UN General Assembly
1949

83. It should be borne in mind that in that matter the Assembly was acting, for the first time, as a world parliament invested with the power of giving final decisions, which those concerned were bound to carry out. In exercising that power, its members should therefore be most careful to see that they dealt with the problem strictly on its merits and that no extraneous considerations deflected their judgment. They must convince the peoples of the world that they were worthy of the confidence placed in them, so that other problems which defied solution outside the Assembly might be turned over to them with the same confidence. Approaching the matter from that point of view, the first question was what the wishes of the inhabitants of those territories were and what their welfare demanded. It might be that some of the territories desired and. were fit for immediate independence, and that others would have to be placed under the Trusteeship System or be dealt with in some other way.