A great deal has been said in the United Nations meetings as to what constitutes the proper relationship between the General Assembly and the Trusteeship Council in the super vision of the administration of trust territories, yet very little has been written about the role of other important organs both within the United Nations framework and without, such as the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and various specialized agencies, in the operation of the trusteeship system.
While the question of the relative powers of the Assembly and the Trusteeship Council is important from the constitutional point of view and will undoubtedly become a subject of extensive deliberation in the forthcoming Charter review conference, the emphasis in recent years by the United Nations and the administering authorities on the technical assistance projects in dependent areas has focused the world's attention on the activities of those organs and agencies charged with the responsibility of assisting the promotion of economic, social and educational development therein. This is both necessary and desirable, because the most-longed for objectives on the part of the inhabitants of trust territories, namely, independence or self-government, could not possibly be achieved or maintained without a sound and stable economic and social condition as a foundation stone. Therefore, a study of the basis on which ECOSOC and some of the specialized agencies participate in the operation of the trusteeship system and the nature of such participation, as well as the ways by which they perform their functions with respect to trust territories is very much needed.
On the other hand, from the standpoint of the United Nations, the growing extension of the activities of specialized agencies to trust territories presents a peculiar problem of coordination which would involve not only ECOSOC and the agencies, but also the Assembly, the Trusteeship Council, and the administering powers, including their local authorities on the spot. How to achieve smooth coordination and develop cooperation is a task that certainly will challenge the ingenuity of international and national officials alike.
It is the purpose of this article to throw some light on the above-mentioned and other related problems arising from the participation of ECOSOC and specialized agencies in the operation of the trusteeship system, and to advance, where appropriate, a few suggestions as to how the machinery and procedure of collaboration and coordination could be improved and more effectively employed.
I. The Economic and Social Council Basis and Nature of Its Role in the Trusteeship System
ECOSOC was not intended by the authors of the Charter to be a supervisory organ over the administration of trust territories. However, a close examination of the Charter articles in Chapters IX and X relating to the functions of ECOSOC, in conjunction with Chapters XII and XIII with regard to the objectives of the trusteeship system and the responsibilities of the Trusteeship Council, shows a wide area of activities in which ECOSOC is bound to play an active role in respect of the promotion of the economic, social and, to a less extent, educational advancement of the inhabitants of such territories.
According to Article 60, it is the responsibility of ECOSOC to discharge, under the authority of the General Assembly, the functions of the United Nations set forth in Article 55, among which, is the promotion of "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedom for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion." Turning to the chapters on trusteeship system, one finds that the basic objectives of the system, as stated in Article 76, comprise inter alia the encouragement of "respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion" in trust territories. Accordingly, the activities of ECOSOC in the field of human rights will affect and even involve directly the inhabitants of the trust territories.
Furthermore, Article 91 expressly provides that "the Trusteeship Council shall, when appropriate, avail itself of the assistance of the Economic and Social Council and the specialized agencies in regard to matters with which they are respectively concerned." The decision and practice of the Trusteeship Council from the very beginning have been to avail itself of the assistance of ECOSOC when the occasion arises, although there had been differences of opinion between some of the administering states on one hand and most of the non-administering members on the other before the decision was reached. The former preferred that ECOSOC would, in the first place and as a principle, apply to them, while the latter wished ECOSOC to act through the intermediary of the Trusteeship Council.
The above-mentioned debate took place in the course of discussion on the relationship between the two Councils during the first session of the Trusteeship Council in the spring of 1947. Misgivings were expressed about "improper intervention" by ECOSOC in the affairs of trust territories. The Belgian representative, Pierre Ryckmans, declared that "we must avoid… a situation in which, because of untimely establishment of relations, the Economic and Social Council feels bound to refer to the Trusteeship Council for all its relations with Trust Territories, whereas the body to which it should refer is the Administering Authority." In his opinion, "the Trusteeship Council's task is to supervise, not to carry out, the administration of Trust Territories."
Citing a concretes example concerning population studies of trust territories, the Belgian representative commented that "when the Economic and Social Council takes interest in population questions of backward territories, it does so on an international basis, and would be concerned with the population of the Belgian Congo and Uganda, as well as with that of Tanganyika and Ruanda Urundi." Accordingly, "if the Economic and Social Council has any assistance to offer," it should make its offer "not to the Trusteeship Council, but to the administrators of the Belgian Congo, Uganda, Tanganyika and Ruanda-Urundi."
Despite the misgivings and hesitation on the part of the administering powers, it was the general consensus of opinion of the Trusteeship Council that both the provisions of the Charter and the dictates of common sense obliged the two Councils to cooperate. Furthermore, since ECOSOC, under Article 55 of the Charter, is concerned generally with questions which, under Article 76, come more particularly under the Trusteeship Council, some of its resolutions would surely affect the work of the Trusteeship Council or, in a broad sense, the question of the trusteeship system. This being so, there was all the more reason, the majority of the members of the Trusteeship Council believed, to have ECOSOC act through the intermediary or its sister Council specifically assigned the function of supervising the administration of trust territories. This decision having been made, there remained the question of working out detailed arrangements for cooperation in matters of common concern.
Methods of Cooperation with the Trusteeship Council
As the first session of the Trusteeship Council did not meet until March 26, 1947, it was ECOSOC which during its fourth session took the initiative of seeking ways to make arrangements for cooperation and coordination between the two Councils. To this end a committee of three was appointed for the purpose of consulting with representatives of the Trusteeship Council regarding such arrangements. On its part, the Trusteeship Council on April 23, 1947, five days before its adjournment, authorized its President to appoint a committee of three representatives to meet the ECOSOC's committee "to discuss arrangements for cooperation in dealing with matters of common concern."
The resulting Joint Coordination Committee recommended several methods of cooperation which both Councils accepted as guiding principles defining the respective area of jurisdiction." ECOSOC and its commissions could be empowered to make recommendations or studies of general application on matters within their special province, the report of the Joint Committee said, and "such recommendations or studies may be made in respect of particular groups of territories such as those within a given geographic region or those presenting common economic and social problems." However, "Trust Territories as such should not be singled out for such specialist recommendation, except with the concurrence of the Trusteeship Council." If the commissions of ECOSOC wanted to collect in formation or statistics on certain topics in trust territories, they should, in the opinion of the Joint Committee, address such requests through their parent organ to the Trusteeship Council. It would be beneficial if "the attention of the Trusteeship Council should be called from time to time by the Economic and Social Council to the desirability of undertaking a certain study in one or more Trust Territories."
One example of how ECOSOC could present its views to the Trusteeship Council was the examination of petitions. As a matter of principle all petitions to organs of the United Nations (such as petitions on human rights or on the status of women) which emanated from, or related to conditions in any trust territories should be dealt with by the Trusteeship Council in accordance with Article 87 (b) of the Charter. If any such petitions were received by, say, the Commission on Human Rights, they should be communicated immediately to that part of the Secretariat assigned to the Trusteeship Council.
But, on the other hand, "the Trusteeship Council should then communicate to the appropriate Commissions for such assistance as the Council may desire under Article 81 of the Charter, those parts of such petitions as relate to matters which are the Commission's special concern." Petitions received directly by the Trusteeship Council dealing with matters of concern to the commissions of ECOSOC should be communicated by the Trusteeship Council to the appropriate commissions for comment.
It was also agreed by the Joint Committee that when considering petitions referred by the appropriate commissions concerning human rights or the status of women, the Trusteeship Council should take into consideration the procedure for dealing with such petitions as prescribed by ECOSOC itself.
After thus describing in some detail, by using the examination of petitions as an example, the Joint Committee listed the other methods of cooperation of a general nature as follows: (1) reciprocal notification of meetings and agenda, (2) calling of special sessions of one organ upon the request of the other organ, (3) reciprocal representation in meetings of the Councils, committees and (4) exchange of documents.
As a result of the adoption of the Joint Committee's report, the Trusteeship Council found that two of its rules of procedure needed to be revised and, accordingly, adopted two amendments: an amendment to Rule 3 to provide for the calling of a special session of the Trustee ship Council at the request of ECOSOC, and an amendment to Rule 8 to provide for the communication to ECOSOC of the provisional agenda for each session of the Trusteeship Council.
Examples of Assistance Offered
A few concrete cases will illustrate the range of assistance offered by ECOSOC to the Trusteeship Council, and to trust territories through the Trusteeship Council. In approving a resolution submitted by the Social Commission on problems of social welfare in under-developed areas, ECOSOC in 1948 enjoined the Secretary-General, "after consultation with and with the concurrence of the Trusteeship Council," to initiate, immediate studies and to collect information with respect to certain social problems that concerned trust territories. Thus when the commissions of ECOSOC wished to collect information on certain problems in trust territories, these commissions followed the procedure suggested by the Joint Committee to address such request through their parent organ to the Trusteeship Council. This resolution also serves as an example of the kind of assistance ECOSOC offered by calling the attention of the Trusteeship Council to the desirability of undertaking certain studies.
The interest and activities of ECOSOC in the field of human rights have been well known. During its tenth session in 1950, ECOSOC requested the Trusteeship Council to keep it informed of such violations of the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms as might come to the notice of the Trusteeship Council. At the same time, ECOSOC rejected a much stronger proposal suggested by the Commission on Human Rights that it request the Trusteeship Council to authorize the Sub-commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to participate in visiting missions to trust territories.
As yet the Trusteeship Council has not communicated petitions containing matters of concern to a particular commission of ECOSOC for comment by such commission.
The Trusteeship Council, however, did avail itself repeatedly of the assistance of ECOSOC and its commissions during the revision of the Provisional Questionnaire from 1947 to 1952. Even before the Joint Committee discussed above met, the Trusteeship Council during its first session had decided to transmit the Questionnaire to ECOSOC for advice and comments. The latter referred the appropriate parts of the Questionnaire to its commissions, such as the Economic and Employment Commission, the Commission on Human Rights and the Statistical Commission, and upon receiving their observations transmitted them to the Trusteeship Council.
Last, but not least, the assistance offered by ECOSOC through the Trusteeship Council is not merely confined to matters that affect trust territories, but also extends to matters concerning the operation of the trusteeship system as a whole. For instance, ECOSOC, considering that it would be desirable, in order to improve the status of women in the trust territories, that women should share in the responsibilities of visiting missions, adopted in 1951 a resolution which invited Member States to nominate, and the Trusteeship Council to consider, appointing women to serve as members of visiting missions.
Contact with Trust Territories through Administering Authorities
It should be noted, however, that not all of ECOSOC's activities in, or contact with, trust territories had to go through the Trusteeship Council. When an ECOSOC resolution called upon the Members of the United Nations to take certain action, such as the collection and sub-mission of information, in their territories, trust territories included, the Council addressed the request to each of the Members and, in the case of the seven Members who were also administering powers of trust territories, the Council follow ed the same procedure without first checking with the Trusteeship Council. This is because ECOSOC, under Article 62 (1) of the Charter, is empowered to make recommendations to the Member States with respect to any matters mentioned in the same article. On the basis of that article, ECOSOC frequently sent out questionnaires on matters of general application to the metropolitan powers requesting information relating to territories under their jurisdiction, including trust territories. An example of this is the questionnaire on implementation of full employment policies sent out to all Member Governments in 1951. Of the replies to the questionnaire submitted by Members, New Zealand, for instance, included information on its non-self-governing territories as well as the Trust Territory of Western Samoa.
In most cases ECOSOC, instead of sending out a questionnaire, merely asked the Members to supply information or submit reports on certain matters in the territories under their jurisdiction. In 1949, for example, ECOSOC recommended that Members report annually on the progress achieved in the carrying out of resolutions concerning teaching about the United Nations in their respective territories. In the replies, Members administering non-self-governing territories usually included information on what they had been doing in the trust territory under their jurisdiction.
In the field of control of narcotic drugs, in particular, ECOSOC and its Commission on Narcotic Drugs have a great deal to do in respect of trust territories. According to Article 21 of the Convention for Limiting the Manufacture and Regulating the Distribution of Narcotic Drugs, as amended by the Protocol of December 11, 1946, the signatories undertook to forward to the Secretary-General of the United Nations an "annual report on the working of the Convention in their territories, in accordance with a form drawn up by the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the Economic and Social Council." Accordingly, the powers administering non-self-governing territories regularly forward such information in separate form for each of their trust territories.
The functions of ECOSOC in requesting in formation from, and making recommendations to, Member States with respect to conditions in territories under their jurisdiction, including trust territories, also apply in such fields as the suppression of the traffic in women and children, suppression of the circulation of and traffic in obscene publications, etc.
II. The Specialized Agencies
Ways of Establishing Contact with Trust Territories
Like ECOSOC, the specialized agencies have no power of supervision over the administration of trust territories, and it is mainly through the intermediary of the Trusteeship Councilor the administering powers that they make recommendations or receive information. But the specialized agencies, unlike ECOSOC, may also have had direct dealings with the trust territories as such. In other words, the specialized agencies may receive communication is requesting certain technical assistance, for instance, to be rendered in Tanganyika, directly from the Governor of the Territory of Tanganyika at Dar es Salaam. The specialized agencies have independent status and therefore may negotiate and conclude arrangements with the local authorities, presumably with the approval of the Colonial Office in London.
The best example showing such direct dealings may be found in the carrying out of the technical assistance program in the trust territories by the specialized agencies individually, as well as in conjunction with the United Nations. Upon the direct request of the Administrator of the Trust Territory of Somaliland under the Italian administration, a joint United Nations Technical Assistance Mission was sent there. The Mission, in addition to representatives from the United Nations, consisted of experts from the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and spent two months in Somaliland in the spring of 1951.
Some of the specialized agencies, acting separately, sent their specialists to the trust territories to render certain assistance, when invited to do so by the administering authorities concerned. For example, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1950 sent a senior official to Somaliland to study and advise on the improvement of labor and social situations, particularly to make recommendations on the revision of the labor legislation of the territory.
In some instances membership of specialized agencies was granted directly to either trust territories as such, as in the case of the French Cameroons and French Togoland in the World Meteorological Organization (WMO); or to trust territories in conjunction with other non-self-governing territories, as in the case of the Bolgian Congo and the Trust Territory of Ruanda-Urundi in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). And when trust territories become members of a specialized agency, any recommendations made by that agency are addressed directly to the local authorities in the trust territories. On the other hand, these same trust territories, in their capacity as members, also will send information, when requested, directly to the agency without passing through the hands of the administering power concerned.
In two specialized agencies, namely, WHO and UNESCO, an additional category of associate members was provided in their respective Constitution "for territories or group of territories, which are not responsible for the conduct of their international relations," upon application made on behalf of them by the member state or other authority responsible for their international relations. Such action on the part of specialized agencies in granting membership, full or associate, directly to trust territories surely would, as the UNESCO representative told the Trusteeship Council in 1951, enable "Trust territories .... to become more closely associated with the work of UNESCO and to benefit by its advice." It would also extend the scope of specialized agencies' direct dealings with the trust territories and increase their influence therein.
The other way to establish contact with and carry out activities in the trust territories is through the intermediary of administering powers. As the seven administering powers of the trust territories are also members of nearly all the existing specialized agencies, any recommendations made would apply to all the territories under their jurisdiction. For instance, UNESCO in 1947 instructed the Director-General to request the cooperation of members in the preparation of reports on the activities of governmental and non-governmental organizations offering fellowships, scholarships, etc. The administering powers seat back information on conditions and facilities not only in their metropolitan part, but also in their trust territories.
Relationship with the Trusteeship Council
Turning to the ways and kinds of assistance rendered by the specialized agencies to the Trusteeship Council in the exercise of its supervisory functions, one must examine the relationship between the Council and the agencies which is defined by the Charter, and the agreements signed between the United Nations and each of the specialized agencies.
Article 91 of the Charter provides that "the Trusteeship Council shall, when appropriate, avail itself of the assistance ..... of the specialized agencies in regard to matters with which they are respectively concerned." How is the term "specialized agencies" within the meaning of this article defined? During a discussion in its first session concerning the transmission of the Provisional Questionnaire through the Secretary-General to ECOSOC and also the specialized agencies, the Trusteeship Council heard a suggestion that the Questionnaire should also be transmitted to WHO, although the latter had not yet concluded an agreement with the United Nations. In supporting this suggestion, the President of the Trusteeship Council was of the opinion that Article 91 did not prevent the Council from availing itself of the assistance of any specialized agency.
However, this interpretation was contested on the ground that specialized agencies could be considered as such only if they had entered into agreements with the United Nations. The Council, therefore, could not, as it saw fit, call on any agency. This point of view was accepted and," as a result, an earlier draft resolution was amended to delete the words "the specialized agencies having relations with the United Nations (ILO, FAO, UNESCO)" because only those specialized agencies having such relations were considered to be specialized agencies within the meaning of Article 91. Subsequently when a specialized agency entered into agreement with the United Nations, the Questionnaire was automatically transmitted to it through the Secretary-General.
Of the existing ten agreements, five contain a special article under the heading of "Assistance to the Trusteeship Council" with the following identical words: "(The name of the specialized agency) agrees to co-operate with the Trusteeship Council in the carrying out of its functions and in particular agrees that it will, to the greatest extent possible, render such assistance as the Trusteeship Council may request, in regard to matters with which the Organization is concerned."
The agreements with the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Bank) and the International Monetary Fund (Fund), because of their special nature as agencies exclusively dealing with financial and monetary matters, do not go as far as the aforementioned five agreements, but nevertheless contain an article on "Assistance to the Trusteeship Council" with the following text: "The Bank (or the Fund) agrees to co-operate with the Trusteeship Council in the carrying out of its functions by furnishing information and technical assistance upon request and in such other similar ways as may be consistent with the Articles of Agreement of the Bank (or the Fund)."
In the agreements with the Universal Postal Union (UPU), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), there is no special article on assistance to the Trusteeship Council, but a general article entitled "Assistance to the United Nations" provides that each agency agrees to co-operate with and to give assistance to the principal and subsidiary organs of the United Nations in accordance with the Charter and its own constitution.
Such is the basis for the specialized agencies' assistance to the Trusteeship Council. The methods of cooperation and coordination are four in number and similar to those between ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council. They are provided for in all the agreements: (1) reciprocal representation; (2) reciprocal inclusion on the agenda of items proposed by the other; (3) consultation with respect to recommendations made by one organ to the other; (4) exchange of information and documents.
In practice, however, only a few specialized agencies have availed themselves of all these methods, because a majority of the agencies, such as the Bank, Fund, UPU, ITU, WMO, etc., are not particularly interested in, or concerned with items under discussion by the Trusteeship Council. Of the ten specialized agencies having agreements with the United Nations, only FAO, ILO, UNESCO and WHO regularly participate in the work of the Council. On several occasions representatives of these agencies attended also the meetings of the Committees of the Council. For instance, representatives of FAO, ILO and WHO participated in the world of the Ad Hoc Committee of Rural Economic Development of the Trusteeship Council in 1952.
Types of Assistance
The assistance requested of, and rendered by, the specialized agencies to the Trusteeship Council can be divided into two types. The first is that requested in connection with the regular functions of the Trusteeship Council, such as the formulation and revision of the Questionnaire, the examination of the annual reports of administering authorities, the review of the Council's general procedure, etc. The second kind of assistance is rendered in connection with certain specific problems.
In connection with the formulation and revision of the Provisional Questionnaire, the Trusteeship Council in 1947 asked the specialized agencies for their advice with regard to certain sections. In 1950 the Council, in undertaking a revision of the Provisional Questionnaire, took into account comments and suggestions made by ECOSOC, its commissions, the specialized agencies, and members of the Council. Among the agencies that submitted comments and suggestions were FAO, ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the Bank.
With regard to the examination of the annual reports of administering authorities, the Trusteeship Council adopted a resolution in 1949 recommending that "the specialized agencies study the annual reports on the administration of Trust Territories with a view to making such observations and suggestions as they may consider proper in order to facilitate the work of the Trusteeship Council." The Secretary-General was asked "to keep in close touch with the specialized agencies with a view to seeking their counsel and assistance in regard to matters with which they are concerned." UNESCO is the only specialized agency which submits regularly its observations on these reports. ILO and WHO also occasionally submit their observations.
The tone of such observations of specialized agencies is much milder and more restrained than that of the resolutions and recommendations of the Trusteeship Council, or the observations of the Council's visiting missions. This is because the specialized agencies are not supervisory organs of the administration of trust territories. The mild and restrained tone of the agencies' observations on the annual or special reports of the administering powers, however, does not mean that these observations contained no critical comments or made no specific recommendations. To cite a few examples, in commenting on the educational conditions in the four trust territories in the Pacific, UNESCO remarked that in New Guinea "most of the teachers are unqualified and their standard of education is low," and spoke of "the urgent need for new teacher-training centres" as well as for "laying down a clear-cut policy with regard to types and standards of teacher-training." In another place, when commenting on the condition of primary and secondary education, UNESCO raised a number of pointed questions, and apparently wanted the administering power to give more precise in formation. After terming as "unusual" the fact that about 75 percent to almost 100 percent of education in five of the six African trust territories were in mission hands, UNESCO then made a quite far-reaching suggestion that the State play an increasing role in the provision and conduct of education, because, as UNESCO saw it, "the State is responsible for the application of the equality of educational opportunity for all children, of whatever race, religion, social standing and economic status they might be." These few excerpts are sufficient to indicate the active role played by UNESCO in assisting the Trusteeship Council in carrying out one of the Council's main functions as stated in Article 87. Other specialized agencies presumably could do the same should they so wish.
With regard to the review of its general procedure, the Trusteeship Council has not adopted resolutions specifically asking for comments from the specialized agencies. However, at least one agency, namely, UNESCO, sent comments and suggestions to the Council. This was obviously done on the basis of its Agreement with the United Nations.
Comments and observations from specialized agencies on the consideration of petitions and the examination of visiting missions' reports have not been sought by the Trusteeship Council, nor submitted by the agencies on their own initiative. In 1947 a suggestion that experts from specialized agencies might be invited to serve as members of visiting missions was not accepted, but the present rules of procedure of the Council does not preclude the possibility of asking specialized agencies to loan their experts to visiting missions in an advisory capacity.
The second kind of assistance given to the Trusteeship Council by specialized agencies was expressed in many and varied types which included:
(1) Loaning of experts: In response to a request from the Committee on Rural Economic Development of the Trusteeship Council inviting FAO to make available an official familiar with and problems to assist in the preparation of the Committee's final report, FAO sent to New York an expert from its headquarters in Rome for a period of two months in the spring of 1952.
(2) Drafting of special report: In addition to attending the meetings of the Committee and giving his expert advice, the above-mentioned official from FAO was also invited by the Committee to prepare a draft of Part I of its report to the Council containing an analysis of general problems and features of land tenure, relationship of land tenure to land use and utilization, which he did during his stay at New York.
(3) Furnishing of expert advice: This is the most common form in which the second type of assistance from specialized agencies is rendered. In 1950 the Trusteeship Council requested the Secretary-General to bring to the attention of ILO the General Assembly's interest in the social advancement in trust territories and to request ILO to give expert advice particularly on the following two questions: migrant labor, and penal sanctions for breach of labor contracts by indigenous inhabitants. In response to that resolution, the Director-General of ILO informed the Council in 1951 that the matter would be brought before the ILO Committee of Experts on Social Policy in Non-Metropolitan Territories. After the Committee had met and concluded its conclusions, the Director-General of ILO transmitted to the Council through the Secretary-General the reports of the Committee of Experts, together with notes summarizing the recommendations contained in the reports and explaining the action taken on them by the Governing Body of ILO.
(4) Supplying of information: There is a slight difference between the furnishing of expert advice and the supplying of information. Expert advice is generally rendered at the specific request of the Trusteeship Council on certain particular problems which are on the agenda of the Council. The supplying of information is usually done by the specialized agencies on their own initiative with the thought that such information may be of some value to the Council in facilitating the carrying out of its function.
III. Conclusion
It will be seen from the foregoing discussion that the participation of ECOSOC and the specialized agencies in the operation of the trusteeship system has raised a number of interesting problems of cooperation and coordination. In the case of ECOSOC, the problems are not so complex as those in case of the specialized agencies. This is because, in the first place, ECOSOC and the Trusteeship Council, being component parts of the United Nations proper, operate under one authority, namely, the General Assembly, and are, in turn, served by the same Secretariat. Moreover, various methods of cooperation and coordination between the two Councils have been spelled out in detail in the report of the Joint Coordination Committee. The procedure and machinery of coordination concerning ECOSOC's role in the operation of the trusteeship system, therefore, have to be examined at three levels. On the policy-making level, the General Assembly, through its various main committees, particularly its Second (Economic), Third (Social) and Fourth (Trusteeship) Committees either meeting separately or jointly, would be the organ of authority laying down broad principles to be observed by the two Councils in carrying out its actual operation. And, on the Council level, the procedure of coordination, as said several times earlier, has already been worked out and could be resorted to without much ado whenever the need should arise. In this connection, it is suggested that, in addition to the full utilization of the opportunity afforded by the reciprocal representation between the meetings of the two Councils, the Joint Coordination Committee be established as a standing committee to discuss, preferably in an informal way and between sessions, among other things, the various problems involving ECOSOC's activities with regard to trust territories. With the increasing importance attached to the impact of economic and social conditions on the attainment of the objectives of the trusteeship system, such problems are bound to occur more frequently and merit more thorough attention.
On the day-to-day transaction level, the Department of Trusteeship and the Department of Economic and Social Affairs in the Secretariat, serving the Trusteeship Council and ECOSOC respectively, would handle all the necessary liaison arrangements arising from the rendering of assistance by ECOSOC to the Trusteeship Council for instance, a request for some experts in the Economic and Social Affairs Department to brief members of a visiting mission on conditions in certain trust territories to be visited. When matters of importance are up for decision when points of disagreement occur, presumably they would be referred to the Secretary-Genera for settlement.
Turning to the specialized agencies, the coordination problem arising from their participation in the trusteeship matters are rendered more complex by the fact that specialized agencies, being outside of the United Nations proper, could have direct dealings with trust territories without necessarily getting prior approval from any of the United Nations organs. Consequently, the Trusteeship Council may not be promptly informed of what any of the specialized agencies is doing in a certain trust territory and sometimes may be unaware of such activities at all. It is true that the administering authority concerned most likely would mention in its annual report any assistance render ed by any of the agencies in the trust territory under its administration. But such a statement, being in answer to one out of the 190 questions requested in the revised Questionnaire (Question 80), would give merely fragmentary information, and even this would be only received at a very late date. It is also true that the specialized agency concerned would probably report its assistance to any trust territory in its annual report to the United Nations through ECOSOC. But, here again, the annual report of specialized agencies usually is not seriously discussed in ECOSOC and, even when discussed in detail, the concern of ECOSOC would not be the same as that of the Trusteeship Council which naturally would be interested only in those activities of the specialized agencies that affect trust territories.
In view of such lack of direct and prompt contact as described above, the following measures designed for closer coordination are suggested. On the field operation level the administering authority, when requesting assistance from specialized agencies, should be required to notify the Trusteeship Council beforehand of such a request, and submit promptly to the Council a copy of the report of the agency rendering assistance, together with a description of the action the said authority contemplated taking. If a mission of experts from specialized agencies arrives at a trust territory at a time when a United Nations visiting mission is touring the same territory or vice versa, it would be highly desirable for the administering authority concerned to arrange meetings between the two missions to exchange information on their respective touring schedule, program, etc.
On the decision-making level it would be also desirable for the specialized agency, when approached by an administering authority for assistance in trust territories, to inform die Trusteeship Council of that fact, and, after the mission was completed, to send to the Council a summary of its recommendations, if not the full text of its report. With such complete information from both the administering authorities and specialized agencies at its disposal, the Trustee ship Council would be in a more intelligent position to carry out its supervisory functions, including the making of recommendations to the administering authority concerned, the drafting of instructions to visiting missions, etc.
On the Secretariat level it would be desirable to invite the Under-Secretary in charge of the Trusteeship Department to sit in on the Administrative Committee on Coordination, which consists of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the executive heads of the specialized agencies, when matters involving agencies' participation in the operation of the trusteeship system are under discussion. And then it would be the responsibility of the Under-Secretary to give a complete report on such discussions to the Trusteeship Council. Mention should also be made here of a special coordinating organ, namely, the Technical Assistance Board (TAB), which is composed of the Director-General of the United Nations Technical Assistance Administration and the executive heads of the participating agencies with the Executive Chairman of TAB presiding. It would be very helpful to the elimination of overlapping and misunderstanding that might arise from the uncoordinated activities of specialized agencies in trust territories to have the Under-Secretary of the Trustee ship Department attend the meetings of TAB when requests for assistance in trust territories are being considered, and give his views thereon.