The Charter of the United Nations, also referred to as the UN Charter, is the foundational treaty of the United Nations. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the United Nations System, including its principal organs: the Secretariat, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council. The UN Charter is an important part of public international law, and is the foundation for much of international law governing the use of force, pacific settlement of disputes, arms control, and other important functions of the maintenance of international peace and security.
According to its Charter, the purposes of the United Nations include reaffirming fundamental human rights; maintaining international peace and security; and promoting the economic and social advancement of all peoples. The UN Charter mandates the UN and its member states to maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve "higher standards of living" for their citizens, address "economic, social, health, and related problems", and promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion". As a charter and constituent treaty, its rules and obligations are binding on all members and supersede those of other treaties.
During the Second World War, the Allies (formally known as the United Nations) agreed to establish a new postwar international organization. Pursuant to this goal, the UN Charter was discussed, prepared, and drafted during the San Francisco Conference that began 25 April 1945, which involved most of the world's sovereign nations. Following two-thirds approval of each part, the final text was unanimously adopted by delegates and opened for signature on 26 June 1945; it was signed in San Francisco, California, United States, by 50 of the 51 original member countries.Poland's provisional government, which was not represented at the conference, signed it two months later.
The Charter entered into force on 24 October 1945, following ratification by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (United States, China,Republic of China, after 1949 located in Taiwan; replaced on 25 October 1971 by the People's Republic of China. France,Provisional Government; later replaced by the Fourth Republic in 1946 then the Fifth Republic in 1958. Soviet Union,Replaced by the Russian Federation in 1991. and United Kingdom) and a majority of the other signatories; this is considered the official starting date of the United Nations, with the first session of the General Assembly, representing all 51 initial members, opening in London the following January. The General Assembly formally recognized 24 October as United Nations Day in 1947, and declared it an official international holiday in 1971. With 193 parties, most countries have now ratified the Charter.
Summary
The charter consists of a preamble and 111 articles grouped into 19 chapters.
The preamble consists of two principal parts. The first part contains a general call for the maintenance of peace and international security and respect for human rights. The second part of the preamble is a declaration in a contractual style that the governments of the peoples of the United Nations have agreed to the Charter and it is the first international document regarding human rights. Chapter I sets forth the purposes of the United Nations, including the important provisions of the maintenance of international peace and security. Chapter II defines the criteria for membership in the United Nations. Chapters III–XV, the bulk of the document, describe the organs and institutions of the UN and their respective powers. Chapters XVI and Chapter XVII describe arrangements for integrating the UN with established international law. Chapters XVIII and Chapter XIX provide for amendment and ratification of the Charter.
The following chapters deal with the enforcement powers of UN bodies: Chapter VI describes the Security Council's power to investigate and mediate disputes; Chapter VII describes the Security Council's power to authorize economic, diplomatic, and military sanctions, as well as the use of military force, to resolve disputes; Chapter VIII makes it possible for regional arrangements to maintain peace and security within their own region; Chapters IX and Chapter X describe the UN's powers for economic and social cooperation, and the Economic and Social Council that oversee these powers; Chapters XII and Chapter XIII describe the Trusteeship Council, which oversaw decolonization; Chapters XIV and Chapter XV establish the powers of, respectively, the International Court of Justice and the United Nations Secretariat; Chapters XVI through Chapter XIX deal, respectively, with XVI: miscellaneous provisions, XVII: transitional security arrangements related to World War II, XVIII: the charter amendment process, and XIX: ratification of the charter. Article 2(7) of the UN Charter explicitly recognizes the sovereignty of states and prohibits the United Nations from intervening in matters that are "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction" of any state. The only exception is actions authorized by the Security Council under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to maintain international peace and security.
History
Background The principles and conceptual framework of the United Nations were formulated through a series of conferences during the Second World War. The Declaration of St James's Palace, issued in London on 12 June 1941, was the first joint statement of the declared goals and principles of the Allies, and the first to express a vision for a postwar world order. The Declaration called for the "willing cooperation of free peoples" so that "all may enjoy economic and social security"."St. James Agreement; June 12, 1941". Avalon Project. Yale Law School. 2008.
Roughly two months later, the United States and the United Kingdom issued a joint, eight-point statement elaborating such goals, known as the Atlantic Charter. It set out (1) that these countries do not seek aggrandizement, (2) that no territorial changes be made against the wishes of the people, (2) the right to self-determination for all peoples, (3) restoration of self-government to those deprived of it, (4) furtherance of access for all states to trade and raw materials "needed for their economic prosperity", (5) global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for the world, (6) the "destruction of the Nazi tyranny" and freedom from fear and want, (7) freedom of the seas, and (8) "abandonment of the use of force" by disarming nations of "aggression" and establishing a wider Anglo-American world "security system" under mutual disarmament after the war. Many of these principles would inspire or form part of the UN Charter.
The following year, on 1 January 1942, representatives of thirty nations formally at war with the Axis powers—led by the "Big Four" powers of China, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the U.S.—signed the Declaration by United Nations, which formalized the anti-Axis alliance and reaffirmed the purposes and principles of the Atlantic Charter. The following day, representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures. The term "United Nations" became synonymous with the Allies for the duration of the war, and was considered the formal name under which they were fighting.The name "United Nations" for the World War II allies was suggested by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States as an alternative to the name "Associated Powers". British Prime Minister Winston Churchill accepted it, noting that the phrase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35). The Declaration by United Nations formed the basis of the United Nations Charter;Hopes, Townsend; Brinkley, Douglas (1997). FDR and the Creation of the U.N. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. . virtually all nations that acceded to it would be invited to take part in the 1945 San Francisco Conference to discuss and prepare the Charter.
On 30 October 1943, the Declaration of the Four Nations, one of the four Moscow Declarations, was signed by the foreign ministers of the Big Four, calling for the establishment of a "general international organization, based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all peace-loving states, and open to membership by all such states, large and small, for the maintenance of international peace and security".Some sources, such as the United Nations, refer to Declaration of the Four Nations as the "Moscow Declaration". This was the first formal announcement that a new international organization was being contemplated to replace the moribund League of Nations.
Pursuant to the Moscow Declarations, from 21 August 1944 to 7 October 1944, the U.S. hosted the Dumbarton Oaks Conference to develop a blueprint for what would become the United Nations. Many of the rules, principles, and provisions of the UN Charter were proposed during the conference, including the structure of the UN system; the creation of a "Security Council" to prevent future war and conflict; and the establishment of other "organs" of the organization, such as the General Assembly, International Court of Justice, and Secretariat. The conference was led by the Big Four, with delegates from other nation participating in the consideration and formulation of these principles. At the Paris peace conference in 1919, it was Prime Minister Jan Smuts of South Africa and Lord Cecil of the United Kingdom who came up with the structure of the League of Nations with the League being divided into a League Assembly consisting of all the member states and a League Council consisting of the great powers. The same design that Smuts and Cecil had devised for the League of Nations was copied for the United Nations with a Security Council made up of the great powers and a General Assembly of the UN member states.
The subsequent Yalta Conference in February 1945 between the U.S., the UK, and the Soviet Union resolved the lingering debate regarding the voting structure of the proposed Security Council, calling for a "Conference of United Nations" in San Francisco on 25 April 1945 to "prepare the charter of such an organization, along the lines proposed in the formal conversations of Dumbarton Oaks."
Drafting and adoption
The San Francisco Conference, formally the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), began as scheduled on 25 April 1945 with the goal of drafting a charter that would create a new international organization. The Big Four, which sponsored the event, invited all forty-six signatories to the Declaration by United Nations.Poland, despite having signed the Declaration by United Nations, did not attend the conference because there was no consensus on the formation of the postwar Polish government. Therefore, a space was left blank for the Polish signature. The new Polish government was formed after the conference (28 June) and signed the United Nations Charter on 15 October, making Poland one of the founding countries of the United Nations. Conference delegates invited four more nations: the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Argentina and recently liberated Denmark.