Steps to the charter: origins of the United Nations.

Atlantic Charter 

14 August 1941

On 14 August 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, meeting "somewhere at sea", issued a joint declaration in which they set forth "certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries" on which they based hopes for a better future for the world. This document, known as the Atlantic Charter, served as a foundation for the future Declaration by United Nations.

In the Atlantic Charter, the two signatories stated that "after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace which will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their own boundaries, and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want." They also stated that "they believe that all of the nations of the world, for realistic as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force. Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea or air armaments continue to be employed by nations which threaten, or many threaten, aggression outside of their frontiers, they believe, pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of security, that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practicable measures which will lighten for peace-loving peoples the crushing burden of armaments."

The two statesmen also expressed in the document their desire "to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing, for all, improved labour standards, economic advancement and social security."

Declaration by United Nations

1 January 1942

On 1 January 1942, the representatives of 26 allied nations signed in Washington, D.C., a Declaration by United Nations. This was the first step in the evolution of the United Nations Organization.

In the Declaration, the signatory Governments:

"Having subscribed to a common programme of purposes and principles embodied . . . in the Atlantic Charter,

"Being convinced that complete victory over the enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world,

"Declare:

(1) Each Government pledges itself to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact and its adherents with which such Government is at war.

(2) Each Government pledges itself to co-operate with the Governments signatory hereto and not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies."

The Declaration was left open for signature by other nations "which are, or may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism."

The 26 signatories of the Declaration of United Nations were the United States, the United Kingdom, the USSR, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslavakia, the Domonican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, the Union of South Africa and Yugoslavia. Later adherents to the Declaration, in order of the dates of adherence, were Mexico, Philippines, Ethiopia, Iraq, Brazil, Bolivia, Iran, Colombia, Liberia, France, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon.

France and Denmark were generally regarded as having been identified with the United Nations from the beginning. Free French Forces had fought against the Axis Powers and the Danish Minister in Washington had signified the adherence of all free Danes to the Allied Cause. Since the Declaration was signed by Governments, they could not at that time formally adhere to it. When the French National Committee was constituted as a Government, France adhered formally to the Declaration. Denmark, which was not liberated until after the opening of the San Francisco Conference, was admitted as one of the United Nations by the Conference.

Moscow Declaration

30 October 1943

In a declaration signed in Moscow on 30 October 1943 by V.M. Molotov of the USSR, Anthony Eden of the United Kingdom, Cordell Hull of the United States, and Foo Ping-sheung, the Chinese Ambassador to the Soviet Union, the four Governments proclaimed that "they recognize the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date 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." The signatories also pledged themselves, "pending the re-establishment of law and order and the inauguration of a system of general security", to "consult with one another and as occasion requires with other members of the United Nations with a view to joint action on behalf of the community of nations." They stated that they would "confer and co-operate with one another and other members of the United Nations to bring about a practicable general agreement with respect to the regulation of armaments in the post-war period."

United Nations Conferences on Economic and Social Problems

Before the establishment of a general international organization, as contemplated in the Moscow Declaration, a number of United Nations conferences were held to discuss certain special problems. As a result of these conferences, a number of specialized agencies were subsequently established.

The united Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture, held in Hot Springs, Virginia, from 18 May to 3 June 1943, set up an Interim Commission on Food and Agriculture to draw up a Constitution of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. On 16 October 1945, FAO came into being when its Constitution was signed.

Teheran Declaration

1December 1943

A month later, on 1 December 1943, President Roosevelt, Premier Joseph Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill, meeting in Teheran, declared: ". . . We are sure that our concord will win an enduring Peace. We recognize fully the supreme responsibility resting upon us and all the United Nations to make a peace which will command the goodwill of the overwhelming mass of the peoples of the world and banish the scourge and terror of war for many generations."

The three leaders also stated: "We shall seek the co-operation and active participation of all nations, large and small, whose peoples in heart and mind are dedicated, as are our own peoples, to the elimination of tyranny and slavery, oprression and intolerance. We will welcome them, as they may choose to come, into a world family of Democratic Nations."

The Conference of Allied Ministers of Education, which first met in London in October 1942, drafted plans for a United Nations Educational and Cultural Organization. These plans served as a basis of discussion at the United Nations Conference for the Establishment of an Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, held in London from 1 to 16 November 1945, which drew up the Constitution of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

The agreement creating the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was signed in Washington on 9 November 1943 by representatives of 44 nations. On the following day the first meeting of the UNRRA Council took place in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The UNRRA was the first of the United Nations agencies formally to come into being.

The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference was held at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, from 1 to 22 July 1944. The Conference drafted the Articles of Agreement of the International Monetary Fund and the Articles of Agreement of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Articles of Agreement both of the Fund and of the Bank came into force on 27 December 1945. The inaugural meeting of the Boards of Governors of these two institutions took place in Savannah, Georgia, from 8 to 18 March 1946.

The International Civl Aviation Conference was held in Chicago from 1 November to 7 December 1944. It drafted a Convention on International Civil Aviation and an Interim Agreement on International Civl Aviation. The Provisional (Interim) International Civil Aviation Organization came into being on 15 August 1945.

The Dumbarton Oaks Proposals

August-October 1944

The first concrete step towards the creation of the United Nations was taken in the late summer of 1944 at a mansion known as Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C. In the first phase of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, from 21 August to 28 September 1944, conversations were held between the representatives of the USSR, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the second phase, from 29 September to 7 October, conversations were held between the representatives of China, the United Kingdom and the United States. This arrangement served to respect USSR neutrality in the war against Japan. As a result of the Conference, the four Powers reached a number of agreements which were embodied in proposals for the establishment of a general international organization.

The Dumbarton Oaks Proposals were primarily concerned with the purposes and principles of the organization, its membership and principal organs, and arrangements for the maintenance of international peace and security and for international economic and social co-operation. According to the proposals, the key body in the United Nations for preserving world peace was to be the Security Council, on which China, France, the USSR, the United Kingdom and the United States were to be permanently represented. Agreement was not reached, however, on the question of voting procedure in the Security Council.

Yalta Agreement 

February 1945

In February 1945, Prime Minister Churchill, President Roosevelt and Premier Stalin met at Yalta, USSR, in the Crimea. A report was issued after the conference which contained the following passage:

"We are resolved upon the earliest possible establishment with our Allies of a general international organization to maintain peace and security. We believe that this is essential, both to prevent aggression and to remove the political, economic and social causes of war through the close and continuing collaboration of all peace-loving peoples.

"The foundations were laid at Dumbarton Oaks. On the important question of voting procedure, however, agreement was not there reached. The present Conference has been able to resolve this difficulty.

"We have agreed that a Conference of United Nations should be called to meet at San Francisco in the United States on the 25th April 1945, to prepare the charter of such an organization, along the lines proposed in the informal conversations of Dumbarton Oaks."

The report further stated that the Government of China and the Provisional Government of France would be invited to sponsor invitations to the Conference jointly with the United States, the United Kingdom and the USSR, and that as soon as consultations with China and France had been completed, the text of the proposals on voting procedure would be made public. China agreed to join in sponsoring the invitations. France agreed to participate in the Conference but decided not to act as a sponsoring nation.

The invitations to the Conference were issued on 5 March 1945 to those nations which had declared war on Germany or Japan by 1 March 1945 and had signed the Declaration by United Nations. The text of the invitation contained the provisions for voting in the Security Council, which were subsequently adopted at San Francisco.