Guam’s seizure all began in 1565 when the Spaniards decided to permanently settle on the island. It was not until 1668 when Spain established Spanish rule. About 200 years later, in 1898, the end of the Spanish-American War marked the start of the relinquished control from the Spanish to the Americans. This United States sovereignty became sanctioned in the Treaty of Paris in 1899 and ever since then, excluding Japanese dominion from 1941 to 1944, Guam has been a US territory and its political status has been unclear (Andres de Urdaneta, 2014). However, Guam is not completely left to the devices of the United States. The Treaty of Paris does state that the political status is up for modification by request to the US Congress. Hence, Guam is able to ask the US Congress to improve political conditions.
Following the Treaty of Paris, Guam’s status had then become “unincorporated” territory. This then led to the question of what constitutional rights do the people of Guam have? The US referred to the insular case of Downes v Bidwell in 1901, that established “the doctrine of incorporation,” stating that unless a territory is incorporated or on its way of becoming a state then not all rights of the US Constitution can be extended to the locals of an “unincorporated territory.” An example of this doctrine in effect, is seen in the Organic Act, which grants U.S. citizenship to the residents of Guam. Unlike citizenship found in mainland United States though, Guam’s US citizenship includes restrictions including being prohibited to vote in presidential elections other than the primaries. This ultimately led to Guam’s first referendum from the 1980 Commission on Self-Determination that altered Guam’s “unincorporated” status to commonwealth status in 1987 creating the Guam Commonwealth Act or GCA. This commonwealth status allows for considerable freedom in self-governance over internal matters and some independence while the locals can call themselves US citizens and therefore claim the right to adopt federal laws and policies. Unfortunately, this status was never granted by Congress. In 1997 the GCA became the Commission on Decolonization and are tasked to research and conduct a vote on the three decolonization processes recognized by the United Nations mentioned in the introduction of this paper: independence, free association, and statehood (Na’puti and Hahn, 2013). |
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