The Northern Mariana Islands belong to the United States and are in the Pacific Ocean north of Papua New Guinea. The constitution document was formalized in 1986 and lays down important issues such as Personal Rights, Law and Order, Voting Rights and so on.

In 1975, after three centuries of colonial rule, the people of the Northern Marianas exercised their right of self-determination to become U.S. citizens in a self-governing commonwealth under U.S. sovereignty. An Honorable Accord is the remarkable account of their tenacious efforts to shape a political future separate from other Micronesian peoples, of the negotiations that produced the Covenant defining the commonwealth relationship, and its eventual approval by the Northern Marianas people and the U.S. Congress.