The United States called on October 15, 2026, for ending the mandate of the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization. Deputy United States Ambassador to the United Nations Tammy Bruce called on October 15, 2026, for ending the mandate of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization. She argued that the body “has outlived its original purpose” and singled out its yearly hearings on Puerto Rico.
The statement came at a meeting of the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization). At that meeting, members approved more than 20 draft resolutions and one decision, many of them recommended by the Special Committee. Bruce spoke at a meeting of the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization). At that meeting, members approved more than 20 draft resolutions and one decision, many of them recommended by the Special Committee.
She said more than 80 former colonies have joined the UN as member states, yet the Special Committee “operates as though nothing has changed.” “Revisiting the same texts every year wastes the UN’s time and resources, as do the Special Committee’s yearly junkets to resorts in the Caribbean and South Pacific,” she said, according to the UN transcript. This year, the committee held its Caribbean regional seminar in Managua from May 25 to 27.
Puerto Rico at the center
“Puerto Rico shows this most clearly,” the Bruce said. She noted that the General Assembly removed Puerto Rico from the list of non-self-governing territories in 1953 through Resolution 748. “Even so, the Special Committee ignores the General Assembly and holds hearings on Puerto Rico every year,” she said, and she named Cuba among the members behind those hearings.
Puerto Rico appeared in three sentences of the roughly three-minute statement. Guam appeared in one. American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands were not mentioned, even though the committee voted the same day on resolutions about American Samoa, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands. Those three are among the 17 territories still on the UN list.
The Special Committee, which the General Assembly created in 1961, has kept Puerto Rico on its agenda despite the 1953 removal. On June 22, 2026, more than 70 organizations and individuals testified on the islands’ status. The committee then adopted a resolution on Puerto Rico without a vote. Cuba introduced it on behalf of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Russia. A statement delivered for CELAC at that meeting said 43 resolutions and decisions on Puerto Rico had been adopted since 1972. Pasquines covered similar resolutions in 2023, when 51 petitioners testified, and in 2015.
- December 14, 1946The UN lists 72 territoriesThe General Assembly noted a list of 72 territories to which the UN Charter’s chapter on non-self-governing territories applied. That year the United States reported to the UN on Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, and other territories. American Samoa, Guam, and the US Virgin Islands are still on the list.
- November 27, 1953Puerto Rico leaves the listAfter Puerto Rico’s constitution took effect on July 25, 1952, the United States told the UN it would stop reporting on the islands. In Resolution 748 (VIII), the General Assembly considered that the charter’s provisions on non-self-governing territories no longer applied to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
- December 14–15, 1960The decolonization declarationThe General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, Resolution 1514 (XV). The next day, Resolution 1541 (XV) said a territory reaches a full measure of self-government through independence, free association with an independent state, or integration with an independent state.
- November 27, 1961The Special Committee is createdResolution 1654 (XVI) set up the Special Committee on Decolonization, known as the C-24, to examine how the 1960 declaration is applied and to make recommendations. It began its work in 1962 and has 28 members today.
- 1963The committee’s listThe Special Committee approved a preliminary list of territories to which the 1960 declaration applied. Seventeen territories remain on its agenda today.
- 1972Puerto Rico on the agendaThe Special Committee has adopted resolutions and decisions on the question of Puerto Rico since 1972. A 2025 draft resolution counted 42 of them.
- 1988A decade to end colonialismThe General Assembly’s Resolution 43/47 declared 1990 to 2000 the International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism. Three more decades followed; the fourth runs from 2021 to 2030.
- 1990A new status for the Northern Mariana IslandsThe UN records a change in status for the Northern Mariana Islands, part of the former Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, as a commonwealth of the United States. It is not among the 17 territories on today’s list.
- August 15, 1991A decision on Puerto RicoThe Special Committee reaffirmed the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence, in conformity with the 1960 declaration.
- August 11, 1998A vote after seven yearsThe Special Committee adopted a resolution on Puerto Rico by a roll-call vote of 10 to 0, with 6 abstentions. Its acting chair said the committee had expressed itself on the issue after seven years of silence. The text hoped the United States would expedite a process letting the people of Puerto Rico fully exercise that right.
- June 22, 2015More than 30 petitionersThe Special Committee heard more than 30 petitioners and approved a resolution urging the United States to let Puerto Ricans exercise their inalienable right to self-determination.
- June 22, 2023Approved without a voteAfter 51 petitioners testified, the Special Committee approved without a vote a resolution reaffirming the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence.
- June 22, 2026Another resolution without a voteWith more than 70 organizations and individuals scheduled to testify, the Special Committee adopted a resolution on Puerto Rico without a vote. Cuba introduced it on behalf of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Russia.
- October 15, 2026A call to end the committeeAt the General Assembly’s Fourth Committee, the United States called for ending the Special Committee’s mandate and described some of its activities as a waste of resources. The Fourth Committee approved more than 20 draft resolutions and one decision that day.
Guam and the military
Bruce reaffirmed US positions from prior years. They included what she called the US “sovereign right to conduct military activities in accordance with its national security interests” and disagreement with criticism of a federal court ruling that blocked Guam’s planned self-determination plebiscite.
In 2019, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a 2018 ruling by federal Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood. That ruling struck down Guam’s 2000 plebiscite law, which limited voting to “Native Inhabitants of Guam.” Air Force veteran Arnold Davis had sued in 2011 after he was denied registration. The US Supreme Court later declined to review the case. Guam created its Commission on Decolonization in 1997.
Status options and the votes
The United States also said the committee “refuses to accept outcomes other than independence.” It cited a 1970 UN declaration stating that a territory’s people “may validly choose free association, integration with the administering state, or any other political status, provided they freely determine it.”
The US said it “voted no on all of the resolutions and decisions under this agenda item.” UN tallies show the United States in small minorities. A text asking administering powers to share information on their territories passed 160 to 2, with the United States and Israel opposed. The core text on implementing the decolonization declaration passed 120 to 3, with Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States opposed. The United Kingdom, which administers 10 of the 17 listed territories, abstained on the territory resolutions.
Reactions
Cuba’s delegate later said the United States was working to strengthen its economic, social, and political control over Puerto Rico while ignoring the committee’s resolutions, according to the transcript.
Right to Democracy rejected the US position. “It is true that the people in Non-Self-Governing Territories deserve better—the people of Puerto Rico, Guam, the US Virgin Islands, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands should enjoy full political rights and self-determination long denied to them by the United States,” said co-director Adi Martínez Román.
The group noted that the Northern Mariana Islands, once part of the UN Trust Territory of the Pacific, have never been on the list. Its solidarity director, Zeno Deleon Guerrero Jr., said US decisions over the Covenant “call into question whether the NMI’s present relationship with the United States constitutes a ‘full measure of self-government.’”
Co-director Neil Weare pointed to deep-sea mining, citizenship rights, and military open detonation in the territories. “As the United States celebrates the 250th anniversary of rejecting colonial rule in the Declaration of Independence, it must ensure that principles of ‘consent of the governed’ apply equally to people in US territories today,” he said.
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