A Report on the
STATE OF THE ISLANDS

Chapter 8: THE REPUBLIC OF THE MARSHALL ISLANDS

8.1 The Republic of the Marshall Islands

The Marshall Islands is a sovereign state enjoying a special relationship with the United States. The country is made up of five islands and twenty-nine atolls, each consisting of many islands, and has a total land area of about seventy square miles. The mean height of the land is about seven feet above sea level. The islands and atolls making up the Marshall Islands are divided into two separate parallel chains: the eastern is known as the Ratak (Sunrise) Chain; the western, the Ralik (Sunset) Chain. The Ratak Chain consists of fourteen atolls and two islands, while the Ralik Chain consists of fifteen atolls and three islands.

The country is located in the central Pacific about 2,136 miles southwest of Honolulu and about 2,300 miles southeast of Tokyo. The island nation is spread over a sea area of about 750,000 square miles. The country has a year-round warm and humid climate that averages about eighty-one degrees Fahrenheit during the day and seventy-one degrees Fahrenheit during the night.

The land is not only very small, but its soil is poor to the extent that only a few tree crops such as coconut and pandanus, and some vegetation such as banana, breadfruit, taro and sweet potato can be grown. These crops have traditionally been the source of livelihood for the people, in addition to fish.

The capital of the Marshall Islands is in Majuro Atoll which is one of the atolls in the Ratak Chain. The other urban area is in the Ralik Chain, Ebeye Island, part of Kwajalein Atoll, many of whose other islands military forces of the U.S. Government have used since 1945. Kwajalein is known to be the largest atoll in the world.

The country is connected to the outside world by regular cargo ships from Hawaii, the West Coast of the United States, Guam, and sometimes Fiji, New Zealand and Australia. Two airlines serve the Marshall Islands, Continental Air Micronesia, which flies between Majuro and Kwajalein and Kosrae to the south and Honolulu to the north, and Air Marshall Islands, which flies extensively within the Marshall Islands and to Kiribati, Tuvalu and Fiji.

International communications are well-established, and, starting sometime in August 1996, the Internet is expected to be introduced for eventual use by both residential as well as government and commercial customers.

8.2. History

The first European contact with the Marshall Islands occurred when Spanish explorers stumbled upon the islands in the sixteenth century. However, it took about two centuries for actual European expeditions to take place. For example, in 1776, Captain Samuel Wallis, who also made the first European contact with the islands now comprising French Polynesia, came upon some of the islands in the northern part of the country. However, the islands were nameless until Captain John Marshall, R.N., made the first, intended European contact in 1797 and named them after himself.

From the early to mid-nineteenth century American whalers often visited the islands for water and food supplies on their whaling expedition in the Pacific. However, during this period, the Marshallese often repelled incursions from the outside; consequently, some whalers lost their lives. In 1857 the Reverend George Pierson and the Reverend Edward Doane of the American Board of Missions (Congregationalist) from Boston, Massachusetts, arrived to establish in Ebon Atoll in the southern Ralik islands the first Christian mission in the Marshall Islands. Catholic missionaries (Jesuits) first arrived in the Marshall Islands in 1899 and built a church in Jaluit Atoll. German companies were also established at about the same, dealing and trading mainly in copra (dried coconut meat). The use of whale oil was declining and coconut oil was becoming a popular substitute for whale oil, and businesses sprang around the country to take advantage of the new commodity.

By an 1878 treaty negotiated with the atoll's iroij (chiefs), the German Reich secured rights to a coaling station in Jaluit Atoll. At the same time the German Reich appointed a consul resident in the Marshall Islands, stationed in Jaluit. In 1886, by agreement with the United Kingdom, the Marshall Islands became a German protectorate. As part of its administration of the Marshall Islands, the German Reich located trading stations in Jaluit and Ebon Atolls and carried out a flourishing trade in copra (dried coconut meat). Iroij continued to rule under indirect German administration, from 1906 centered in Rabaul, the capital of German New Guinea. The German Reich governed the Marshall Islands until, on behalf of the Allied Powers, military forces of the Japanese Empire occupied Enewetak Atoll on September 29, 1914, and Jaluit Atoll on September 30, 1914. On June 28, 1919, the German Reich renounced in favor of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers all its rights over its Pacific insular areas, including the Marshall Islands.

On December 17, 1920, the Council of the League of Nations confirmed a mandate to the Emperor of Japan for the former German insular areas north of the equator, including the Marshall Islands, to be administered in accordance with article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations. This was a period in which both copra production and the presence of Japanese military expanded. In 1944 the Americans drove the Japanese out by military force following some heavy fighting on Kwajalein, Enewetak, Jaluit, Mili and Wotje Atolls. On July 18, 1947, the U.S. Government entered into a trusteeship agreement with the U.N. Security Council and became the administering authority of the Marshall Islands and of the other former German islands north of the Equator whose mandatory power since December 17, 1920, had been the Emperor of Japan.

At its height, the districts of Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI) were the Marshall Islands and Ponape (now Pohnpei), Kosrae, Truk (now Chuuk), Yap, Palau and the Mariana Islands (now the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. insular area). In 1979, however, the Marshall Islands held a district-wide referendum, whose results impelled the district to sever its ties with the rest of the TTPI in order to form its own national government. In 1983 the Marshall Islands and the U.S. Government signed the Compact of Free Association, which went into effective on October 21, 1986, providing the means for the Marshall Islands to gain international recognition as a sovereign state. The Compact between the Marshall Islands runs from its effective date until October 21, 2001. By October 21, 1999, the U.S. Government and the Marshall Islands Government must commence negotiations regarding those provisions of the Compact which will expire on October 21, 2001. If these negotiations are not concluded by October 21, 2001, the period of negotiations will extend until no later than October 21, 2003. During this two-year extension the provisions of the Compact will remain in full force and effect.

8.3 Society

The Marshallese inherit their land rights and titles through their mothers. However, the control and use of land and other resources often fall on Marshallese men, who are looked upon to provide for and to protect:

(a) the members of the men's immediate and extended families,

(b) others not generally thought of as the men's relatives but still historically or culturally associated with them, and

(c) their resources and those of these members and others associated with them.

Women, on the other hand, are looked upon traditionally as caretakers and supporters of their families' needs. Since the late 1960's gender-defined roles have changed, and it is not uncommon to see women doing things that used to be for men only.

8.4 Political System

Form of Government

The Marshall Islands Government follows a combination of both the U.S. form and the Westminster system. It is unitary rather than federal, but the American influence is seen in the importance attached to the committees in the unicameral, thirty-three-member Nitijela (Parliament). In addition, there are a Council of Iroij, which may:

(a) consider any matter of concern to the Marshall Islands and may express its opinion thereon to the Cabinet, and

(b) request the reconsideration of any bill, which the Nitijela has adopted on its third reading, affecting the Marshall Islands' customary law or any traditional practice or land tenure or any related matter;

An executive branch, the Cabinet, consisting of those members of the Nitijela who are the President and the ministers, and a judiciary, whose powers are vested in the Supreme Court, the High Court, the Traditional Rights Court and such district courts, community courts and other subordinate courts as are created by law. On November 17, 1979, the first and onlyPresidnet of the Marshall Islands was elected, the Honorable Amata Kabua, one of the Marshall Islands' eleven iroijlapap (paramount chiefs).

Election to the Council of Iroij is limited to those recognized by customary law or traditional practice as having rights and obligations analogous to those of iroijlaplap . Election to the Nitijela, however, is for any natural citizen of the Marshall Islands who is at least eighteen years of age. Elections are carried out on the basis of universal suffrage and take place every four years. The members, styled Senators, are elected from all the atolls and islands of the country. When seated, the members elect from among themselves the President, who in turn selects from among the members of the Nitijela the members of his cabinet, the ministers.

The Cabinet appoints, with the Nitijela's approval, the members of the Supreme Court and the High Court, whose judges serve quamdiu bene gesserint until they reach the age of seventy-two years. In the case of a judge not a citizen of the Marshall Islands, the judge may be appointed for a term of years or, in the case of a sitting judge in another jurisdiction, for a particular session of the court. The judges of the Traditional Rights Court are selected according to other criteria. This court is set up to deal with questions relating to titles or to land rights or to other legal interests depending wholly or partly on customary law and traditional practice in the Marshall Islands.

International Relations

Diplomatic Relations