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A sustainable government is requisite as a care taker of not only ordinary and daily affairs for its citizens, but in Haiti’s case – an island geographically prone to nature’s onslaughts – also as a manager capable to face similar frequent challenges. At this backdrop, one wonders whether the current disaster and crisis, and the Monday international meeting, offer an opportunity to dust off the idea of international trusteeship and reconsider at least its partial revival in a fashion adapted to 21st century’s reality.
A long forgotten tool, the Trusteeship Council figures as one of the UN six main permanent organs. True, the historical circumstances prevailing at the time of the Charter’s adopti
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Let’s face it. It is not a secret that Canadian assistance to Haiti was conceptualized to support the “establishment of a functioning state architecture” of a state loosely characterized as “fragile and failed”. As it currently stands, Haiti is not only fragile; it effectively lacks a functioning government, and some time will pass until such is re-instituted. Although legally sovereign, what is left after the earthquake is a government unable to discharge its duty of carrying out the attached jurisdiction. In a way, factually, Haiti’s sovereignty has been suspended. Some form of legal authority and institution must step in to fill the vacuum.
UN trusteeship is currently unavailable to Haiti because this system does not apply to members of the UN. Nevertheless, the spirit and the provisions laid down in both the UN Charter trusteeship chapters offer guidelines worthwhile embracing. These provisions are expressly instructed by Article 76.b. which lists among its objectives
to promote the political, economic, social, and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories, and their progressive development towards self government or independence as may be appropriate to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned and may be provided by the terms of each trusteeship agreement.
Some form of an “international partnership based trusteeship”, managed by a council made up of the Friends of Haiti and the participants in Monday’s meeting, and chaired by Haiti’s Prime Minister therefore offers a reasonable and workable governance solution.
Transitional internationally administered territories (TIAT) have featured as an important tool used by the UN in handling “governance gap” type of challenges in the Balkans, Africa, East and South East Asia, and Afghanistan. In many respects, they have mirrored the trusteeship concept quite closely. However, due to their ad hoc nature, knowledge gained from this valuable tool has been dispersed across UN bodies and documents, contributing members’ archives, academic publication, and the like. The benefit of an already extant UN permanent organ lies in its availability to operate as an institutional hub for such information and administrator for the purpose of drawing lessons for use in future similar cases. Therefore, while it will not be a surprise if TIAT becomes the next title of a post-earthquake formula for Haiti, it would be advisable to re-use the good offices of an already available UN trusteeship organ. The Trusteeship Council designated as custodian of a central library and home to assess, research, and educate about international trusteeship-like experiences is a first step towards rejuvenating and re-inventing this old institution.