Informally it can be considered more widely: from a post-colonial form of amical protection, or protectorate, to a confederation of unequal members when the lesser partners delegate to the major one (often the former colonial power) some authority normally exclusively retained by a sovereign state, usually in such fields as defence and foreign relations, while often enjoying favourable economic terms such as market access.
The concept of associated state was originally used to refer to arrangements under which Western powers afforded a (sometimes very limited) degree of self-government to some of their colonial possessions after the end of World War II.
The arrangement afforded these countries a limited degree of internal and external sovereignty (for example, they were allowed to enter into diplomatic relations with a small number of countries), but for the most part reserved for France effective control over foreign relations, as well as military, judicial, administrative, and economic activities.
[4] The associated state concept as applied to former French colonial possessions has been described as 'neo-colonial' as it did not afford them real internal or external sovereignty.
[5][6] When New Zealand offered an associated status to the Cook Islands, they involved the United Nations and included in the agreement the possibility of future independence.
[citation needed] Shortly before the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Tatar ASSR unilaterally seceded from the Russian SFSR, as the "sovereign state" of Tatarstan and a "subject of international law".
[31] Some scholars and politicians have proposed Puerto Rico sign a Compact of Free Association with the U.S. similar to those in force in the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, and Palau.
[32][33] A similar path has been proposed in order to update the political relationship between the Faroe Islands and Denmark, in which the former would become an associated state of the latter.
A white, non-Chamorro resident, Arnold Davis, filed a federal lawsuit in 2011 for being denied registration for the plebiscite and a July 2019 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ultimately blocked the plebiscite on the basis that the law was race-based and violated constitutionally protected voting rights; the Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear the Government of Guam's appeal in May 2020.
While a majority of voters chose free association, the vote did not meet the two-thirds threshold needed for approval.
[42] The establishment of a Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE) was proposed in 2008 by the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Philippines.
The two parties were to sign a memorandum of agreement on ancestral domain which would lead to the establishment of a new autonomous government in the southern Philippines.
It remained in a personal union with the Danish Crown and continued to have a common foreign policy with Denmark until 1944, when it became fully independent.
[55][56] This relationship was updated in a 2007 treaty, in which the provision requiring Bhutan to accept India's guidance on foreign policy was rescinded.