PHILIPSBURG:--- Three years prior to submitting the Kingdom Charter to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), the Netherlands was selected to become a member of a new Ad Hoc Committee regarding decolonization factors in 1952. The Ad Hoc Committee, which consisted of ten members (Australia, Belgium, Burma, Cuba, Guatemala, Iraq, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Venezuela), was instructed by UNGA, via UN Resolution 648 (VII), to "carry out a more thorough study of the factors which will have to be taken into account in deciding whether a Territory has or has not attained a full measure of self-government."
UNGA, via UN Resolution 648 (VII), also instructed the new Ad Hoc Committee, and by extension The Netherlands, to take into account all of the following:
a) The possibility of defining the concept of a full measure of self-government for the purposes of Chapter XI of the (UN) Charter
b) The features guaranteeing the principle of the self-determination of peoples in relation to Chapter XI of the (UN) Charter
c) The manifestation of the FREELY expressed wills of the peoples in relation to their national and INTERNATIONAL status for the purposes of Chapter XI of the (UN) Charter
Based on the fact that The Netherlands was selected in 1952 by the United Nations to be a driving force behind the determination of factors regarding decolonization, it stands to reason that the Netherlands knew, or should have known, that the Kingdom Charter it presented before UNGA in 1955 would be soundly rejected. The Netherlands knew or should have known, that Articles 44, 50, and 51 of the Kingdom Charter were clear in violation of the very decolonization factors that they themselves helped to actualize via its United Nations Ad Hoc Committee mandate in 1952.
It is worth bearing in mind that in 1955, three years after the Netherlands was selected by UNGA to become a member of the new Ad Hoc Committee regarding decolonization factors, UNGA refused to state in UN Resolution 945X that the former Netherlands Antilles had attained a full measure of self-government, a right to self-determination and that Chapter XI no longer applied. Interestingly, in 1953 UNGA declared those very statements for Puerto Rico under UN Resolution 748 (VIII) and again in 1954 for Greenland under UN Resolution 849 (IX). However, UNGA REFUSED to declare the same for the Netherlands Antilles in 1955. Additionally, there is no DEFINITIVE LANGUAGE in UN Resolution 945X declaring that the former Netherlands Antilles was removed from the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories in 1955. (Please find attached UN Resolution 648 (VII) and UN Resolution 945X)
