Creation of the United Nations

Introduction

On October 24, 1945, the Charter of the United Nations came into force, establishing the United Nation’s structure, principles, and purpose. The new organization was the culmination of a yearslong effort led by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had died six months earlier. The objective had been to address the failures of the League of Nations, which was created after World War I, by developing a new international institution that could formalize common efforts to maintain global peace and security, develop friendly international relations, and tackle economic, social, cultural, humanitarian, and public health problems worldwide. Although the United Nations has fallen short of fulfilling Roosevelt’s lofty goals, its role as a forum of international debate, its many peacekeeping operations, and its wide-ranging humanitarian activities nonetheless mark its founding as a major triumph for the United States. SHAFR historians ranked the creation of the United Nations as the second-best U.S. foreign policy decision.

World War II pushed the League of Nations onto the ash heap of history. However, the outbreak of war only strengthened Roosevelt’s conviction that an effective collective security organization was needed. He had championed the League of Nations when he was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in 1920. But he quickly grew disillusioned with one aspect of Wilson’s handiwork— the rule requiring unanimity among members before the league could act. As early as 1923, Roosevelt was calling for the rule’s termination because it empowered a numerical minority to block the will of the majority, an observation that proved prophetic a decade later. Rather than abandon the idea of collective security, Roosevelt wanted to find a way to make it work with the realities of great power politics.

Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 returned Roosevelt’s focus to the question of how to make collective security work. He was committed to seeing the United States play a leading role in a new international organization that would maintain world peace. In August 1941, Roosevelt met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Newfoundland to discuss the war. The United States was still officially neutral, but the two leaders nonetheless issued a joint declaration outlining their vision for a postwar world. Known as the Atlantic Charter, the declaration included a provision calling for a peace that would enable all people to “live out their lives in freedom from fear and want.” Roosevelt suggested to Churchill privately that the new institution should be called the United Nations.

A week after the San Francisco Conference ended, Truman traveled to Capitol Hill to personally ask the Senate to consent to the UN Charter. He told his former Senate colleagues that the charter “comes from the reality of experience in a world where one generation has failed twice to keep the peace. The lessons of that experience have been written into this document.”

Truman avoided Wilson’s fate with the Treaty of Versailles, in good part because Roosevelt’s concerted effort to involve Congress in charter negotiations had paid off. Enthusiasm for creating the United Nations was widespread both in the Senate and among the American public. On July 28, 1945, the Senate voted 89 to 2 to approve the Charter. Ratification of the UN Charter was equally speedy in other capitals. The United Nations was officially established on October 24, 1945, after twenty-nine nations ratified the Charter.

The creation of the United Nations changed world politics, though not as much as its advocates hoped. Its record at preventing and resolving conflict is checkered at best. Collective security remains elusive for many of the same reasons that bedeviled the League of Nations; enforcement tools are weak, countries frequently disagree over how to respond to aggression or who the aggressor is, and their interest in acting typically declines the further a conflict is from their borders. Meanwhile, the veto power that Roosevelt endorsed prevents united action except in rare instances in which the five permanent members agree. As a result, the United Nation’s greatest successes in promoting security typically lie with smaller conflicts where the veto-wielding powers have marginal interests or the parties themselves want help maintaining ceasefires and stabilizing conflict zones.

By the same token, the United Nations and its component agencies have had considerable success in reducing childhood mortality, eradicating smallpox, feeding millions faced with famine, and elevating the prominence of human rights. Just as important, the United Nations has reshaped diplomacy by creating a venue where every country is nominally equal and has the right to negotiate and speak and by making it easier for countries, especially smaller ones, to coordinate and cooperate. Indeed, the United Nations remains the one international organization where all countries go to make their case to the world.