History of the United Nations
| Author | Alexandre Tavadian |
| Pages | 23-92 |
23
Chapter 1
HISTORY OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Any narrative that purports to be a historical account of certain events
is merely a perspective of the person narrating it. History is con-
structed from evidential traces of the past. As new sources of infor-
mation surface, chronicles are revisited, and history is reconstructed.
It is therefore natural that dierent historians and scholars interpret
historical data dierently and propose several variations of the same
event or period. For this reason, in international relations, contro-
versy is the norm and a universally agreed version of important his-
torical events is the exception.
This chapter is not a comprehensive history of the United Nations
and even less of international relations; it is a glimpse of the events
that gradually shaped the organization, its law, politics, and practice.
This chapter is concerned primarily with the history of the organiza-
tion’s central responsibility — the maintenance of peace and security.
Other important areas of the UN’s work, in particular the work of its
multiple funds, programs, specialized agencies, and related organiza-
tions are mentioned only in passing.
A. THE CREATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS
Like the League of Nations, the establishment of the United Nations
was the initiative of the United States. While the League of Nations
was President Wilson’s idea, the United Nations came into existence
24 | UNITED NATIONS LAW, POLITICS, AND PRACTICE
under the leadership of President Franklin D Roosevelt, who had
instructed his government to begin researching and exploring global
security plans as early as 1939. The United States successfully worked
behind the scenes to secure the consent of the USSR and the United
Kingdom for the creation of a global peace organization. Six years and
ve conferences later, the United Nations Organization was born.
1) The First Conference — Arcadia Conference (1941)
The rst conference, called “Arcadia,” took place between December
1941 and January 1942. Twenty-six governments, including the “Big
Four” (United States, USSR, United Kingdom, and China), gathered
in Washington, DC, and signed the Declaration by United Nations.
In this document, “each government pledge[d] itself to employ its full
resources, military or economic, against”1 the Axis powers and “not
to make separate armistice or peace with the enemies.”2 Nations also
agreed to “subscribe to a common program of purposes and princi-
ples embodied in . . . the Atlantic Charter,” which included the “estab-
lishment of a wider and permanent system of general security.”3
The establishment of a permanent international organization,
such as the United Nations, to replace the League of Nations was
not explicitly envisaged in the United Nations Declaration.4 It is note-
worthy that the adjective “United” in the United Nations as used in the
Declaration did not refer to an international organization. The term
came from the Atlantic Charter of 1941 and referred to nations united
in war against the Axis powers.5 This had a historical signicance,
because three years later, only states that had declared war on Ger-
many and Japan and had subscribed to the United Nations Declara-
tion were invited to San Francisco to take part in the nal conference.
1 Declaration by United Nations (1 January 1942) at para 1.
2 Ibid at para 2.
3 Atlantic Charter (14 August 1941) at para 8.
4 Benedetto Conforti, The Law and Practice of the United Nations (Leiden: Mar-
tinus Nijho, 2005) at 1.
5 Brian Urquhart, A Life in Peace and War (New York: Harper and Row Pub-
lishers, 1987) at 93.
Chapter 1: History of the United Nations | 25
2) The Second Conference — Moscow and Tehran Conferences (1943)
It was only in October 1943 at the Moscow Conference that the estab-
lishment of an international organization was ocially envisaged
and its basis dened.6 The four major allies who participated in the
Moscow Conference recognized “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.”7
The Moscow negotiations continued in Tehran. In November 1943,
when the major allies of World War II met in Tehran, they agreed on
the American idea of “four policemen,” which would require them to
act as a global coalition able to deploy military enforcement powers at
the head of a world assembly.8 Each power undertook to keep order
within its sphere of inuence. The United States was responsible for
ensuring peace in the Western Hemisphere. The United Kingdom was
to ensure oversight in the British Dominions and in Western Europe.
Eastern Europe and Central Asia were assigned to the Soviet Union,
whereas China would be responsible for East Asia and the Western
Pacic. Under German occupation and with the Vichy regime still in
power, France was initially excluded from the group of four; however, at
the insistence of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, the great
powers agreed to include France as the fth member of the group.
3) The Third Conference — Dumbarton Oaks (1944)
The third conference took place at Dumbarton Oaks estate in Wash-
ington, DC, in 1944. The purpose of the Dumbarton Oaks conference
was to lay the groundwork for the United Nations structure. During
this conference, several important issues were decided. In particular,
four principal bodies were agreed on, including a General Assembly
6 Conforti, above note 4 at 2.
7 T he Moscow Declaration on General Security (30 October 1943) at para 4.
8 Norrie MacQueen, The United Nations, Peace Operations and the Cold War, 2d ed
(New York: Routledge, 2011) at 9.
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