Southampton was named "fittest city in the UK" in 2006 by Men's Fitness magazine. The results were based on the incidence of heart disease, the amount of junk food and alcohol consumed, and the level of gym membership. In 2007, it had slipped one place behind London, but was still ranked first when it came to the parks and green spaces available for exercise and the amount of television watched by Sotonians was the lowest in the country. Speedway racing took place at Banister Court Stadium in the pre-war era. It returned in the 1940s after WW2 and the Saints operated until the stadium closed down at the end of 1963. A training track operated in the 1950s in the Hamble area.


Southampton is also home to one of the most successful College American Football teams in the UK, the Southampton Stags, who play at the Wide Lane Sports Facility in Eastleigh.


Southampton's police service is provided by Hampshire Constabulary. The main base of the Southampton operation is a new, eight storey purpose-built building which cost £30 million to construct. The building, located on Southern Road, opened in 2011 and is near to Southampton Central railway station. Previously, the central Southampton operation was located within the west wing of the Civic Centre, however the ageing facilities and the plans of constructing a new museum in the old police station and magistrates court necessitated the move. There are additional police stations at Portswood, Banister Park, Bitterne, and Shirley as well as a British Transport Police station at Southampton Central railway station.


Southampton's fire cover is provided by Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service. There are three fire stations within the city boundaries at St Mary's, Hightown and Redbridge.


According to Hampshire Constabulary figures, Southampton is currently safer than it has ever been before, with dramatic reductions in violent crime year on year for the last three years. Data from the Southampton Safer City Partnership shows there has been a reduction in all crimes in recent years and an increase in crime detection rates. According to government figures Southampton has a higher crime rate than the national average. There is some controversy regarding comparative crime statisitics due to inconsistencies between different police forces recording methodologies. For example, in Hampshire all reported incidents are recorded and all records then retained. However, in neighbouring Dorset crimes reports withdrawn or shown to be false are not recorded, reducing apparent crime figures. In the violence against the person category, the national average is 16.7 per 1000 population while Southampton is 42.4 per 1000 population. In the theft from a vehicle category, the national average is 7.6 per 1000 compared to Southampton's 28.4 per 1000. Overall, for every 1,000 people in the city, 202 crimes are recorded. Hampshire Constabulary's figures for 2009/10 show fewer incidents of recorded crime in Southampton than the previous year.


The city has a strong higher education sector. The University of Southampton and Southampton Solent University together have a student population of over 40,000.


The University of Southampton, which was founded in 1862 and received its Royal Charter as a university in 1952, has over 22,000 students. The university is ranked in the top 100 research universities in the world in the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2010. In 2010, the THES - QS World University Rankings positioned the University of Southampton in the top 80 universities in the world. The university considers itself one of the top 5 research universities in the UK. The university has a global reputation for research into engineering sciences, oceanography, chemistry, cancer sciences, sound and vibration research, computer science and electronics, optoelectronics and textile conservation at the Textile Conservation Centre (which is due to close in October 2009.) It is also home to the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS), the focus of Natural Environment Research Council-funded marine research.


Southampton Solent University has 17,000 students and its strengths are in the training, design, consultancy, research and other services undertaken for business and industry. It is also host to the Warsash Maritime Academy, which provides training and certification for the international shipping and off-shore oil industries.


In addition to school sixth forms at St Anne's and King Edward's there are two sixth form colleges: Itchen College and Richard Taunton Sixth Form College. A number of Southampton pupils will travel outside the city, for example to Barton Peveril College. Southampton City College is a further education college serving the city. The college offers a range of vocational courses for school leavers, as well as ESOL programmes and Access courses for adult learners.


Over 40 per cent of school pupils in the city that responded to a survey claimed to have been the victim of bullying. More than 2,000 took part and said that verbal bullying was the most common form, although physical bullying was a close second for boys.


It has been revealed that Southampton has the worst behaved secondary schools within the UK. With suspension rates three times the national average, the suspension rate is approximately 1 in every 14 children, the highest in the country for physical or verbal assaults against staff.


Southampton is a major UK port which has good transport links with the rest of the country. The M27 motorway, linking places along the south coast of England, runs just to the north of the city. The M3 motorway links the city to London and also, via a link to the A34 (part of the European route E05) at Winchester, with the Midlands and North. The M271 motorway is a spur of the M27, linking it with the Western Docks and city centre.


Southampton is also served by the rail network, which is used both by freight services to and from the docks and passenger services as part of the national rail system. The main station in the city is Southampton Central. Rail routes run east towards Portsmouth, north to Winchester, the Midlands and London, and westwards to Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester, Weymouth, Salisbury, Bristol and Cardiff. The route to London was opened in 1840 by what was to become the London and South Western Railway Company. Both this and its successor the Southern Railway (UK) played a significant role in the creation of the modern port following their purchase and development of the town's docks.


Local train services operate in the central, southern and eastern sections of the city and are operated by South West Trains, with stations at Swaythling, St Denys, Millbrook, Redbridge, Bitterne, Sholing and Woolston. Plans were announced by Hampshire County Council in July 2009 for the introduction of tram-train running from Hythe (on what is now a freight-only line to Fawley) via Totton to Southampton Central Station and on to Fareham via St. Denys, and Swanwick. The proposal follows a failed plan to bring light rail to the Portsmouth and Gosport areas in 2005.


The town was the subject of an attempt by a separate company, the Didcot, Newbury and Southampton Railway, to open another rail route to the North in the 1880s and some building work, including a surviving embankment, was undertaken in the Hill Lane area.


Southampton Airport is a regional airport located in the town of Eastleigh, just north of the city. It offers flights to UK and near European destinations, and is connected to the city by a frequent rail service from Southampton Airport (Parkway) railway station, and by bus services.


Many of the world's largest cruise ships can regularly be seen in Southampton water, including record-breaking vessels from Royal Caribbean and Carnival Corporation & plc. The latter has headquarters in Southampton, with its brands including Princess Cruises, P&O Cruises and Cunard Line.


The city has a particular connection to Cunard Line and their fleet of ships. This was particularly evident on 11 November 2008 when the Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 departed the city for the final time amid a spectacular fireworks display after a full day of celebrations. Cunard ships are regularly launched in the city, for example Queen Victoria was named by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall in December 2007, and the Queen named Queen Elizabeth in the city during October 2011. The Duchess of Cambridge performed the naming ceremony of Royal Princess on 13 June 2013.


At certain times of the year, The Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria may all visit Southampton at the same time, in an event commonly called 'Arrival of the Three Queens'.


The importance of Southampton to the cruise industry was indicated by P&O Cruises's 175th anniversary celebrations, which included all seven of the company's liners visiting Southampton in a single day. Adonia, Arcadia, Aurora, Azura, Oceana, Oriana and Ventura all left the city in a procession on 3 July 2012.


While Southampton is no longer the base for any cross-channel ferries, it is the terminus for three internal ferry services, all of which operate from terminals at Town Quay. Two of these, a car ferry service and a fast catamaran passenger ferry service, provide links to East Cowes and Cowes respectively on the Isle of Wight and are operated by Red Funnel. The third ferry is the Hythe Ferry, providing a passenger service to Hythe on the other side of Southampton Water.


Southampton used to be home to a number of ferry services to the continent, with destinations such as San Sebastian, Lisbon, Tangier and Casablanca. A ferry port was built during the 1960s. However, a number of these relocated to Portsmouth and by 1996, there were no longer any car ferries operating from Southampton with the exception of services to the Isle of Wight. The land used for Southampton Ferry Port was sold off and a retail and housing development was built on the site. The Princess Alexandra Dock was converted into a marina. Reception areas for new cars now fill the Eastern Docks where passengers, dry docks and trains used to be.


Buses now provide the majority of local public transport. The main bus operators are First Southampton and Bluestar. Other operators include Brijan Tours, Stagecoach and Xelabus. The other large service provider is the Uni-link bus service (running from early in the morning to midnight), which was commissioned by the University of Southampton to provide transport from the university to the town. Previously run by Enterprise, it is now run by Bluestar. Free buses are provided by City-link'. The City-link runs from the Red Funnel ferry terminal at Town Quay to Central station via WestQuay and is operated by Bluestar. There is also a door-to-door minibus service called Southampton Dial a Ride, for residents who cannot access public transport. This is funded by the council and operated by SCA Support Services.


There are two main termini for bus services. As the biggest operator, First uses stops around Pound Tree Road. This leaves the other terminal of West Quay available for other operators. Uni-link passes West Quay in both directions, and Wilts & Dorset drop passengers off and pick them up there, terminating at a series of bus stands along the road. Certain Bluestar services also do this, while others stop at Bargate and some loop round West Quay, stopping at Hanover Buildings. There was a tram system from 1879 to 1949.


A treaty is an agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an (international) agreement, protocol, covenant, convention, pact, or exchange of letters, among other terms. Regardless of terminology, all of these forms of agreements are, under international law, equally considered treaties and the rules are the same.


Treaties can be loosely compared to contracts: both are means of willing parties assuming obligations among themselves, and a party to either that fails to live up to their obligations can be held liable under international law.


A treaty is an official, express written agreement that states use to legally bind themselves. A treaty is the official document which expresses that agreement in words; and it is also the objective outcome of a ceremonial occasion which acknowledges the parties and their defined relationships.


Since the late 19th century, most treaties have followed a fairly consistent format. A treaty typically begins with a preamble describing the contracting parties and their joint objectives in executing the treaty, as well as summarizing any underlying events (such as a war). Modern preambles are sometimes structured as a single very long sentence formatted into multiple paragraphs for readability, in which each of the paragraphs begins with a verb (desiring, recognizing, having, and so on).


The contracting parties' full names or sovereign titles are often included in the preamble, along with the full names and titles of their representatives, and a boilerplate clause about how their representatives have communicated (or exchanged) their full powers (i.e., the official documents appointing them to act on behalf of their respective states) and found them in good or proper form.


After the preamble comes numbered articles, which contain the substance of the parties' actual agreement. Each article heading usually encompasses a paragraph. A long treaty may further group articles under chapter headings.


Modern treaties, regardless of subject matter, usually contain articles governing where the final authentic copies of the treaty will be deposited and how any subsequent disputes as to their interpretation will be peacefully resolved.


The end of a treaty, the eschatocol (or closing protocol), is often signaled by a clause like "in witness whereof" or "in faith whereof," the parties have affixed their signatures, followed by the words "DONE at," then the site(s) of the treaty's execution and the date(s) of its execution. The date is typically written in its most formal, longest possible form. For example, the Charter of the United Nations was "DONE at the city of San Francisco the twenty-sixth day of June, one thousand nine hundred and forty-five." If the treaty is executed in multiple copies in different languages, that fact is always noted, and is followed by a stipulation that the versions in different languages are equally authentic.


The signatures of the parties' representatives follow at the very end. When the text of a treaty is later reprinted, such as in a collection of treaties currently in effect, an editor will often append the dates on which the respective parties ratified the treaty and on which it came into effect for each party.


Bilateral treaties are concluded between two states or entities. It is possible, however, for a bilateral treaty to have more than two parties; consider for instance the bilateral treaties between Switzerland and the European Union (EU) following the Swiss rejection of the European Economic Area agreement. Each of these treaties has seventeen parties. These however are still bilateral, not multilateral, treaties. The parties are divided into two groups, the Swiss ("on the one part") and the EU and its member states ("on the other part"). The treaty establishes rights and obligations between the Swiss and the EU and the member states severally—it does not establish any rights and obligations amongst the EU and its member states.[citation needed]


A multilateral treaty is concluded among several countries. The agreement establishes rights and obligations between each party and every other party. Multilateral treaties are often regional.[citation needed] Treaties of "mutual guarantee" are international compacts, e.g., the Treaty of Locarno which guarantees each signatory against attack from another.


Reservations are essentially caveats to a state's acceptance of a treaty. Reservations are unilateral statements purporting to exclude or to modify the legal obligation and its effects on the reserving state. These must be included at the time of signing or ratification, i.e. "a party cannot add a reservation after it has already joined a treaty".


Originally, international law was unaccepting of treaty reservations, rejecting them unless all parties to the treaty accepted the same reservations. However, in the interest of encouraging the largest number of states to join treaties, a more permissive rule regarding reservations has emerged. While some treaties still expressly forbid any reservations, they are now generally permitted to the extent that they are not inconsistent with the goals and purposes of the treaty.


When a state limits its treaty obligations through reservations, other states party to that treaty have the option to accept those reservations, object to them, or object and oppose them. If the state accepts them (or fails to act at all), both the reserving state and the accepting state are relieved of the reserved legal obligation as concerns their legal obligations to each other (accepting the reservation does not change the accepting state's legal obligations as concerns other parties to the treaty). If the state opposes, the parts of the treaty affected by the reservation drop out completely and no longer create any legal obligations on the reserving and accepting state, again only as concerns each other. Finally, if the state objects and opposes, there are no legal obligations under that treaty between those two state parties whatsoever. The objecting and opposing state essentially refuses to acknowledge the reserving state is a party to the treaty at all.


There are three ways an existing treaty can be amended. First, formal amendment requires State parties to the treaty to go through the ratification process all over again. The re-negotiation of treaty provisions can be long and protracted, and often some parties to the original treaty will not become parties to the amended treaty. When determining the legal obligations of states, one party to the original treaty and one a party to the amended treaty, the states will only be bound by the terms they both agreed upon. Treaties can also be amended informally by the treaty executive council when the changes are only procedural, technical change in customary international law can also amend a treaty, where state behavior evinces a new interpretation of the legal obligations under the treaty. Minor corrections to a treaty may be adopted by a procès-verbal; but a procès-verbal is generally reserved for changes to rectify obvious errors in the text adopted, i.e. where the text adopted does not correctly reflect the intention of the parties adopting it.


In international law and international relations, a protocol is generally a treaty or international agreement that supplements a previous treaty or international agreement. A protocol can amend the previous treaty, or add additional provisions. Parties to the earlier agreement are not required to adopt the protocol. Sometimes this is made clearer by calling it an "optional protocol", especially where many parties to the first agreement do not support the protocol.


Some examples: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established a framework for the development of binding greenhouse gas emission limits, while the Kyoto Protocol contained the specific provisions and regulations later agreed upon.


Treaties may be seen as 'self-executing', in that merely becoming a party puts the treaty and all of its obligations in action. Other treaties may be non-self-executing and require 'implementing legislation'—a change in the domestic law of a state party that will direct or enable it to fulfill treaty obligations. An example of a treaty requiring such legislation would be one mandating local prosecution by a party for particular crimes.


The division between the two is often not clear and is often politicized in disagreements within a government over a treaty, since a non-self-executing treaty cannot be acted on without the proper change in domestic law. If a treaty requires implementing legislation, a state may be in default of its obligations by the failure of its legislature to pass the necessary domestic laws.


The language of treaties, like that of any law or contract, must be interpreted when the wording does not seem clear or it is not immediately apparent how it should be applied in a perhaps unforeseen circumstance. The Vienna Convention states that treaties are to be interpreted "in good faith" according to the "ordinary meaning given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose." International legal experts also often invoke the 'principle of maximum effectiveness,' which interprets treaty language as having the fullest force and effect possible to establish obligations between the parties.


No one party to a treaty can impose its particular interpretation of the treaty upon the other parties. Consent may be implied, however, if the other parties fail to explicitly disavow that initially unilateral interpretation, particularly if that state has acted upon its view of the treaty without complaint. Consent by all parties to the treaty to a particular interpretation has the legal effect of adding another clause to the treaty – this is commonly called an 'authentic interpretation'.


International tribunals and arbiters are often called upon to resolve substantial disputes over treaty interpretations. To establish the meaning in context, these judicial bodies may review the preparatory work from the negotiation and drafting of the treaty as well as the final, signed treaty itself.


One significant part of treaty making is that signing a treaty implies recognition that the other side is a sovereign state and that the agreement being considered is enforceable under international law. Hence, nations can be very careful about terming an agreement to be a treaty. For example, within the United States, agreements between states are compacts and agreements between states and the federal government or between agencies of the government are memoranda of understanding.


Another situation can occur when one party wishes to create an obligation under international law, but the other party does not. This factor has been at work with respect to discussions between North Korea and the United States over security guarantees and nuclear proliferation.


The terminology can also be confusing because a treaty may and usually is named something other than a treaty, such as a convention, protocol, or simply agreement. Conversely some legal documents such as the Treaty of Waitangi are internationally considered to be documents under domestic law.


Treaties are not necessarily permanently binding upon the signatory parties. As obligations in international law are traditionally viewed as arising only from the consent of states, many treaties expressly allow a state to withdraw as long as it follows certain procedures of notification. For example, the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs provides that the treaty will terminate if, as a result of denunciations, the number of parties falls below 40. Many treaties expressly forbid withdrawal. Article 56 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides that where a treaty is silent over whether or not it can be denounced there is a rebuttable presumption that it cannot be unilaterally denounced unless:


The possibility of withdrawal depends on the terms of the treaty and its travaux preparatoire. It has, for example, been held that it is not possible to withdraw from the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. When North Korea declared its intention to do this the Secretary-General of the United Nations, acting as registrar, said that original signatories of the ICCPR had not overlooked the possibility of explicitly providing for withdrawal, but rather had deliberately intended not to provide for it. Consequently, withdrawal was not possible.


In practice, because of sovereignty, any state can withdraw from any treaty at any time. The question of whether this is permitted is really a question of how other states will react to the withdrawal; for instance, another state might impose sanctions or go to war over a treaty violation.


If a state party's withdrawal is successful, its obligations under that treaty are considered terminated, and withdrawal by one party from a bilateral treaty of course terminates the treaty. When a state withdraws from a multi-lateral treaty, that treaty will still otherwise remain in force among the other parties, unless, of course, otherwise should or could be interpreted as agreed upon between the remaining states parties to the treaty.[citation needed]


If a party has materially violated or breached its treaty obligations, the other parties may invoke this breach as grounds for temporarily suspending their obligations to that party under the treaty. A material breach may also be invoked as grounds for permanently terminating the treaty itself.


A treaty breach does not automatically suspend or terminate treaty relations, however. It depends on how the other parties regard the breach and how they resolve to respond to it. Sometimes treaties will provide for the seriousness of a breach to be determined by a tribunal or other independent arbiter. An advantage of such an arbiter is that it prevents a party from prematurely and perhaps wrongfully suspending or terminating its own obligations due to another's alleged material breach.


Treaties sometimes include provisions for self-termination, meaning that the treaty is automatically terminated if certain defined conditions are met. Some treaties are intended by the parties to be only temporarily binding and are set to expire on a given date. Other treaties may self-terminate if the treaty is meant to exist only under certain conditions.[citation needed]


A party may claim that a treaty should be terminated, even absent an express provision, if there has been a fundamental change in circumstances. Such a change is sufficient if unforeseen, if it undermined the “essential basis” of consent by a party, if it radically transforms the extent of obligations between the parties, and if the obligations are still to be performed. A party cannot base this claim on change brought about by its own breach of the treaty. This claim also cannot be used to invalidate treaties that established or redrew political boundaries.[citation needed]


The Islamic Prophet Muhammad carried out a siege against the Banu Qaynuqa tribe known as the Invasion of Banu Qaynuqa in February 624  Muhammad ordered his followers to attack the Banu Qaynuqa Jews for allegedly breaking the treaty known as the Constitution of Medina by pinning the clothes of a Muslim woman, which led to her being stripped naked As a result, a Muslim killed a Jew in retaliation, and the Jews in turn killed the Muslim man. This escalated to a chain of revenge killings, and enmity grew between Muslims and the Banu Qaynuqa, leading to the siege of their fortress.:122 The tribe eventually surrendered to Muhammad, who initially wanted to kill the members of Banu Qaynuqa but ultimately yielded to Abdullah ibn Ubayy's insistence and agreed to expel the Qaynuqa.


Muhammad also ordered another siege on the Banu Qurayza during the Invasion of Banu Qurayza, because according to Muslim tradition he had been ordered to do so by the angel Gabriel. Al-Waqidi claims Muhammad had a treaty with the tribe which was torn apart. Stillman and Watt deny the authenticity of al-Waqidi. Al-Waqidi has been frequently criticized by Muslim writers, who claim that he is unreliable. 600-900 members of the Banu Qurayza were beheaded after they surrendered (according to Tabari and Ibn Hisham). Another source says all Males and 1 woman beheaded (according to Sunni Hadith). Two Muslims were killed


There are several reasons an otherwise valid and agreed upon treaty may be rejected as a binding international agreement, most of which involve problems created at the formation of the treaty.[citation needed] For example, the serial Japan-Korea treaties of 1905, 1907 and 1910 were protested; and they were confirmed as "already null and void" in the 1965 Treaty on Basic Relations between Japan and the Republic of Korea.


A party's consent to a treaty is invalid if it had been given by an agent or body without power to do so under that state's domestic law. States are reluctant to inquire into the internal affairs and processes of other states, and so a "manifest violation" is required such that it would be "objectively evident to any State dealing with the matter". A strong presumption exists internationally that a head of state has acted within his proper authority. It seems that no treaty has ever actually been invalidated on this provision.[citation needed]


Consent is also invalid if it is given by a representative who ignored restrictions he is subject to by his sovereign during the negotiations, if the other parties to the treaty were notified of those restrictions prior to his signing.[citation needed]


According to the preamble in The Law of Treaties, treaties are a source of international law. If an act or lack thereof is condemned under international law, the act will not assume international legality even if approved by internal law. This means that in case of a conflict with domestic law, international law will always prevail.


Articles 46–53 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties set out the only ways that treaties can be invalidated—considered unenforceable and void under international law. A treaty will be invalidated due to either the circumstances by which a state party joined the treaty, or due to the content of the treaty itself. Invalidation is separate from withdrawal, suspension, or termination (addressed above), which all involve an alteration in the consent of the parties of a previously valid treaty rather than the invalidation of that consent in the first place.


A state's consent may be invalidated if there was an erroneous understanding of a fact or situation at the time of conclusion, which formed the "essential basis" of the state's consent. Consent will not be invalidated if the misunderstanding was due to the state's own conduct, or if the truth should have been evident.


Consent will also be invalidated if it was induced by the fraudulent conduct of another party, or by the direct or indirect "corruption" of its representative by another party to the treaty. Coercion of either a representative, or the state itself through the threat or use of force, if used to obtain the consent of that state to a treaty, will invalidate that consent.


A treaty is null and void if it is in violation of a peremptory norm. These norms, unlike other principles of customary law, are recognized as permitting no violations and so cannot be altered through treaty obligations. These are limited to such universally accepted prohibitions as those against the aggressive use of force, genocide and other crimes against humanity, piracy, hostilities directed at civilian population, racial discrimination and apartheid, slavery and torture, meaning that no state can legally assume an obligation to commit or permit such acts.


The United Nations Charter states that treaties must be registered with the UN to be invoked before it or enforced in its judiciary organ, the International Court of Justice. This was done to prevent the proliferation of secret treaties that occurred in the 19th and 20th century. Section 103 of the Charter also states that its members' obligations under it outweigh any competing obligations under other treaties.


After their adoption, treaties as well as their amendments have to follow the official legal procedures of the United Nations, as applied by the Office of Legal Affairs, including signature, ratification and entry into force.


In function and effectiveness, the UN has been compared to the pre-Constitutional United States Federal government by some[citation needed], giving a comparison between modern treaty law and the historical Articles of Confederation.


The Brazilian federal constitution states that the power to enter into treaties is vested in the president and that such treaties must be approved by Congress (articles 84, clause VIII, and 49, clause I). In practice, this has been interpreted as meaning that the executive branch is free to negotiate and sign a treaty, but its ratification by the president is contingent upon the prior approval of Congress. Additionally, the Federal Supreme Court has ruled that, following ratification and entry into force, a treaty must be incorporated into domestic law by means of a presidential decree published in the federal register in order to be valid in Brazil and applicable by the Brazilian authorities.


The Federal Supreme Court has established that treaties are subject to constitutional review and enjoy the same hierarchical position as ordinary legislation (leis ordinárias, or "ordinary laws", in Portuguese). A more recent ruling by the Supreme Court in 2008 has altered that scheme somewhat, by stating that treaties containing human rights provisions enjoy a status above that of ordinary legislation, though they remain beneath the constitution itself. Additionally, as per the 45th amendment to the constitution, human rights treaties which are approved by Congress by means of a special procedure enjoy the same hierarchical position as a constitutional amendment. The hierarchical position of treaties in relation to domestic legislation is of relevance to the discussion on whether (and how) the latter can abrogate the former and vice versa.


The Brazilian federal constitution does not have a supremacy clause with the same effects as the one on the U.S. constitution, a fact that is of interest to the discussion on the relation between treaties and state legislation.


In the United States, the term "treaty" has a different, more restricted legal sense than exists in international law. United States law distinguishes what it calls treaties from executive agreement, congressional-executive agreements, and sole executive agreements. All four classes are equally treaties under international law; they are distinct only from the perspective of internal American law. The distinctions are primarily concerning their method of approval. Whereas treaties require advice and consent by two-thirds of the Senators present, sole executive agreements may be executed by the President acting alone. Some treaties grant the President the authority to fill in the gaps with executive agreements, rather than additional treaties or protocols. And finally, congressional-executive agreements require majority approval by both the House and the Senate, either before or after the treaty is signed by the President.


Currently, international agreements are executed by executive agreement rather than treaties at a rate of 10:1. Despite the relative ease of executive agreements, the President still often chooses to pursue the formal treaty process over an executive agreement in order to gain congressional support on matters that require the Congress to pass implementing legislation or appropriate funds, and those agreements that impose long-term, complex legal obligations on the United States. For example, the deal by the United States, Iran and other countries is not a Treaty.


The Supreme Court ruled in the Head Money Cases that "treaties" do not have a privileged position over Acts of Congress and can be repealed or modified (for the purposes of U.S. law) by any subsequent Act of Congress, just like with any other regular law. The Supreme Court also ruled in Reid v. Covert that any treaty provision that conflicts with the Constitution are null and void under U.S. law.


In India, the legislation subjects are divided into 3 lists -Union List, State List and Concurrent List . In the normal legislation process, the subjects in Union list can only be legislated upon by central legislative body called Parliament of India, for subjects in state list only respective state legislature can legislate. While for Concurrent subjects, both center and state can make laws. But to implement international treaties, Parliament can legislate on any subject overriding the general division of subject lists.


Treaties formed an important part of European colonization and, in many parts of the world, Europeans attempted to legitimize their sovereignty by signing treaties with indigenous peoples. In most cases these treaties were in extremely disadvantageous terms to the native people, who often did not appreciate the implications of what they were signing.


In some rare cases, such as with Ethiopia and Qing Dynasty China, the local governments were able to use the treaties to at least mitigate the impact of European colonization. This involved learning the intricacies of European diplomatic customs and then using the treaties to prevent a power from overstepping their agreement or by playing different powers against each other.


In other cases, such as New Zealand and Canada, treaties allowed native peoples to maintain a minimum amount of autonomy. In the case of indigenous Australians, unlike with the Māori of New Zealand, no treaty was ever entered into with the indigenous peoples entitling the Europeans to land ownership, under the doctrine of terra nullius (later overturned by Mabo v Queensland, establishing the concept of native title well after colonization was already a fait accompli). Such treaties between colonizers and indigenous peoples are an important part of political discourse in the late 20th and early 21st century, the treaties being discussed have international standing as has been stated in a treaty study by the UN.


Prior to 1871, the government of the United States regularly entered into treaties with Native Americans but the Indian Appropriations Act of March 3, 1871 (ch. 120, 16 Stat. 563) had a rider (25 U.S.C. § 71) attached that effectively ended the President’s treaty making by providing that no Indian nation or tribe shall be acknowledged as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States may contract by treaty. The federal government continued to provide similar contractual relations with the Indian tribes after 1871 by agreements, statutes, and executive orders.


Josip Broz Tito (Cyrillic: Јосип Броз Тито, pronounced [jǒsip brôːz tîto]; born Josip Broz; 7 May 1892[nb 1] – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman, serving in various roles from 1943 until his death in 1980. During World War II he was the leader of the Partisans, often regarded as the most effective resistance movement in occupied Europe. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, and concerns about the repression of political opponents have been raised, Tito was "seen by most as a benevolent dictator" due to his economic and diplomatic policies. He was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad. Viewed as a unifying symbol, his internal policies maintained the peaceful coexistence of the nations of the Yugoslav federation. He gained further international attention as the chief leader of the Non-Aligned Movement, working with Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt and Sukarno of Indonesia.


He was General Secretary (later Chairman of the Presidium) of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia (1939–80), and went on to lead the World War II Yugoslav guerrilla movement, the Partisans (1941–45). After the war, he was the Prime Minister (1944–63), President (later President for Life) (1953–80) of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY). From 1943 to his death in 1980, he held the rank of Marshal of Yugoslavia, serving as the supreme commander of the Yugoslav military, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA). With a highly favourable reputation abroad in both Cold War blocs, Josip Broz Tito received some 98 foreign decorations, including the Legion of Honour and the Order of the Bath.


Josip Broz was born to a Croat father and Slovene mother in the village of Kumrovec, Croatia. Drafted into military service, he distinguished himself, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army of that time. After being seriously wounded and captured by the Imperial Russians during World War I, Josip was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains. He participated in the October Revolution, and later joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Upon his return home, Broz found himself in the newly established Kingdom of Yugoslavia, where he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ).


Tito was the chief architect of the second Yugoslavia, a socialist federation that lasted from 1943 to 1991–92. Despite being one of the founders of Cominform, soon he became the first Cominform member to defy Soviet hegemony and the only one to manage to leave Cominform and begin with its own socialist program. Tito was a backer of independent roads to socialism (sometimes referred to as "national communism"). In 1951 he implemented a self-management system that differentiated Yugoslavia from other socialist countries. A turn towards a model of market socialism brought economic expansion in the 1950s and 1960s and a decline during the 1970s. His internal policies included the suppression of nationalist sentiment and the promotion of the "brotherhood and unity" of the six Yugoslav nations. After Tito's death in 1980, tensions between the Yugoslav republics emerged and in 1991 the country disintegrated and went into a series of wars and unrest that lasted the rest of the decade, and which continue to impact most of the former Yugoslav republics. He remains a very controversial figure in the Balkans.


Josip Broz was born on 7 May 1892 in Kumrovec, in the northern Croatian region of Hrvatsko Zagorje in Austria-Hungary.[nb 1] He was the seventh child of Franjo and Marija Broz. His father, Franjo Broz (26 November 1860 – 16 December 1936), was a Croat, while his mother Marija (25 March 1864 – 14 January 1918), was a Slovene. His parents were married on 21 January 1891. After spending part of his childhood years with his maternal grandfather Martin Javeršek in the Slovenian village of Podsreda, he entered primary school in 1900 at Kumrovec, he failed the 2nd grade and graduated in 1905. In 1907 he moved out of the rural environment and started working as a machinist's apprentice in Sisak. There, he became aware of the labour movement and celebrated 1 May – Labour Day for the first time. In 1910, he joined the union of metallurgy workers and at the same time the Social-Democratic Party of Croatia and Slavonia. Between 1911 and 1913, Broz worked for shorter periods in Kamnik (1911–1912, factory "Titan"), Cenkov, Munich and Mannheim, where he worked for the Benz car factory; then he went to Wiener Neustadt, Austria, and worked as a test driver for Daimler.


In the autumn of 1913, he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. He was sent to a school for non-commissioned officers and became a sergeant, serving in the 25th Croatian Regiment based in Zagreb. In May 1914, Broz won a silver medal at an army fencing competition in Budapest. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he was sent to Ruma, where he was arrested for anti-war propaganda and imprisoned in the Petrovaradin fortress. In January 1915, he was sent to the Eastern Front in Galicia to fight against Russia. He distinguished himself as a capable soldier, becoming the youngest Sergeant Major in the Austro-Hungarian Army. For his bravery in the face of the enemy, he was recommended for the Silver Bravery Medal but was taken prisoner of war before it could be formally presented. On 25 March 1915, while in Bukovina, he was seriously wounded and captured by the Russians.


After 13 months at the hospital, Broz was sent to a work camp in the Ural Mountains where prisoners selected him for their camp leader. In February 1917, revolting workers broke into the prison and freed the prisoners. Broz subsequently joined a Bolshevik group. In April 1917, he was arrested again but managed to escape and participate in the July Days demonstrations in Petrograd (St. Petersburg) on 16–17 July 1917. On his way to Finland, Broz was caught and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress for three weeks. He was again sent to Kungur, but escaped from the train. He hid with a Russian family in Omsk, Siberia where he met his future wife Pelagija Belousova. After the October Revolution, he joined a Red Guard unit in Omsk. Following a White counteroffensive, he fled to Kirgiziya and subsequently returned to Omsk, where he married Belousova. In the spring of 1918, he joined the Yugoslav section of the Russian Communist Party. By June of the same year, Broz left Omsk to find work and support his family, and was employed as a mechanic near Omsk for a year.


In January 1920, Tito and his wife made a long and difficult journey home to Yugoslavia where he arrived in September. Upon his return, Broz joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. The CPY's influence on the political life of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was growing rapidly. In the 1920 elections the Communists won 59 seats in the parliament and became the third strongest party. Winning numerous local elections, they gained a stronghold in the second largest city of Zagreb, electing Svetozar Delić for mayor. After the assassination of Milorad Drašković, the Yugoslav Minister of the Interior, by a young communist on 2 August 1921, the CPY was declared illegal under the Yugoslav State Security Act of 1921. During 1920 and 1921 all Communist-won mandates were nullified. Broz continued his work underground despite pressure on Communists from the government. As 1921 began he moved to Veliko Trojstvo near Bjelovar and found work as a machinist. In 1925, Broz moved to Kraljevica where he started working at a shipyard. He was elected as a union leader and a year later he led a shipyard strike. He was fired and moved to Belgrade, where he worked in a train coach factory in Smederevska Palanka. He was elected as Workers' Commissary but was fired as soon as his CPY membership was revealed. Broz then moved to Zagreb, where he was appointed secretary of Metal Workers' Union of Croatia. In 1928, he became the Zagreb Branch Secretary of the CPY. In the same year he was arrested, tried in court for his illegal communist activities, and sent to jail. During his five years at Lepoglava prison he met Moša Pijade, who became his ideological mentor. After his release, he lived incognito and assumed numerous noms de guerre, among them "Walter" and "Tito".


In 1934 the Zagreb Provincial Committee sent Tito to Vienna where all the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia had sought refuge. He was appointed to the Committee and started to appoint allies to him, among them Edvard Kardelj, Milovan Đilas, Aleksandar Ranković and Boris Kidrič. In 1935, Tito travelled to the Soviet Union, working for a year in the Balkans section of Comintern. He was a member of the Soviet Communist Party and the Soviet secret police (NKVD). Tito was also involved in recruiting for the Dimitrov Battalion, a group of volunteers serving in the Spanish Civil War. In 1936, the Comintern sent "Comrade Walter" (i.e. Tito) back to Yugoslavia to purge the Communist Party there. In 1937, Stalin had the Secretary-General of the CPY, Milan Gorkić, murdered in Moscow. Subsequently Tito was appointed Secretary-General of the still-outlawed CPY.


On 6 April 1941, German forces, with Hungarian and Italian assistance, launched an invasion of Yugoslavia. On 10 April 1941, Slavko Kvaternik proclaimed the Independent State of Croatia, and Tito responded by forming a Military Committee within the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party. Attacked from all sides, the armed forces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia quickly crumbled. On 17 April 1941, after King Peter II and other members of the government fled the country, the remaining representatives of the government and military met with the German officials in Belgrade. They quickly agreed to end military resistance. On 1 May 1941, Tito issued a pamphlet calling on the people to unite in a battle against the occupation. On 27 June 1941, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia appointed Tito Commander in Chief of all project national liberation military forces. On 1 July 1941, the Comintern sent precise instructions calling for immediate action.


Despite conflicts with the rival monarchic Chetnik movement, Tito's Partisans succeeded in liberating territory, notably the "Republic of Užice". During this period, Tito held talks with Chetnik leader Draža Mihailović on 19 September and 27 October 1941. It is said that Tito ordered his forces to assist escaping Jews, and that more than 2,000 Jews fought directly for Tito.


On 21 December 1941, the Partisans created the First Proletarian Brigade (commanded by Koča Popović) and on 1 March 1942, Tito created the Second Proletarian Brigade. In liberated territories, the Partisans organised People's Committees to act as civilian government. The Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ) convened in Bihać on 26–27 November 1942 and in Jajce on 29 November 1943. In the two sessions, the resistance representatives established the basis for post-war organisation of the country, deciding on a federation of the Yugoslav nations. In Jajce, a 67-member "presidency" was elected and established a nine-member National Committee of Liberation (five communist members) as a de facto provisional government. Tito was named President of the National Committee of Liberation.


With the growing possibility of an Allied invasion in the Balkans, the Axis began to divert more resources to the destruction of the Partisans main force and its high command. This meant, among other things, a concerted German effort to capture Josip Broz Tito personally. On 25 May 1944, he managed to evade the Germans after the Raid on Drvar (Operation Rösselsprung), an airborne assault outside his Drvar headquarters in Bosnia.


After the Partisans managed to endure and avoid these intense Axis attacks between January and June 1943, and the extent of Chetnik collaboration became evident, Allied leaders switched their support from Draža Mihailović to Tito. King Peter II, American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill joined Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in officially recognising Tito and the Partisans at the Tehran Conference. This resulted in Allied aid being parachuted behind Axis lines to assist the Partisans. On 17 June 1944 on the Dalmatian island of Vis, the Treaty of Vis (Viški sporazum) was signed in an attempt to merge Tito's government (the AVNOJ) with the government in exile of King Peter II. The Balkan Air Force was formed in June 1944 to control operations that were mainly aimed at aiding his forces.


In the first post war years Tito was widely considered a communist leader very loyal to Moscow, indeed, he was often viewed as second only to Stalin in the Eastern Bloc. In fact, Stalin and Tito had an uneasy alliance from the start, with Stalin considering Tito too independent.


On 12 September 1944, King Peter II called on all Yugoslavs to come together under Tito's leadership and stated that those who did not were "traitors", by which time Tito was recognized by all Allied authorities (including the government-in-exile) as the Prime Minister of Yugoslavia, in addition to commander-in-chief of the Yugoslav forces. On 28 September 1944, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union (TASS) reported that Tito signed an agreement with the Soviet Union allowing "temporary entry" of Soviet troops into Yugoslav territory which allowed the Red Army to assist in operations in the northeastern areas of Yugoslavia. With their strategic right flank secured by the Allied advance, the Partisans prepared and executed a massive general offensive which succeeded in breaking through German lines and forcing a retreat beyond Yugoslav borders. After the Partisan victory and the end of hostilities in Europe, all external forces were ordered off Yugoslav territory.


In the final days of World War II in Yugoslavia, units of the Partisans were responsible for atrocities after the repatriations of Bleiburg, and accusations of culpability were later raised at the Yugoslav leadership under Tito. At the time, Josip Broz Tito repeatedly issued calls for surrender to the retreating column, offering amnesty and attempting to avoid a disorderly surrender. On 14 May he dispatched a telegram to the supreme headquarters Slovene Partisan Army prohibiting "in the sternest language" the execution of prisoners of war and commanding the transfer of the possible suspects to a military court.


On 7 March 1945, the provisional government of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia (Demokratska Federativna Jugoslavija, DFY) was assembled in Belgrade by Josip Broz Tito, while the provisional name allowed for either a republic or monarchy. This government was headed by Tito as provisional Yugoslav Prime Minister and included representatives from the royalist government-in-exile, among others Ivan Šubašić. In accordance with the agreement between resistance leaders and the government-in-exile, post-war elections were held to determine the form of government. In November 1945, Tito's pro-republican People's Front, led by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, won the elections with an overwhelming majority, the vote having been boycotted by monarchists. During the period, Tito evidently enjoyed massive popular support due to being generally viewed by the populace as the liberator of Yugoslavia. The Yugoslav administration in the immediate post-war period managed to unite a country that had been severely affected by ultra-nationalist upheavals and war devastation, while successfully suppressing the nationalist sentiments of the various nations in favor of tolerance, and the common Yugoslav goal. After the overwhelming electoral victory, Tito was confirmed as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the DFY. The country was soon renamed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FPRY) (later finally renamed into Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY). On 29 November 1945, King Peter II was formally deposed by the Yugoslav Constituent Assembly. The Assembly drafted a new republican constitution soon afterwards.


Yugoslavia organized the Yugoslav People's Army (Jugoslavenska narodna armija, or JNA) from the Partisan movement and became the fourth strongest army in Europe at the time. The State Security Administration (Uprava državne bezbednosti/sigurnosti/varnosti, UDBA) was also formed as the new secret police, along with a security agency, the Department of People's Security (Organ Zaštite Naroda (Armije), OZNA). Yugoslav intelligence was charged with imprisoning and bringing to trial large numbers of Nazi collaborators; controversially, this included Catholic clergymen due to the widespread involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime. Draža Mihailović was found guilty of collaboration, high treason and war crimes and was subsequently executed by firing squad in July 1946.


Prime Minister Josip Broz Tito met with the president of the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia, Aloysius Stepinac on 4 June 1945, two days after his release from imprisonment. The two could not reach an agreement on the state of the Catholic Church. Under Stepinac's leadership, the bishops' conference released a letter condemning alleged Partisan war crimes in September, 1945. The following year Stepinac was arrested and put on trial. In October 1946, in its first special session for 75 years, the Vatican excommunicated Tito and the Yugoslav government for sentencing Stepinac to 16 years in prison on charges of assisting Ustaše terror and of supporting forced conversions of Serbs to Catholicism. Stepinac received preferential treatment in recognition of his status and the sentence was soon shortened and reduced to house-arrest, with the option of emigration open to the archbishop. At the conclusion of the "Informbiro period", reforms rendered Yugoslavia considerably more religiously liberal than the Eastern Bloc states.


Unlike other new communist states in east-central Europe, Yugoslavia liberated itself from Axis domination with limited direct support from the Red Army. Tito's leading role in liberating Yugoslavia not only greatly strengthened his position in his party and among the Yugoslav people, but also caused him to be more insistent that Yugoslavia had more room to follow its own interests than other Bloc leaders who had more reasons (and pressures) to recognize Soviet efforts in helping them liberate their own countries from Axis control. Although Tito was formally an ally of Stalin after World War II, the Soviets had set up a spy ring in the Yugoslav party as early as 1945, giving way to an uneasy alliance.[citation needed]


In the immediate aftermath of World War II, there occurred several armed incidents between Yugoslavia and the Western Allies. Following the war, Yugoslavia acquired the Italian territory of Istria as well as the cities of Zadar and Rijeka. Yugoslav leadership was looking to incorporate Trieste into the country as well, which was opposed by the Western Allies. This led to several armed incidents, notably attacks by Yugoslav fighter planes on US transport aircraft, causing bitter criticism from the west. From 1945 to 1948, at least four US aircraft were shot down.[better source needed] Stalin was opposed to these provocations, as he felt the USSR unready to face the West in open war so soon after the losses of World War II and at the time when US had operational nuclear weapons whereas USSR had yet to conduct its first test. In addition, Tito was openly supportive of the Communist side in the Greek Civil War, while Stalin kept his distance, having agreed with Churchill not to pursue Soviet interests there, although he did support the Greek communist struggle politically, as demonstrated in several assemblies of the UN Security Council. In 1948, motivated by the desire to create a strong independent economy, Tito modeled his economic development plan independently from Moscow, which resulted in a diplomatic escalation followed by a bitter exchange of letters in which Tito affirmed that


The Soviet answer on 4 May admonished Tito and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY) for failing to admit and correct its mistakes, and went on to accuse them of being too proud of their successes against the Germans, maintaining that the Red Army had saved them from destruction. Tito's response on 17 May suggested that the matter be settled at the meeting of the Cominform to be held that June. However, Tito did not attend the second meeting of the Cominform, fearing that Yugoslavia was to be openly attacked. In 1949 the crisis nearly escalated into an armed conflict, as Hungarian and Soviet forces were massing on the northern Yugoslav frontier. On 28 June, the other member countries expelled Yugoslavia, citing "nationalist elements" that had "managed in the course of the past five or six months to reach a dominant position in the leadership" of the CPY. The assumption in Moscow was that once it was known that he had lost Soviet approval, Tito would collapse; 'I will shake my little finger and there will be no more Tito,' Stalin remarked. The expulsion effectively banished Yugoslavia from the international association of socialist states, while other socialist states of Eastern Europe subsequently underwent purges of alleged "Titoists". Stalin took the matter personally and arranged several assassination attempts on Tito, none of which succeeded. In a correspondence between the two leaders, Tito openly wrote:


One significant consequence of the tension arising between Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, was that Tito fought Yugoslav Stalinists with Stalin's methods. In other words, Aleksandar Ranković and the State Security Service (UBDA) employed the same inhumane methods against their opponents as Stalin did in the Soviet Union against his. Not every person accused of a political crime was convicted and nobody was sentenced to death for his or her pro-Soviet feelings. However this repression, which lasted until 1956, was marked by significant violations of human rights.


Tito's estrangement from the USSR enabled Yugoslavia to obtain US aid via the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), the same US aid institution which administered the Marshall Plan. Still, he did not agree to align with the West, which was a common consequence of accepting American aid at the time. After Stalin's death in 1953, relations with the USSR were relaxed and he began to receive aid as well from the COMECON. In this way, Tito played East-West antagonism to his advantage. Instead of choosing sides, he was instrumental in kick-starting the Non-Aligned Movement, which would function as a 'third way' for countries interested in staying outside of the East-West divide.


The event was significant not only for Yugoslavia and Tito, but also for the global development of socialism, since it was the first major split between Communist states, casting doubt on Comintern's claims for socialism to be a unified force that would eventually control the whole world, as Tito became the first (and the only successful) socialist leader to defy Stalin's leadership in the COMINFORM. This rift with the Soviet Union brought Tito much international recognition, but also triggered a period of instability often referred to as the Informbiro period. Tito's form of communism was labeled "Titoism" by Moscow, which encouraged purges against suspected "Titoites'" throughout the Eastern bloc.


On 26 June 1950, the National Assembly supported a crucial bill written by Milovan Đilas and Tito about "self-management" (samoupravljanje): a type of cooperative independent socialist experiment that introduced profit sharing and workplace democracy in previously state-run enterprises which then became the direct social ownership of the employees. On 13 January 1953, they established that the law on self-management was the basis of the entire social order in Yugoslavia. Tito also succeeded Ivan Ribar as the President of Yugoslavia on 14 January 1953. After Stalin's death Tito rejected the USSR's invitation for a visit to discuss normalization of relations between two nations. Nikita Khrushchev and Nikolai Bulganin visited Tito in Belgrade in 1955 and apologized for wrongdoings by Stalin's administration. Tito visited the USSR in 1956, which signaled to the world that animosity between Yugoslavia and USSR was easing. However, the relationship between the USSR and Yugoslavia would reach another low in the late 1960s. Commenting on the crisis, Tito concluded that:


The Tito-Stalin split had large ramifications for countries outside the USSR and Yugoslavia. It has, for example, been given as one of the reasons for the Slánský trial in Czechoslovakia, in which 14 high-level Communist officials were purged, with 11 of them being executed. Stalin put pressure on Czechoslovakia to conduct purges in order to discourage the spread of the idea of a "national path to socialism," which Tito espoused.


Under Tito's leadership, Yugoslavia became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. In 1961, Tito co-founded the movement with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, India's Jawaharlal Nehru, Indonesia's Sukarno and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah, in an action called The Initiative of Five (Tito, Nehru, Nasser, Sukarno, Nkrumah), thus establishing strong ties with third world countries. This move did much to improve Yugoslavia's diplomatic position. On 1 September 1961, Josip Broz Tito became the first Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement.


Tito's foreign policy led to relationships with a variety of governments, such as exchanging visits (1954 and 1956) with Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, where a street was named in his honor.


Tito was notable for pursuing a foreign policy of neutrality during the Cold War and for establishing close ties with developing countries. Tito's strong belief in self-determination caused early rift with Stalin and consequently, the Eastern Bloc. His public speeches often reiterated that policy of neutrality and cooperation with all countries would be natural as long as these countries did not use their influence to pressure Yugoslavia to take sides. Relations with the United States and Western European nations were generally cordial.


Yugoslavia had a liberal travel policy permitting foreigners to freely travel through the country and its citizens to travel worldwide, whereas it was limited by most Communist countries. A number[quantify] of Yugoslav citizens worked throughout Western Europe. Tito met many world leaders during his rule, such as Soviet rulers Joseph Stalin, Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev; Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser, Indian politicians Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi; British Prime Ministers Winston Churchill, James Callaghan and Margaret Thatcher; U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter; other political leaders, dignitaries and heads of state that Tito met at least once in his lifetime included Che Guevara, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, Georges Pompidou, Queen Elizabeth II, Hua Guofeng, Kim Il Sung, Sukarno, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Suharto, Idi Amin, Haile Selassie, Kenneth Kaunda, Gaddafi, Erich Honecker, Nicolae Ceaușescu, János Kádár and Urho Kekkonen. He also met numerous celebrities.


Tito visited India from December 22, 1954 through January 8, 1955. After his return, he removed many restrictions on churches and spiritual institutions in Yugoslavia.


Tito also developed warm relations with Burma under U Nu, travelling to the country in 1955 and again in 1959, though he didn't receive the same treatment in 1959 from the new leader, Ne Win.


Because of its neutrality, Yugoslavia would often be rare among Communist countries to have diplomatic relations with right-wing, anti-Communist governments. For example, Yugoslavia was the only communist country allowed to have an embassy in Alfredo Stroessner's Paraguay. One notable exception to Yugoslavia's neutral stance toward anti-communist countries was Chile under Pinochet; Yugoslavia was one of many countries which severed diplomatic relations with Chile after Salvador Allende was overthrown. Yugoslavia also provided military aid and arms supplies to staunchly anti-Communist regimes such as that of Guatemala under Kjell Eugenio Laugerud García.


On 7 April 1963, the country changed its official name to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Reforms encouraged private enterprise and greatly relaxed restrictions on freedom of speech and religious expression. Tito subsequently went on a tour of the Americas. In Chile, two government ministers resigned over his visit to that country. In the autumn of 1960 Tito met President Dwight D. Eisenhower at the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Tito and Eisenhower discussed a range of issues from arms control to economic development. When Eisenhower remarked that Yugoslavia's neutralism was "neutral on his side", Tito replied that neutralism did not imply passivity but meant "not taking sides".


In 1966 an agreement with the Vatican, fostered in part by the death in 1960 of anti-communist archbishop of Zagreb Aloysius Stepinac and shifts in the church's approach to resisting communism originating in the Second Vatican Council, accorded new freedom to the Yugoslav Roman Catholic Church, particularly to catechize and open seminaries. The agreement also eased tensions, which had prevented the naming of new bishops in Yugoslavia since 1945. Tito's new socialism met opposition from traditional communists culminating in conspiracy headed by Aleksandar Ranković. In the same year Tito declared that Communists must henceforth chart Yugoslavia's course by the force of their arguments (implying an abandonment of Leninist orthodoxy and development of liberal Communism). The State Security Administration (UDBA) saw its power scaled back and its staff reduced to 5000.


On 1 January 1967, Yugoslavia was the first communist country to open its borders to all foreign visitors and abolish visa requirements. In the same year Tito became active in promoting a peaceful resolution of the Arab–Israeli conflict. His plan called for Arabs to recognize the state of Israel in exchange for territories Israel gained.


In 1968, Tito offered Czechoslovak leader Alexander Dubček to fly to Prague on three hours notice if Dubček needed help in facing down the Soviets. In April 1969, Tito removed generals Ivan Gošnjak and Rade Hamović in the aftermath of the invasion of Czechoslovakia due to the unpreparedness of the Yugoslav army to respond to a similar invasion of Yugoslavia.


In 1971, Tito was re-elected as President of Yugoslavia by the Federal Assembly for the sixth time. In his speech before the Federal Assembly he introduced 20 sweeping constitutional amendments that would provide an updated framework on which the country would be based. The amendments provided for a collective presidency, a 22-member body consisting of elected representatives from six republics and two autonomous provinces. The body would have a single chairman of the presidency and chairmanship would rotate among six republics. When the Federal Assembly fails to agree on legislation, the collective presidency would have the power to rule by decree. Amendments also provided for stronger cabinet with considerable power to initiate and pursue legislature independently from the Communist Party. Džemal Bijedić was chosen as the Premier. The new amendments aimed to decentralize the country by granting greater autonomy to republics and provinces. The federal government would retain authority only over foreign affairs, defense, internal security, monetary affairs, free trade within Yugoslavia, and development loans to poorer regions. Control of education, healthcare, and housing would be exercised entirely by the governments of the republics and the autonomous provinces.


Tito's greatest strength, in the eyes of the western communists, had been in suppressing nationalist insurrections and maintaining unity throughout the country. It was Tito's call for unity, and related methods, that held together the people of Yugoslavia. This ability was put to a test several times during his reign, notably during the Croatian Spring (also referred as the Masovni pokret, maspok, meaning "Mass Movement") when the government suppressed both public demonstrations and dissenting opinions within the Communist Party. Despite this suppression, much of maspok's demands were later realized with the new constitution, heavily backed by Tito himself against opposition from the Serbian branch of the party.[citation needed] On 16 May 1974, the new Constitution was passed, and the aging Tito was named president for life, a status which he would enjoy for five years.


Tito's visits to the United States avoided most of the Northeast due to large minorities of Yugoslav emigrants bitter about communism in Yugoslavia. Security for the state visits was usually high to keep him away from protesters, who would frequently burn the Yugoslav flag. During a visit to the United Nations in the late 1970s emigrants shouted "Tito murderer" outside his New York hotel, for which he protested to United States authorities.


After the constitutional changes of 1974, Tito began reducing his role in the day-to-day running of the state. He continued to travel abroad and receive foreign visitors, going to Beijing in 1977 and reconciling with a Chinese leadership that had once branded him a revisionist. In turn, Chairman Hua Guofeng visited Yugoslavia in 1979. In 1978, Tito traveled to the U.S. During the visit strict security was imposed in Washington, D.C. owing to protests by anti-communist Croat, Serb and Albanian groups.


Tito became increasingly ill over the course of 1979. During this time Vila Srna was built for his use near Morović in the event of his recovery. On 7 January and again on 11 January 1980, Tito was admitted to the Medical Centre in Ljubljana, the capital city of the SR Slovenia, with circulation problems in his legs. His left leg was amputated soon afterward due to arterial blockages and he died of gangrene at the Medical Centre Ljubljana on 4 May 1980 at 15:05, three days short of his 88th birthday. His funeral drew many world statesmen. Based on the number of attending politicians and state delegations, at the time it was the largest state funeral in history; this concentration of dignitaries would be unmatched until the funeral of Pope John Paul II in 2005 and the memorial service of Nelson Mandela in 2013. Those who attended included four kings, 31 presidents, six princes, 22 prime ministers and 47 ministers of foreign affairs. They came from both sides of the Cold War, from 128 different countries out of 154 UN members at the time.


Tito was interred in a mausoleum in Belgrade, which forms part of a memorial complex in the grounds of the Museum of Yugoslav History (formerly called "Museum 25 May" and "Museum of the Revolution"). The actual mausoleum is called House of Flowers (Kuća Cveća) and numerous people visit the place as a shrine to "better times". The museum keeps the gifts Tito received during his presidency. The collection also includes original prints of Los Caprichos by Francisco Goya, and many others. The Government of Serbia has planned to merge it into the Museum of the History of Serbia. At the time of his death, speculation began about whether his successors could continue to hold Yugoslavia together. Ethnic divisions and conflict grew and eventually erupted in a series of Yugoslav wars a decade after his death.


During his life and especially in the first year after his death, several places were named after Tito. Several of these places have since returned to their original names, such as Podgorica, formerly Titograd (though Podgorica's international airport is still identified by the code TGD), and Užice, formerly Titovo Užice, which reverted to its original name in 1992. Streets in Belgrade, the capital, have all reverted to their original pre–World War II and pre-communist names as well. In 2004, Antun Augustinčić's statue of Broz in his birthplace of Kumrovec was decapitated in an explosion. It was subsequently repaired. Twice in 2008, protests took place in Zagreb's Marshal Tito Square, organized by a group called Circle for the Square (Krug za Trg), with an aim to force the city government to rename it to its previous name, while a counter-protest by Citizens' Initiative Against Ustašism (Građanska inicijativa protiv ustaštva) accused the "Circle for the Square" of historical revisionism and neo-fascism. Croatian president Stjepan Mesić criticized the demonstration to change the name. In the Croatian coastal city of Opatija the main street (also its longest street) still bears the name of Marshal Tito, as do streets in numerous towns in Serbia, mostly in the country's north. One of the main streets in downtown Sarajevo is called Marshal Tito Street, and Tito's statue in a park in front of the university campus (ex. JNA barrack "Maršal Tito") in Marijin Dvor is a place where Bosnians and Sarajevans still today commemorate and pay tribute to Tito (image on the right). The largest Tito monument in the world, about 10 m (33 ft) high, is located at Tito Square (Slovene: Titov trg), the central square in Velenje, Slovenia. One of the main bridges in Slovenia's second largest city of Maribor is Tito Bridge (Titov most). The central square in Koper, the largest Slovenian port city, is as well named Tito Square.


Every year a "Brotherhood and Unity" relay race is organized in Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia which ends at the "House of Flowers" in Belgrade on May 25 – the final resting place of Tito. At the same time, runners in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina set off for Kumrovec, Tito's birthplace in northern Croatia. The relay is a left-over from Yugoslav times, when young people made a similar yearly trek on foot through Yugoslavia that ended in Belgrade with a massive celebration.


In the years following the dissolution of Yugoslavia, some historians stated that human rights were suppressed in Yugoslavia under Tito, particularly in the first decade up until the Tito-Stalin split. On 4 October 2011, the Slovenian Constitutional Court found a 2009 naming of a street in Ljubljana after Tito to be unconstitutional. While several public areas in Slovenia (named during the Yugoslav period) do already bear Tito's name, on the issue of renaming an additional street the court ruled that:


The court, however, explicitly made it clear that the purpose of the review was "not a verdict on Tito as a figure or on his concrete actions, as well as not a historical weighing of facts and circumstances". Slovenia has several streets and squares named after Tito, notably Tito Square in Velenje, incorporating a 10-meter statue.


Tito has also been named as responsible for systematic eradication of the ethnic German (Danube Swabian) population in Vojvodina by expulsions and mass executions following the collapse of the German occupation of Yugoslavia at the end of World War II, in contrast to his inclusive attitude towards other Yugoslav nationalities.


Tito carried on numerous affairs and was married several times. In 1918 he was brought to Omsk, Russia, as a prisoner of war. There he met Pelagija Belousova who was then thirteen; he married her a year later, and she moved with him to Yugoslavia. Pelagija bore him five children but only their son Žarko Leon (born 4 February, 1924) survived. When Tito was jailed in 1928, she returned to Russia. After the divorce in 1936 she later remarried.


In 1936, when Tito stayed at the Hotel Lux in Moscow, he met the Austrian comrade Lucia Bauer. They married in October 1936, but the records of this marriage were later erased.


His next relationship was with Herta Haas, whom he married in 1940. Broz left for Belgrade after the April War, leaving Haas pregnant. In May 1941, she gave birth to their son, Aleksandar "Mišo" Broz. All throughout his relationship with Haas, Tito had maintained a promiscuous life and had a parallel relationship with Davorjanka Paunović, who, under the codename "Zdenka", served as a courier in the resistance and subsequently became his personal secretary. Haas and Tito suddenly parted company in 1943 in Jajce during the second meeting of AVNOJ after she reportedly walked in on him and Davorjanka. The last time Haas saw Broz was in 1946. Davorjanka died of tuberculosis in 1946 and Tito insisted that she be buried in the backyard of the Beli Dvor, his Belgrade residence.


His best known wife was Jovanka Broz. Tito was just shy of his 59th birthday, while she was 27, when they finally married in April 1952, with state security chief Aleksandar Ranković as the best man. Their eventual marriage came about somewhat unexpectedly since Tito actually rejected her some years earlier when his confidante Ivan Krajacic brought her in originally. At that time, she was in her early 20s and Tito, objecting to her energetic personality, opted for the more mature opera singer Zinka Kunc instead. Not one to be discouraged easily, Jovanka continued working at Beli Dvor, where she managed the staff and eventually got another chance after Tito's strange relationship with Zinka failed. Since Jovanka was the only female companion he married while in power, she also went down in history as Yugoslavia's first lady. Their relationship was not a happy one, however. It had gone through many, often public, ups and downs with episodes of infidelities and even allegations of preparation for a coup d'état by the latter pair. Certain unofficial reports suggest Tito and Jovanka even formally divorced in the late 1970s, shortly before his death. However, during Tito's funeral she was officially present as his wife, and later claimed rights for inheritance. The couple did not have any children.


Tito's notable grandchildren include Aleksandra Broz, a prominent theatre director in Croatia; Svetlana Broz, a cardiologist and writer in Bosnia-Herzegovina; and Josip "Joška" Broz, Edvard Broz and Natali Klasevski, an artisan of Bosnia-Herzegovina.


As the President, Tito had access to extensive (state-owned) property associated with the office, and maintained a lavish lifestyle. In Belgrade he resided in the official residence, the Beli dvor, and maintained a separate private home. The Brijuni islands were the site of the State Summer Residence from 1949 on. The pavilion was designed by Jože Plečnik, and included a zoo. Close to 100 foreign heads of state were to visit Tito at the island residence, along with film stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Carlo Ponti, and Gina Lollobrigida.


Another residence was maintained at Lake Bled, while the grounds at Karađorđevo were the site of "diplomatic hunts". By 1974 the Yugoslav President had at his disposal 32 official residences, larger and small, the yacht Galeb ("seagull"), a Boeing 727 as the presidential airplane, and the Blue Train. After Tito's death the presidential Boeing 727 was sold to Aviogenex, the Galeb remained docked in Montenegro, while the Blue Train was stored in a Serbian train shed for over two decades. While Tito was the person who held the office of president for by far the longest period, the associated property was not private and much of it continues to be in use by Yugoslav successor states, as public property, or maintained at the disposal of high-ranking officials.


As regards knowledge of languages, Tito replied that he spoke Serbo-Croatian, German, Russian, and some English. A biographer also stated that he spoke "Serbo-Croatian ... Russian, Czech, Slovenian ... German (with a Viennese accent) ... understands and reads French and Italian ... [and] also speaks Kirghiz."


In his youth Tito attended Catholic Sunday school, and was later an altar boy. After an incident where he was slapped and shouted at by a priest when he had difficulty assisting the priest to remove his vestments, Tito would not enter a church again. As an adult, he frequently declared that he was an atheist.


Every federal unit had a town or city with historic significance from the World War II period renamed to have Tito's name included. The largest of these was Titograd, now Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro. With the exception of Titograd, the cities were renamed simply by the addition of the adjective "Tito's" ("Titov"). The cities were:


In the years after Tito's death up to nowadays, some people have disputed his identity. Tito's personal doctor, Aleksandar Matunović, wrote a book about Tito in which he also questioned his true origin, noting that Tito's habits and lifestyle could only mean that he was from an aristocratic family. Serbian journalist Vladan Dinić (born 1949), in Tito nije tito, includes several possible alternate identities of Tito.


In 2013 a lot of media coverage was given to unclassified NSA's study in Cryptologic Spectrum that concluded that Tito did not speak the language as a native, and had features of other Slavic languages (Russian and Polish). The hypothesis that "a non-Yugoslav, perhaps a Russian or a Pole" assumed Tito's identity was included. The report also notes Draža Mihailović's impressions of Tito's Russian origins.


However, the NSA's report was completely disproved by Croatian experts. The report failed to recognize that Tito was a native speaker of the very distinctive local Kajkavian dialect of Zagorje. The acute accent, present only in Croatian dialects, which Tito is perfectly pronouncing, is the strongest proof of Tito's belonging to Kajkavian dialect.


As the Communist Party was outlawed in Yugoslavia starting on 30 December 1920, Josip Broz took on many assumed names during his activity within the Party, including "Rudi", "Walter", and "Tito." Broz himself explains:


Josip Broz Tito received a total of 119 awards and decorations from 60 countries around the world (59 countries and Yugoslavia). 21 decorations were from Yugoslavia itself, 18 having been awarded once, and the Order of the National Hero on three occasions. Of the 98 international awards and decorations, 92 were received once, and three on two occasions (Order of the White Lion, Polonia Restituta, and Karl Marx). The most notable awards included the French Legion of Honour and National Order of Merit, the British Order of the Bath, the Soviet Order of Lenin, the Japanese Order of the Chrysanthemum, the German Federal Cross of Merit, and the Order of Merit of Italy.


The decorations were seldom displayed, however. After the Tito–Stalin split of 1948 and his inauguration as president in 1953, Tito rarely wore his uniform except when present in a military function, and then (with rare exception) only wore his Yugoslav ribbons for obvious practical reasons. The awards were displayed in full number only at his funeral in 1980. Tito's reputation as one of the Allied leaders of World War II, along with his diplomatic position as the founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, was primarily the cause of the favorable international recognition.


Some of the other foreign awards and decorations of Josip Broz Tito include Order of Merit, Order of Manuel Amador Guerrero, Order of Prince Henry, Order of Independence, Order of Merit, Order of the Nile, Order of the Condor of the Andes, Order of the Star of Romania, Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau, Croix de Guerre, Order of the Cross of Grunwald, Czechoslovak War Cross, Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, Military Order of the White Lion, Nishan-e-Pakistan, Order of Al Rafidain, Order of Carol I, Order of Georgi Dimitrov, Order of Karl Marx, Order of Manuel Amador Guerrero, Order of Michael the Brave, Order of Pahlavi, Order of Sukhbaatar, Order of Suvorov, Order of the Liberator, Order of the October Revolution, Order of the Queen of Sheba, Order of the White Rose of Finland, Partisan Cross, Royal Order of Cambodia and Star of People's Friendship and Thiri Thudhamma Thingaha.[citation needed]


The Marshall Islands, officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands (Marshallese: Aolepān Aorōkin M̧ajeļ),[note 1] is an island country located near the equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the International Date Line. Geographically, the country is part of the larger island group of Micronesia. The country's population of 53,158 people (at the 2011 Census) is spread out over 29 coral atolls, comprising 1,156 individual islands and islets. The islands share maritime boundaries with the Federated States of Micronesia to the west, Wake Island to the north,[note 2] Kiribati to the south-east, and Nauru to the south. About 27,797 of the islanders (at the 2011 Census) live on Majuro, which contains the capital.


Micronesian colonists gradually settled the Marshall Islands during the 2nd millennium BC, with inter-island navigation made possible using traditional stick charts. Islands in the archipelago were first explored by Europeans in the 1520s, with Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar sighting an atoll in August 1526. Other expeditions by Spanish and English ships followed. The islands derive their name from British explorer John Marshall, who visited in 1788. The islands were historically known by the inhabitants as "jolet jen Anij" (Gifts from God).


The European powers recognized the islands as part of the Spanish East Indies in 1874. However, Spain sold the islands to the German Empire in 1884, and they became part of German New Guinea in 1885. In World War I the Empire of Japan occupied the Marshall Islands, which in 1919 the League of Nations combined with other former German territories to form the South Pacific Mandate. In World War II, the United States conquered the islands in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign. Along with other Pacific Islands, the Marshall Islands were then consolidated into the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands governed by the US. Self-government was achieved in 1979, and full sovereignty in 1986, under a Compact of Free Association with the United States. Marshall Islands has been a United Nations member state since 1991.


Politically, the Marshall Islands is a presidential republic in free association with the United States, with the US providing defense, subsidies, and access to U.S. based agencies such as the FCC and the USPS. With few natural resources, the islands' wealth is based on a service economy, as well as some fishing and agriculture; aid from the United States represents a large percentage of the islands' gross domestic product. The country uses the United States dollar as its currency.


The majority of the citizens of the Marshall Islands are of Marshallese descent, though there are small numbers of immigrants from the United States, China, Philippines and other Pacific islands. The two official languages are Marshallese, which is a member of the Malayo-Polynesian languages, and English. Almost the entire population of the islands practises some religion, with three-quarters of the country either following the United Church of Christ – Congregational in the Marshall Islands (UCCCMI) or the Assemblies of God.


Micronesians settled the Marshall Islands in the 2nd millennium BC, but there are no historical or oral records of that period. Over time, the Marshall Island people learned to navigate over long ocean distances by canoe using traditional stick charts.


Spanish explorer Alonso de Salazar was the first European to see the islands in 1526, commanding the ship Santa Maria de la Victoria, the only surviving vessel of the Loaísa Expedition. On August 21, he sighted an island (probably Taongi) at 14°N that he named "San Bartolome".


On September 21, 1529, Álvaro de Saavedra Cerón commanded the Spanish ship Florida, on his second attempt to recross the Pacific from the Maluku Islands. He stood off a group of islands from which local inhabitants hurled stones at his ship. These islands, which he named "Los Pintados", may have been Ujelang. On October 1, he found another group of islands where he went ashore for eight days, exchanged gifts with the local inhabitants and took on water. These islands, which he named "Los Jardines", may have been Enewetak or Bikini Atoll.


The Spanish ship San Pedro and two other vessels in an expedition commanded by Miguel López de Legazpi discovered an island on January 9, 1530, possibly Mejit, at 10°N, which they named "Los Barbudos". The Spaniards went ashore and traded with the local inhabitants. On January 10, the Spaniards sighted another island that they named "Placeres", perhaps Ailuk; ten leagues away, they sighted another island that they called "Pajares" (perhaps Jemo). On January 12, they sighted another island at 10°N that they called "Corrales" (possibly Wotho). On January 15, the Spaniards sighted another low island, perhaps Ujelang, at 10°N, where they described the people on "Barbudos". After that, ships including the San Jeronimo, Los Reyes and Todos los Santos also visited the islands in different years.


Captain John Charles Marshall and Thomas Gilbert visited the islands in 1788. The islands were named for Marshall on Western charts, although the natives have historically named their home "jolet jen Anij" (Gifts from God). Around 1820, Russian explorer Adam Johann von Krusenstern and the French explorer Louis Isidore Duperrey named the islands after John Marshall, and drew maps of the islands. The designation was repeated later on British maps.[citation needed] In 1824 the crew of the American whaler Globe mutinied and some of the crew put ashore on Mulgrave Island. One year later, the American schooner Dolphin arrived and picked up two boys, the last survivors of a massacre by the natives due to their brutal treatment of the women.:2


A number of vessels visiting the islands were attacked and their crews killed. In 1834, Captain DonSette and his crew were killed. Similarly, in 1845 the schooner Naiad punished a native for stealing with such violence that the natives attacked the ship. Later that year a whaler's boat crew were killed. In 1852 the San Francisco-based ships Glencoe and Sea Nymph were attacked and everyone aboard except for one crew member were killed. The violence was usually attributed as a response to the ill treatment of the natives in response to petty theft, which was a common practice. In 1857, two missionaries successfully settled on Ebon, living among the natives through at least 1870.:3


Although the Spanish Empire had a residual claim on the Marshalls in 1874, when she began asserting her sovereignty over the Carolines, she made no effort to prevent the German Empire from gaining a foothold there. Britain also raised no objection to a German protectorate over the Marshalls in exchange for German recognition of Britain's rights in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. On October 13, 1885, SMS Nautilus under Captain Rötger brought German emissaries to Jaluit. They signed a treaty with Kabua, whom the Germans had earlier recognized as "King of the Ralik Islands," on October 15.


Subsequently, seven other chiefs on seven other islands signed a treaty in German and Marshallese and a final copy witnessed by Rötger on November 1 was sent to the German Foreign Office. The Germans erected a sign declaring a "Imperial German Protectorate" at Jaluit. It has been speculated that the crisis over the Carolines with Spain, which almost provoked a war, was in fact "a feint to cover the acquisition of the Marshall Islands", which went almost unnoticed at the time, despite the islands being the largest source of copra in Micronesia. Spain sold the islands to Germany in 1884 through papal mediation.


A German trading company, the Jaluit Gesellschaft, administered the islands from 1887 until 1905. They conscripted the islanders as laborers and mistreated them. After the German–Spanish Treaty of 1899, in which Germany acquired the Carolines, Palau, and the Marianas from Spain, Germany placed all of its Micronesian islands, including the Marshalls, under the governor of German New Guinea.


Catholic missionary Father A. Erdland, from the Sacred Heart Jesu Society based in Hiltrup, Germany, lived on Jaluit from around 1904 to 1914. He was very interested in the islands and conducted considerable research on the Marshallese culture and language. He published a 376-page monograph on the islands in 1914. Father H. Linckens, another missionary from the Sacred Heart of Jesu Society visited the Marshall Islands in 1904 and 1911 for several weeks. He published a small work in 1912 about the Catholic mission activities and the people of the Marshall Islands.


Under German control, and even before then, Japanese traders and fishermen from time to time visited the Marshall Islands, although contact with the islanders was irregular. After the Meiji Restoration (1868), the Japanese government adopted a policy of turning the Japanese Empire into a great economic and military power in East Asia.


In 1914, Japan joined the Entente during World War I and captured various German Empire colonies, including several in Micronesia. On September 29, 1914, Japanese troops occupied the Enewetak Atoll, and on September 30, 1914, the Jaluit Atoll, the administrative centre of the Marshall Islands. After the war, on June 28, 1919, Germany signed (under protest) the Treaty of Versailles. It renounced all of its Pacific possessions, including the Marshall Islands. On December 17, 1920, the Council of the League of Nations approved the South Pacific Mandate for Japan to take over all former German colonies in the Pacific Ocean located north of the Equator. The Administrative Centre of the Marshall Islands archipelago remained Jaluit.


The German Empire had primarily economic interests in Micronesia. The Japanese interests were in land. Despite the Marshalls' small area and few resources, the absorption of the territory by Japan would to some extent alleviate Japan's problem of an increasing population with a diminishing amount of available land to house it. During its years of colonial rule, Japan moved more than 1,000 Japanese to the Marshall Islands although they never outnumbered the indigenous peoples as they did in the Mariana Islands and Palau.


The Japanese enlarged administration and appointed local leaders, which weakened the authority of local traditional leaders. Japan also tried to change the social organization in the islands from Matrilineality to the Japanese Patriarchal system, but with no success. Moreover, during the 1930s, one third of all land up to the high water level was declared the property of the Japanese government. On the archipelago, before it banned foreign traders, the activities of Catholic and Protestant missionaries were allowed. Indigenous people were educated in Japanese schools, and studied Japanese language and Japanese culture. This policy was the government strategy not only in the Marshall Islands, but on all the other mandated territories in Micronesia. On March 27, 1933, Japan handed in its notice at the League of Nations, but continued to manage the islands, and in the late 1930s began building air bases on several atolls. The Marshall Islands were in an important geographical position, being the easternmost point in Japan's defensive ring at the beginning of World War II.


In the months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Kwajalein Atoll was the administrative center of the Japanese 6th Fleet Forces Service, whose task was the defense of the Marshall Islands.


In World War II, the United States, during the Gilbert and Marshall Islands campaign, invaded and occupied the islands in 1944, destroying or isolating the Japanese garrisons. In just one month in 1944, Americans captured Kwajalein Atoll, Majuro and Enewetak, and, in the next two months, the rest of the Marshall Islands, except for Wotje, Mili, Maloelap and Jaluit.


The battle in the Marshall Islands caused irreparable damage, especially on Japanese bases. During the American bombing, the islands' population suffered from lack of food and various injuries. U.S. attacks started in mid-1943, and caused half the Japanese garrison of 5,100 people in the atoll Mili to die from hunger by August 1945.


Following capture and occupation by the United States during World War II, the Marshall Islands, along with several other island groups located in Micronesia, passed formally to the United States under United Nations auspices in 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21.