The committee of 24
p. 20 · Read in the full issue
The UN Special Committee on the Implementation of the Declaration on Decolonisation, often known as the Committee of 24, is currently chaired by Cuba.
The chairman is almost always a coun try’s permanent UN representative and works more on a personal than a national basis.
Current membership is: Afghanistan, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Congo, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopa, Fiji, India, In donesia, Iran, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Mali, Sweden, Sierra Leone, Syria, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, USSR, Tanzania, Vene zuela and Yugoslavia.
The committee meets throughout the year and aims to complete its business prior to the opening of the General Assembly.
A meeting in January will draw up a list of work for 1987, when the New Caledonia issue will be formally discussed.
The committee has a list of countries which it considers to be non-self governing territories. The forum request is for the committee to add New Caledonia to that list.
Once a country or territory appears on the list, the committee examines deve lopments there at least once a year. Any member of the committee or any
interested non member can address the hearings.
The committee is also able to hear petitioners from interested non-governmen tal bodies.
But what is most likely to annoy France is the fact that the committee, on a more or less regular basis, sends visiting missions to the listed territories to examine deve lopments, including those towards a change of status.
France, however, is under no obligation to allow entry to such missions.
A sub committee draws up a report which, if adopted by the whole body, is then transmitted with any recommendations to the General Assembly for consideration.
The committee has in the past overseen acts of self determination in other non self-governing territories but is not in a position to force the pace towards any referendum.
Again, however, France is under no obligation to co-operate with the commit tee and would be within her rights to ignore it completely.
This, though, would almost inevitably lead to anti-French resolutions being de bated by the General Assembly, drawing international attention to the status of New Caledonia which is what the FLNKS and the forum seek to achieve.