are established in the covenant, the provisions of which are not necessarily self-executing. In this connection the committee notes that article V of the covenant specifies the applicability of certain provisions of the Constitution of the United States and laws of the United States which may be applicable in the Northern Mariana Islands. Among those laws which would be applicable in the Northern Mariana Islands would be the Criminal Justice Act (18 U.S.C. 3006A). Under subsection (K) of 18 U.S.C. 3006A, the Criminal Justice Act is applicable in Guam and under section 502(a) (2) of the covenant would likewise be applicable in the Northern Marianas. This applicability of the Criminal Justice Act is expressly provided in section 4(b) of S. 2149 as amended.

S.R. No. 95-475, Oct. 6, 1977.

Portions of the text of the act read as follows:

Whereas section 401 of the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America, approved by section 1 of the joint resolution of March 24, 1976 (Public Law 94-241; 90 Stat. 263), provides that the United States will establish a District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands: Now, therefore, Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That (a) there is hereby established for and within the Northern Mariana Islands a court of record to be known as the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands. The Northern Mariana Islands shall constitute a part of the same judicial circuit of the United States as Guam. Terms of court shall be held on Saipan and at such other places and at such times as the court may designate by rule or order.

(b) (1) The President shall, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoint a judge for the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands who shall hold office for the term of eight years and until his successor is chosen and qualified, unless sooner removed by the President for cause. The judge shall receive a salary payable by the United States which shall be at the rate prescribed for judges of the United States district courts.

(3) The President shall appoint, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, a United States attorney and United States marshal for the Northern Mariana Islands to whose offices the provisions of chapters 35 and 37 of title 28, respectively, United States Code, shall apply.

(c) The provisions of chapters 43 and 49 of title 28, United States Code, and the rules heretofore or hereafter promulgated and made effective by the Congress or the Supreme Court of the United States pursuant to titles 11, 18, 28, United States Code, shall apply to the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands and appeals therefrom where appropriate, except as otherwise provided in articles IV and V of the covenant provided by the Act of March 24, 1976 (90 Stat. 263). The terms "attorney for the government" and "United States attorney" as used in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure (rule 54(c)) shall, when applicable to cases arising under the laws of the Northern Mariana Islands, include the attorney general of the Northern Mariana Islands or any other person or persons as may be authorized by the laws of the Northern Marianas to act therein.

SEC. 2. (a) The District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands shall have the jurisdiction of a district court of the United States, except that in all causes arising under the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, it shall have jurisdiction regardless of the sum or value of the matter in controversy.

(b) The district court shall have original jurisdiction in all causes in the Northern Mariana Islands not described in subsection (a) jurisdiction over which is not vested by the Constitution or laws of the Northern Mariana

Islands in a court or courts of the Northern Mariana Islands. In causes brought in the district court solely on the basis of this subsection, the district court shall be considered a court of the Northern Mariana Islands for the purposes of determining the requirements of indictment by grand jury or trial by jury.

SEC. 3. The district court shall have such appellate jurisdiction as the Constitution and laws of the Northern Mariana Islands provide . . .

SEC. 4. (a) The relations between the courts established by the Constitution or laws of the United States and the courts of the Northern Mariana Islands with respect to appeals, certiorari, removal of causes, the issuance of writs of habeas corpus, and other matters or proceedings shall be governed by the laws of the United States pertaining to the relations between the courts of the United States and the courts of the several States in such matters and proceedings, except as otherwise provided in article IV of the covenant: Provided, That for the first fifteen years following the establishment of an appellate court of the Northern Mariana Islands the United States court of appeals for the judicial circuit which includes the Northern Mariana Islands shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the highest court of the Northern Mariana Islands from which a decision could be had in all cases involving the Constitution, treaties, or laws of the United States, or any authority exercised thereunder, unless those cases are reviewable in the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands pursuant to section 3 of this Act.

(b) Those portions of title 28 of the United States Code which apply to Guam or the District Court of Guam shall be applicable to the Northern Mariana Islands or the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, respectively, except as otherwise provided in article IV of the covenant. The district court established by this Act shall be a district court as that term is used in section 3006A of title 18, United States Code.

P.L. 95–157, 91 Stat. 1265.

For further information concerning the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union with the United States of America, see the 1975 Digest, Ch. 2, § 6, pp. 97-104 and the 1976 Digest, Ch. 2, § 6, pp. 56-60.

On April 11, 1977, in the case of RCA Global, Etc. v. U.S. Dept. of Interior, 432 F. Supp. 791 (1977), the U.S. District Court of Guam, Agana Division, held that that Court lacked jurisdiction over the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TTPI), its High Commissioner, the Government of the Northern Mariana Islands (GNMI), and its Resident Commissioner "for acts committed in the Northern Mariana Islands . . . ." Id. 794. The plaintiffs had sought injunctive and declaratory relief against the U.S. Department of the Interior, the TTPI, GNMI, and others, claiming deprivation of property without due process of law for the termination of their lease to provide communication services between Guam and Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands and for the award of a franchise to another corporation to provide certain communications services to the Northern Marianas. The plaintiffs based their claim on the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and 28 U.S.C. 1331. The latter section grants district courts original jurisdiction in civil actions arising under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.

The Court, Cristobal C. Duenas, ruled in favor of the defendants' motion to dismiss on the basis of the Trusteeship Agreement for the Former Japanese Mandated Islands between the United States and the United Nations approved by the Security Council on April 2, 1947, and the United States on July 18, 1947 (TIAS 1665; 61 Stat. 3301; 12 Bevans 951; 8 UNTS 189; entered into force July 18, 1947), an order of the Secretary of the Interior, and various court precedents concerning the TTPI:

The Mariana Islands are administered by the United States. pursuant to a Trusteeship Agreement executed by the United States and the Security Council of the United Nations on April 2, 1947, and approved by the United States on July 19 [sic], 1947. Until April 1, 1976, the Northern Mariana Islands were administered by the Secretary of the Interior through the Government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. However, on April 1, 1976, a new and separate administration was organized to administer the Northern Mariana Islands. This new administration is the Government of the Northern Mariana Islands. The Government of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Resident Commissioner stand in a parallel situation to those of the Government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands and the High Commissioner. See Secretarial Order No. 2989, Department of Interior.

Courts have held that the TTPI is not an agency of the United States nor is the High Commissioner an officer of the United States within the terms of the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. People of Saipan v. U.S. Dept. of Interior, 502 F.2d 90, 9th Circuit, 1974.

The U.S. Court of Claims held in Porter v. U.S., 496 F.2d 583, 204 Ct.Cl. 355 (1974), that the TTPI is not an agency of the United States for contract purposes and that it did not have jurisdiction over an action based upon the alleged breach of contract committed by TTPI. Whatever the Trust Territory is, courts have construed it to be either a foreign country or something other than a Federal agency, Porter supra.

It is therefore the opinion of this Court that it has no jurisdiction over the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the High Commissioner, the Government of the Northern Mariana Islands and the Resident Commissioner for acts committed in the Northern Mariana Islands. . . .

The Court is not leaving plaintiffs without a forum in which to file their action since Department of Interior Order No. 2918 which set up the Government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands on December 27, 1968, established the judicial authority of the Trust Territory in the High Court of the TTPI.

*

432 F. Supp. 793-794.

*

For further information concerning People of Saipan v. U.S. Dept. of Interior and Porter v. U.S., see the 1974 Digest, Ch. 2, § 6, pp. 59-63, and Groves v. United States, 533 F.2d 1376 (1976), in the 1976 Digest, Ch. 2, § 6, pp. 60–61.

257-179 O-79-8

Omnibus Legislation

On October 15, 1977, President Carter signed into law H.R. 6550, authorizing certain appropriations for U.S. territories and amending certain related acts concerning the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources described as follows the purposes of the act (P.L. 95-134; 91 Stat. 1159) in a report to accompany H.R. 6550, entitled the Omnibus Territories Bill:

H.R. 6550, as amended, will in title I: Provide a 3-year authorization for the continuance of the civil government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (including the government of the Northern Marianas until the separate funding provisions of their Covenant become effective), provide authorization for the rehabilitation of Enewetak Atoll, and provide compensation to those affected by radioactive fallout at Rongelap and Utirik Atolls; in title II: Provide for typhoon rehabilitation in Guam, provide for economic development in Guam, have the Secretary of the Interior assume the costs of the Guam comptroller, provide jurisdiction to the district court of Guam to review post war land claims, and provide guaranteed loan authority to meet the health care needs of Guam; in title III: Have the Secretary of the Interior assume the costs of the Virgin Islands comptroller; and to authorize the Virgin Islands legislative [sic] to override a line item veto by the Governor and to vary the 6 percent ad valorem custom duty imposed by a carry-over from Danish law; and in title IV: Direct a study of Federal programs by the Secretary of the Interior and authorize grants to Guam and the Virgin Islands to compensate for tax losses occasioned by changes in the Federal tax laws.

S. Rept. 95-332, p. 5.

Sec. 105 of title I of P.L. 95-134 made the following provisions to satisfy all adjudicated claims and final awards made by the Micronesian Claims Commission:

SEC. 105. In addition to amounts heretofore authorized pursuant to the Micronesian Claims Act of 1971 (85 Stat. 96), there are hereby authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of the Interior such sums as may be necessary to satisfy all adjudicated claims and final awards made by the Micronesian Claims Commission to date under title I and title II of said 1971 Act, for full payment of such awards: Provided, That no sums appropriated pursuant to this section may be paid on awards pursuant to title I of said 1971 Act until, subsequent to the date of enactment of this section, the Government of Japan has provided to the Government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands a contribution, which contribution may be in goods and services, which has a value as determined by the Secretary of the Interior equivalent to not less than 50 per centum of the total awards made pursuant to title I of said 1971 Act less $10,000,000 from such total: Provided further, That prior to making any payment on an award pursuant to either title I or title II of said 1971 Act, the Secretary shall review such award and determine whether any portion of such award constitutes interest not authorized to be awarded under the said 1971 Act and shall exclude from his payment such amounts as he determines con

stitute such interest. The Secretary's determination of the proportion of any award which constitutes such interest and the proportion which constitutes value shall be final and shall not be subject to judicial review.

On Oct. 15, 1977, President Carter also approved S.J. Res. 89 (P.L. 95–135; 91 Stat. 1166), which amended sec. 403 of title IV of P.L. 95-134 to provide as follows:

"SEC. 403. Effective on the date when section 502 of the Covenant to Establish a Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in Political Union With the United States of America, approved by joint resolution approved on March 24, 1976 (90 Stat. 263), goes into force those laws which are referred to in section 502 (a)(1) of said Covenant, except for any laws administered by the Social Security Administration, except for medicaid which is now administered by the Health Care Financing Administration, and except the Micronesian Claims Act of 1971 (85 Stat. 96) shall be applicable to the territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands on the same terms and conditions as such laws are applied to the Northern Mariana Islands."

The study by the Secretary of the Interior and the grants to Guam and the Virgin Islands described above in Senator Johnston's S. Rept. 95-332 were not affected by S.J. Res. 89.

Claims

On March 29, 1977, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an opinion in Ralpho v. Bell (75–2088) reversing and remanding to the District Court a judgment of dismissal of an action by a Micronesian claimant who alleged that his right to a fair hearing in his suit for compensation for losses during World War II was abridged by the reliance of the Micronesian Claims Commission upon evidence to which he neither had access nor opportunity to address. Relying on section 2020 of title 50 of the U.S. Code Appendix, the District Court of the District of Columbia had dismissed the claimant's action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction without addressing the issue of whether the matter was suitable for class treatment. The court of appeals in an opinion by Circuit Judge Spottswood W. Robinson, III, found that the actions of the United States in the Trust Territories are constrained by due process and held that the section 2020 in question did not foreclose judicial consideration of complaints that the Commission had failed to meet constitutional standards.

The case was brought by a Micronesian whose house was destroyed during a U.S. military offensive on the island of Juluit during World War II. Subsequently, after the United Nations designated Micronesia as a Trust Territory and the United States as its administrator, the United States and Japan signed on April 18, 1969, a claims agreement, entitled Agreement concerning the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (TIAS 6724; 20 UST 2654; 719 UNTS 127; entered into force on July 7, 1969). Set forth below is the opinion of the Court describing the claims agreement, the Micronesian Claims Commission established to administer the $10 million claims fund created pursuant to the