Towards a 'general international organization.' (UN commemorates 50th anniversary of the Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security, October 30, 1943, Moscow, Soviet Union)

As the windy afternoon of 1 November 1993 swirled into night, the General Assembly convened in a special plenary session to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security, adopted in Moscow on 30 October 1943.

The Permanent Representatives of the Russian Federation, the United States, the United Kingdom and China came in turn to the podium of the Assembly Hall and spoke briefly about the importance of the 1943 Moscow Declaration as a major step towards the founding of the UN. They remembered the difficult past and spoke of the challenges facing the Organization.

For nearly two weeks - from the middle of October into early November 1943 - the Foreign Ministers of the United Kingdom, the United States and the USSR had met in Moscow to promote further cooperation between their Governments to bring the Second World War to an end and to plan for a future peace. The draft of what become the "Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security" had been brought from Washington by United States Secretary of State Cordell Hull.

The Moscow Declaration was significant for several reasons. It recognized, among other things, China's role in both waging the war and making the desired peace. By the Declaration, the four Governments publicly committed themselves to continue the fight against Germany, Italy and Japan until the Axis Powers "laid down their arms on the basis of unconditional surrender".

Looking to the future, the four nations declared "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".

Preparing for peace

Behind the commitment to create an organization for "the maintenance of international peace and security" lay four years of intense research, analysis and planning. In September 1939, only days after the outbreak of war in Europe, the United States Department of State began the process of developing policies for dealing with future problems of peace and reconstruction. It established a committee for that purpose shortly before 1939 ended, but the day-to-day demands of wartime foreign affairs slowed that work.

Independent but parallel efforts were also under way in Australia and the United Kingdom. In September 1941, the Government in Canberra made available to Washington a paper on post-war reconstruction planning and asked for comparable studies. The seriousness of the British effort would become apparent at meetings between Great Britain's Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill and United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland, from 9 to 12 August 1941, aboard the American cruiser Augusta and H.M.S. Prince of Wales.

The Atlantic Charter

One outcome of the first meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt was a joint declaration of principles to guide the policies on which their Governments would "base their hopes for a better future for the world". Working from a British draft, the two leaders shaped the joint declaration of 14 August that became known as the "Altantic Charter".

In the original British version, the two Governments would have sought a peace in which an "effective international organization" would enable nations to live in security. president Roosevelt, concerned about American public opinion with regard to the League of Nations, asked that the phrase be deleted. Prime Minister Churchill, thinking of the possible reaction of the British public to the absence of any reference to the creation of an international peacekeeping organization, offered wording, which Mr. Roosevelt accepted, that the disarmament of aggressive nations was essential "pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security". With this single and indirect reference to the creation of an international organization, the Atlantic Charter was issued.

Less than four months later, the United States was plunged into the war. As the conflict ground on, planning for "a general international organization" intensified in Washington, London and elsewhere. By mid-August 1943, two months before the Moscow Conference, a draft charter for the proposed United Nations had been written.