Summary
The five-Member-State commission created by Resolution 181 (II) to carry the Plan of Partition with Economic Union into effect during the transitional period: administration of Palestine was to pass to it progressively as the mandatory Power withdrew, and it was to establish the two States’ frontiers and Provisional Councils of Government (Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine, PDF p.2-6).
Details
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The Plan provides for a Commission of one representative of each of five Member States, elected by the General Assembly on as broad a basis, geographically and otherwise, as possible; at the hundred and twenty-eighth plenary meeting on 29 November 1947 the Assembly elected Bolivia, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Panama and Philippines (Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine, PDF p.2-3).
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The Assembly authorized the Secretary-General to reimburse its members’ travel and subsistence expenses and provide its staff, and Resolution B authorized a draw of up to $2,000,000 from the Working Capital Fund for those purposes; the Assembly also requested the Security Council, if it found a threat to the peace, to supplement its authorization under Articles 39 and 41 of the Charter to empower the Commission to exercise its assigned functions (Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine, PDF p.1-2).
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Its assigned functions in Part I of the Plan: to receive the administration of Palestine progressively as the mandatory Power’s forces withdraw, acting in conformity with the Assembly’s recommendations and under the Security Council’s guidance, with authority to issue necessary regulations; to carry out measures for the establishment of the frontiers of the Arab and Jewish States and the City of Jerusalem, modifying the described boundaries so that village areas as a rule are not divided; to select and establish a Provisional Council of Government in each State, exercising general direction over both councils, general political and military control of their militias including choice of the High Command, and approval of their election regulations; to appoint a three-member preparatory economic commission; to draft the Economic Union and Transit undertaking and put it into force itself if the Provisional Councils had not entered into it by 1 April 1948; and to allocate the Administration of Palestine’s movable assets equitably among the two States and the City of Jerusalem (Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine, PDF p.3-6, p.9, p.12).
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It was to be guided by the Assembly’s recommendations and any instructions the Security Council considered necessary, its measures within the recommendations taking immediate effect unless the Security Council had previously instructed otherwise; it was to report monthly to the Security Council and make its final report to the next regular session of the General Assembly and the Security Council simultaneously (Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine, PDF p.6).
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The United Nations study records that the Commission established by resolution 181 (II) could not move to Jerusalem and only held consultations in New York, and that formation of the armed militia intended to assist it in Palestine became impracticable amid accelerated British withdrawal, with 869 dead and 1,909 injured in the first three months after the partition resolution’s approval (Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977), lines 698-706).
Related pages
Resolution 181 (II): Future government of Palestine, UN General Assembly Resolution 181, UNSCOP, Joint Economic Board