Ruling the

Books

Ruling the islands

DEFINING STATUS: A comprehensive analysis of the United States Territo rial Relations. By Arnold Leibowitz. 752 pages. Kluwer Academic Publishers, PO Box 358, Accord Station. Hingham, Mass 02018, United States. SUSIB9.

Reviewed by David North THIS is a blockbuster of a book on America’s rule of its island terri

tories encyclopedic, insightful,

outspoken and often angry.

It is a treasurehouse of information on important but rarely-researched island issues. And, as the title claims, it is com prehensive: 752 pages and thousands of footnotes long, well organised, and sprinkled with a light dusting of political and historical trivia. (For example, for many years after World War II United States citizens could not visit Guam with out military approval; one such citizen encountering this obstacle was the for midable Mainland politician John Con nally, later Governor of Texas. He com plained to President Kennedy, and the ban was lifted.) The author has one of those unusual legal specialties: he helps United States territories write their constitutions, and argues their cases in court, usually against the federal government. And he has been involved, in one way or another, with American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Marianas, and the three former Trust Territories: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshalls and Palau. (He has been, for example, coun sel to the President of Palau in some of the recent litigation before the Palau courts on various compact of Free Asso ciation issues.) It is from this background that Leibo witz views the U.S. relations with its ter ritories. His general position is that

Washington rarely approaches the terri

tories in a systematic, long-term manner; that the lack of island political power in the capital leads to frequent defeats for territorial interests; and that all three branches of the Mainland government, executive, legislative and judicial, seem to have a higher regard for their own positions and powers vis-a-vis the islands than they do of the islands’ abilities to govern themselves. (As a lawyer he has a particularly grim view of the pattern he sees in the courts, always ruling for ex tensions of federal power and rarely supporting the territories when they ob ject.) L-eibowitz spells this out by, first, out lining how the US Government, from even before the writing of the Constitu

tion, handled its relations with territor ies. They were at first regarded as potential states, and most remained in a transitional (territorial) role for only a few years. When the US was very young, under the Confederation (1776-1789) it had a single house legislature, and terri tories (like Tennessee) were granted a

single, non-voting delegate in the Con

gress. While that specific precedent still operates regarding American Samoa and Guam, the notion of territories (now dis tant and populated by non-whites) as potential states has dimmed.

After laying out the general patterns

of Washington-island relations, including

decades of rule by US Navy officers, the author moves to near-book-length chap ters on the relations between each of the territories and Washington. (The two Caribbean territories, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, are covered as well.) In each of these chapters he mixes a little history and a little anthropology, with generous doses of policy analysis, politics and law.

While Leibowitz usually supports the position of island governments, he offers some sharp advice to the territories on various subjects, such as on ethnic specific, land-tenure laws. He suggests

that allowing only Samoans, for example,

to own certain classes of land, is likely to be upset (on an equal rights basis) in federal courts, but that Samoa could reach the same general objective if land ownership were restricted to certain clas ses of residents of the territory, or if land could be alienated only for certain purposes.

Speaking of Samoa, I was a little dis mayed that the islands’ leading constitu tional scholar did not discuss the in teresting question of women and the Senate of American Samoa, although there is a thorough discussion of the evolution of the Samoan legislature.

While the lower house in American Samoa is elected by universal suffrage, and a secret ballot, the upper house is

chosen by the traditional meetings of the rnatais, the traditional family leaders.

The latter are 99 per cent male, and no woman has ever been elected to the Samoa Senate. What would happen to that practice if it came before a US dis trict court on the Mainland? I am not a lawyer but I am sure that the matai elec tion system would be dead in the water.

Returning to the broad thrust of his work, Leibowitz recommends: • that US policy toward the islands become more stable and more thought ful; • that US establish real limits to feder al power, giving the islands more power to run their own affairs; • that Washington support the move ment toward change in status of the ter ritories; • that, in the long-term, statehood be the objective for Guam (preferably joined with the Marianas) and that, if American Samoa can accept an end to ethnic land-tenure legislation and the control of its own immigration policy it too be encouraged to seek statehood; and • that, in the short-term, the federal government should move toward equal treatment in social and trade programs,

should enhance political representation

of the islands, and restrain its appetite for land in the islands. (The military occupies a lot of land in Guam, and in some of the former Territories.) Politicians, scholars, lawyers and jour nalists seeking to understand how the U.S. treats its islands need this volume.

It is the definitive book on the subject, and provides a solid underpinning for

policy making, scholarship and the text

generation of law suits. It is particularly valuable because it deals with all the rela tionships of Washington with all of the islands, on a wide range of subjects.

A note on the price: this is a result of privatisation, or how the private sector copes with a specialised product for an unwieldy market. But it is worth it. □