of last year. While this is all to the good, and the new regime should lead to more orderly meetings and a lesser likelihood of outrageous behaviour, this does not mean that the products of the Committee will be, in the final analysis, much more acceptable to Australia. In some respects it will be more difficult to object to the activities of the Committee with office bearers who behave in a correct fashion than with office bearers who behave wildly.
Argument
(iv) The voting on the Papua–New Guinea resolution in the 1967 General Assembly, while not satisfactory from our viewpoint, was an improvement compared with 1966. By remaining on the Committee we might, given a more reasonable attitude on the part of the members, be able to gain better understanding of our policies and problems.
Comment
Only a small number of countries are members of the Committee of Twenty-four and its importance as a lobbying vehicle is therefore limited. We will not obtain greater support for our views on Papua–New Guinea by being forced to express views on a whole range of other colonial matters at variance with the great majority of members of the Committee and indeed of the United Nations. This, it seems to us, is more likely to make the Afro-Asians want to hit back at us over New Guinea. As we have pointed out above, we would be able, as a non-member, to appear before the Committee to present our case on Papua–New Guinea, and we could of course follow its proceedings and do as much lobbying among that particular group of countries as a non-member as we can as a member.
Some time ago in our Savingram No. 3 of 17th January, 1968, we presented a detailed programme of lobbying activities with govemments6 which should have been put into effect already, if we are to make a serious attempt to improve the Papua–New Guinea vote in the Fourth Committee this year. The possibilities for improving the vote are real, but they depend on proper and diligent lobbying, most importantly in capitals as well as in New York. The proposals contained to this end in our Savingram under reference are the important thing in this regard, not continued membership of the Committee of Twenty-four. We have had no reaction to our proposals.
(v) Argument
If we alone left the Committee we might forfeit the sympathy, which at present seems to be growing, of our close Asian neighbours.
Comment
… It is our considered opinion that our close Asian associates do not regard the affairs of the Committee of Twenty-four as important …
Further we should endeavour to convince Asians and others that our efforts in New Guinea should not be compared with conditions in some other territories with which the Committee of Twenty-four is concerned. We would more effectively be able to justify special treatment of our territories, and thus be more likely to secure Asian sympathy for our efforts, if we were not at the same time obliged to defend the efforts of other administering powers.
Argument
(vi) The British and Americans decided to remain on the Committee thereby leaving us in a position where we would have had to withdraw in isolation.
Comment
The modalities of an independent decision to withdraw have not been tested. It can be argued that an independent prior decision by Australia would help the United States to reach its own decision which would be in our interests.
An independent Australian decision to withdraw, presented in low-key fashion (by emphasising the contribution we have made for six years and the need to allow other members to participate), should cause less resentment against us than a general Western walk-out in which we would be seen take7 following the United States and the United Kingdom.
Argument
(vii) As the major Western powers were remaining our objective of reducing the standing of the Committee was not achieved.
Comment
Our, Australian, objective is not simply to reduce the status of the Committee but also to change the present situation in which we are obliged to express ourselves on a range of issues which have little to do with us and on which our attitudes are consistently and strongly at variance with those of the countries which feel themselves most intimately affected by this range of issues.
[NAA: A1838, 935/2 part 20]
1 It gave historical background on Australia’s participation in the Committee and summarised the attitude decided in Document 162. It also listed arguments for withdrawal and those that had been central to the decision to remain (NAA: A 1838, 935/2 part 20).
2 Lord Caradon, United Kingdom Permanent Representative at the UN.
3 A reply to Shaw has not been found.
4 Document 162.
5 Adnan Raouf, Minister, Delegation of Iraq to the UN.
6 Not printed.
7 This word should perhaps have been rendered ‘as’.