The UN Charter

JUN 26 1945 · 12:00

Delegates of 50 founding states convene at the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, spring 1945. Place: War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, San Francisco Figures: Edward Stettinius, United States · V.M. Molotov, Soviet Union · Anthony Eden, United Kingdom · T.V. Soong, Republic of China · Georges Bidault, France · 50 founding member states The Five Permanent Vetoes Article 27 of the Charter: substantive decisions of the Security Council require the concurring votes of all five permanent members. The veto is not an oversight or a Cold War concession. It is the structural reservation of Great Power sovereignty within a planetary institution. Westphalia within Cosmopolis. Each veto preserves an emperor. Wilson's 1919 League had aimed at majoritarian collective security; the United States blocked it precisely because that majoritarianism could bind US action. Roosevelt's 1945 UN learns from that failure. The Great Powers get a permanent seat and a veto; in exchange, they actually join. Sovereign Equality and Its Limits Article 2.1 enshrines the sovereign equality of all its Members. Article 2.7 forbids UN intervention in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state. The Westphalian principle of 1648 is now in a planetary charter, ratified within months by 50 states and eventually by 193. The article will be stress-tested across decolonization (most of Africa joins the UN as new sovereign states between 1957 and 1980), Korea (1950, the only major UN-authorized war), Suez (1956), the Cuban missile crisis (1962), Vietnam, Iraq (1991 and 2003), Kosovo (1999), Libya (2011), Crimea (2014), Ukraine (2022). The Charter's text holds; the practice strains, and strains, and strains. Video: British Pathé newsreel from the United Nations Conference on International Organization. Delegates of the fifty founding states sign the Charter, San Francisco, 26 June 1945.