70

4. The Trusteeship Council The Trusteeship Council during the period under review has held three sessions : the first regular session in March-April, 1947, the second regular session in November-December, 1947, and the adjourned portion of the second session in February-March, 1948, to formulate a draft statute for the City of Jerusalem. Normally the Council meets in two regular sessions each year, the first to be convened during the latter half of June, the second during the latter half of November. At its first session the Council consisted of ten members, but the approval of a Trusteeship Agreement by the United States for the former Japanese Mandated Islands in the Pacific made it necessary to elect two non-administering Powers to restore the balance laid down by Article 86 of the Charter, and the membership of the second session numbered twelve. The actual number of members present during meetings of the Council was, however, only eleven since the U.S.S.R., maintaining that the Council was unconstitutional in accepting the eight Trusteeship Agreements in December, 1946, did not send a representative. The present members of the Council are six States administering trust territories (Australia, Belgium, France, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States of America), two States named by the Charter (China and U.S.S.R.), and four elected States (Iraq, Mexico, Philippines, and Costa Rica). The first session, at which the New Zealand representative, Sir Carl Berendsen, was elected Vice-President, was fully occupied with organizational matters such as the adoption of rules of procedure, formulation of a questionnaire which would form the basis of reports by administering authorities on their administration of trust territories, and the examination of petitions from trust territories, including one from representative leaders of Western Samoa asking for self-government. The New Zealand Government expressed its willingness to co-operate with the Trusteeship Council in having the petition from Western Samoa fully considered. The Council authorized the sending to Western Samoa of a special Mission comprising Mr. Francis B. Sayre (U.S.A.), Mr. P. Ryckmans (Belgium}, and Dr. Cruz-Coke (Chile). The second regular session considered the report and recommendations of the Mission to Western Samoa and petitions from the Ewe people in West Africa, examined annual reports submitted by administering authorities, made arrangements for a periodic mission to visit trust territories in Africa in July, 1948, and discussed the report submitted on South-west Africa by the Government of the Union of South Africa and the relationship between that territory and the Union. The legislation passed by the New Zealand Government providing