International Court of Justice

Case concerning the Northern Cameroons (Cameroun v. United Kingdom): On May 30, 1961, the government of the Republic of Cameroun filed in the Registry of the Court an application instituting proceedings against the United Kingdom.1 The applicant alleged that the United Kingdom had failed to respect certain obligations of the Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of the Cameroons under British Administration of December 13, 1946. The application stated specifically: 1) that the Northern Cameroons had not been administered as a separate territory within an administrative union, but as an integral part of Nigeria; 2) that the objectives set forth in article 6 of the trusteeship agreement—the development of free political institutions and an increasing share for the inhabitants in the administrative services, as well as their participation in advisory and legislative bodies and in the government of the territory—had not been attained; 3) that the agreement did not authorize the administering power to govern the territory as two separate parts evolving differently politically; 4) that, with respect to General Assembly Resolution 1473 (XIV) of December 12, 1959, (a) provisions relating to the separation of the administration of the Northern Cameroons from that of Nigeria, had not been followed, and (b) conditions laid down for the drawing up of electoral lists had been interpreted in a discriminatory manner; and 5) that the acts of the local authorities in the period preceding the plebiscite authorized by the afore-mentioned resolution and during the subsequent election involved consequences in conflict with the trusteeship agreement.