Free Territory of Trieste: the documents of the Security Council of 1983 and 2015

The Free Trieste Movement published document S/2015/809 (link) of the United Nations Security Council that officialised a complete historical-legal analysis of the General Secretariat concerning the systems of protection for areas of territory and their inhabitants.

The document has been drafted by United Nations experts, on request of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in order to identify suitable models for the protection of the civil population of Palestine, requested in July 2014 by the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas (doc. S/2014/514), and it will be used to guide the future decisions of the United Nations on the matter of international protection.

At point V, the document includes the case of the Free Territory of Trieste, established in 1947, and it confirms its current status of independent micro-state of Europe with an international Free Port, under a provisional regime of Government under permanent protection of the United Nations Security Council.

Since it examines the systems of protection of the United Nations, the analysis omits to precise the further circumstance that since 1992 the Free Territory of Trieste consists in its main part, with the capital city and the Free Port (former “Zone A”) entrusted under a mandate of temporary civil administration to the Italian Government, due to the fact that the Security Council has settled with Resolutions S/RES 73, 74 and 77 (1992) the question of the secondary part, which had been entrusted to the ceased Yugoslav Government (former “Zone B”).

Due to this, since 1992 the international question of the Free Territory of Trieste does no longer involve territorial problems with Slovenia and Croatia, but only the serious violations of the special trusteeship mandate, with which the Italian Government prevents the development of the present-day Free Territory as an international Free Port and financial centre for all Member States of the United Nations.

The United Nations Security Council had already confirmed, with a letter dated 20 May 1983 (link) the permanence of the independence of the Free Territory of Trieste, the ambiguous bilateral Italian-Yugoslav treaty of 1975 notwithstanding, for it confirmed, at article 7, the international validity of both provisional trusteeship mandates.

The current situation is to be explained in Trieste during a press conference on 15 January by the International Provisional Representative of the Free Territory of Trieste – I.P.R. F.T.T. (link), which on 10 January has formalised an international complaint as a consequence of the attempts of the provisional Italian Government to eliminate by illegal means a vast section (Northern Free Port) of the international Free Port of the Free Territory of Trieste.

F. W.

© 13 Gennaio 2016