The document summarizes the genesis and establishment of the United Nations. It describes how planning for a postwar international organization began during World War II by both government agencies and private organizations. The major Allied powers agreed to preliminary proposals at Dumbarton Oaks and Yalta to lay the groundwork. At the founding conference in San Francisco, smaller states pushed back against the power of the permanent Security Council members but ultimately had to accept their dominant role, while securing some concessions. The UN Charter was finalized and went into effect upon sufficient ratification.

1. Chp. 3
The Genesis of the United Nations

2. The Genesis of the United Nations
 Just as WWI led to the formation of the League of Nations,
World War II led to the establishment of the United
Nations. In each case, both states-people and scholars tried
to develop ways of maintaining peace and stability when
the war ended.
 Despite the desire for peace, there were many conservative
elements working to prevent the creation of an
international organization radically different from any that
existed before the war: nationalism, existing international
relationships, the desire to continue and promote national
and individual economic, social, political and ideological
interests; and suspicion and fear of alien political and
cultural system in a hostile world climate.

3. The Genesis of the United Nations
 The United Nations is a balance of conservatism and change.
Because the League of Nations had failed to prevent war, the UN
Charter sought to correct the League Covenant’s deficiencies.
 The architects of the UN also wanted to convince others that the
UN was a new creation and not just a revised League. At the
same time however, the negotiators were unwilling, and perhaps
unable to think in terms other than those of nationalism,
national sovereignity, national interests and established patterns
of international relationships. The result was no more radical
than a new automobile model might be, in which the lines
and trim are different, but basic engineering is the same.

4. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 With much of Europe overrun by Axis military forces or
under the threat of annihilation by bombing, a greater
proportion of postwar planning was concentrated in the
United States during the World War II than during World
War I.
 Dozens of private organizations in the United States
generated ideas and plans for a peace-maintaining
organization and reacted to proposals from other sources.
The State Department created some modest planning
machinery by January 1940 and gradually intensified
postwar planning efforts as the deadline approached for
translating ideas into a finished Charter.

5. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 A number of American civil society organisations have
been involved in the planning stage. This high degree
of interest of concerned citizens in setting up a new
international organization was sustained throughout
the period of the drafting of the UN charter at San
Francisco and continued into the initial years of the
new organization.
 The impetus for a postwar international organizations
was not confined to the United States. Similar
initiatives were undertaken in Britain and Canada too.

6. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 From this review of planning activities, it is evident
that government agencies could draw upon a wide
cross section of concerned and informed opinions in
formulating postwar organization plans.
 The US State Department gathered, organized, and
analyzed the proposals from dozens of Department
gathered, organized and analzed the proposals from
dozens of Department gathered, organized and
analyzed the proposals from dozens of sources and
incorporated some of the ideas into the official
planning process.

7. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 The willingness of American leaders to help create and
to play a leading role in a general international
organization represented a significant departure from
the refusal of the United States to join the League of
Nations. President Roosevelt and Secretary of State
Cordell Hull were committed to the establishment of a
general international organization and were
determined to avoid the disillusioning experience of
President Wilson with the League of Nations.
Congressional leaders of both major political parties
declared their support for a postwar organization.

8. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 In September 1943, the House of Representatives
passed the Fullbright Resolution, favouring the
creation of postwar international peace-maintaining
machinery and participation therein by the United
States. A corresponding resolution sponsored by
Senator Connally was adopted by the Senate in early
November.

9. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 Although the State Department initiated postwar
planning activities in January 1940, the most intensive
and important work in this area began after US
involvement in the war against the Axis. A new
Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, with
an elaborate system of subcommitees was established ,
in 1942 within the department. Most of the personnel
for these committees were co-opted from both public
and private sectors outside the State Department.

10. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 During the period 1940-43, the pressures for a postwar
organization of a regional or a decentralized nature seemed
dominant. During these years President Roosevelt favoured
a decentralized system of agencies for nonsecurity matters
and advocated “great power” responsibility for curbing
agression.
 Winston Churchill leaned toward a regional approach to
peace maintenance, and early British plans reflected this
bias.
 By late 1943 a global approach seemed assured, with
accomodation within the comprehensive organization for
separate and cooperating regional and functional
organizations.

11. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 World attention was focused upon postwar planning
through a series of meetings of the major Allied states.
Each of these meetings resulted in the signing and
proclamation of a document declarative of postwar goals:
 Inter-Allied Declaration signed in London in June 1941 by
representatives of British Commonwealth governments
and European governments-in exile. Without referring
specifically to the establishment of an international
organization, the signatories pledged their cooperation in
working for the elimination of the threat of agression and
in striving for economic and social security for all free
people.

12. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 Two months later President Roosevelt and Prime
Minister Churchill met and agreed upon the terms of a
document referred to as the Atlantic Charter.
Churchill was persistent in pushing for a reference to
the establishment of an “effective international
organization”.
 Roosevelt considered the phrase too strong but finally
accepted the principle that aggressor nations should
be disarmed “pending the establishment of a wider
and permanent system of general security”.

13. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 The Atlantic Charter was promulgated before the
United States entered the war, but in January 1942 the
representatives of 26 nations allied against the Axis
powers signed the Declaration by United Nations in
Washington, D.C. This document included the first
use of the term United Nations, and in it the
signatories subscribed to the principles of the Atlantic
Charter as their war-and-peace aims, in addition to a
pledge of full cooperation and effort in defeating the
Axis states. As they later became involved in the war, a
score of additional states adhered to the declaration.

14. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 On October 30, 1943, the foreign ministers of the USSR and
the United Kingdom, US Secretary of State Hull, and the
Chinese ambassador to the Soviet Union issued a
declaration in Moscow that, for the first time, clearly
pledged their efforts for the establishment of a general
international organization.
 One month after the Moscow Declaration, President
Roosevelt, Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill,
meeting in Teheran announced that they recognize their
responsibility and the responsibility of all the United
Nations to banish the terror of war and make peace.

15. Preliminary Stages of Postwar Planning
 From this series of declarations it is apparent that by
the end of 1943 the leaders of the major powers were
committed to the establishment of a postwar general
international organization. The task that remained
was the formulation of detailed plans to which a large
number of governments could subsribe. This process
involved not only compromise among the divergent
views and interests of the big powers but also the
eventual resolution of some of the differences between
the goals of the small and the large states.

16. The Dumbarton Oaks Conversations
 By 1944, there was a decision to organise a conference
amongst the big powers. The purpose of this conference
would be to produce a tentative or preliminary draft of a
constitution for a postwar international organization,
subject to further elaboration and modification by an
expanded conference of Allied and neutral states.
 The meetings were held at Dumbarton Oaks, an extensive
estate in the Georgetown section of Washington, D.C. US,
Britain, Soviet Union and China took part. The informal
conversations at Dumbarton Oaks may be characterized as
a working conference of a technical nature at a fairly higly
diplomatic level.

17. The Dumbarton Oaks Conversations
 The Dumbarton Oaks conversations brought about
substantial agreement on the major elements of a plan for
an international organization. The final document
published in October 4, 1944 was not complete, but it
served as the fundamental framework of the emerging
United Nations.
 The dominance of great powers in the war effort was to be
carried over into the peace maintenance measures for the
postwar period. The central organ for this purpose was to
be a Security Council in which the US, Great Britain,
France, The Soviet Union and China would have
permanent membership.

18. The Dumbarton Oaks Conversations
 The agreements provided for three other major organs:
a General Assembly, a Secretariat, and a Court. Except
for the incorporation of the Court into the general
organization, the basic structure was similar to that of
the League of Nations. Yet there were a number of gaps
to be filled yet.

19. Yalta Conference
 In early 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin accompanied
by their foreign ministers, met at Yalta in the Crimea to
discuss both a wide range of subjects relating to the war
and postwar plans.
 The most important decision regarding the United Nations
was the acceptance of the US proposals for the voting
formula in the Security Council. Under this formula,
unanimity of the big powers would be required on
substantive matters, including any enforcement action in
response to a breach or threat to the peace or act of
agression, but none of the permanent members could use
the power of veto to block a procedural vote and a party to
dispute was required to abstain on a decision by the
Security Council to discuss the dispute.

20. Discontent with the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals
 Rumblings of discontent with the Dumbarton Oaks
proposals became apparent soon when the Latin
American representatives expressed their criticisms at
a special Inter-American Conference on Problems of
Peace and War held in Mexico City from February 21 to
March 8, 1945. The attitudes expressed gave notice of
the battles to come between the large and smaller
states regarding the structure of the UN.

21. The San Francisco Conference
 The United Nations Conference on International
Organization (UNCIO) opened in San Francisco on
April 25, 1945.
 All 46 states that had adhered to the UN Declaration
and that had declared war on one or more Axis powers
accepted the limitation to participate and by
agreement of the participants, Argentina, Byelorussia,
the Ukraine and Denmark were added to the roster.

22. The San Francisco Conference
 In this conference, the smaller states made their most concerted
attack on the voting formula in the Security Council. The attack
was led by H. V. Evatt, Australian Minister for External Affairs,
and was joined by spokepersons from most of the other medium
and small states.
 The objections were both to the principle of a privileged position
for the five permanent members of the Security Council and to
the lack of clarity concerning the application of the veto in
specific situations.All attempts at modification of the formula
were rebuffed by the major powers. In the end the smaller states
had to accept the formula without change. The applicability of
the veto even outside the strict areas of peace and security, such
as Charter amendment, admission of members, and selection of
a Secretary-General, withstood all attacks and remained a
bastion great-power privilege.

23. The San Francisco Conference
 Although the smaller states were unsuccesful in
removing the veto power from the process of
amending the Charter, they received some concessions
toward calling a review conference to revise the
Charter. A provision was made that such a conference
could be called at any time by a two-thirds vote in the
General Assembly and by a vote of any seven members
of the Security Council.

24. The San Francisco Conference
 The chapter on regional arrangements was redrafted at
San Francisco to strengthen the emphasis on the
importance of regional organizations in the peaceful
settlement of disputes and in enforcement actions.
The most significant change resulting from small scale
pressure was the recognition in Article 51 of the
Charter of the right of collective self defense in cases in
which the Security Council was immobilized.

25. The San Francisco Conference
 One of the greatest accomplishments of the small states in
San Francisco was the drafting of Chapter XI of the Charter,
entitled “Declaration Regarding Non Self Governing
Territories”. This unprecedented statement has been hailed
as a bill of rights for all politically dependent peoples. It
contained the key principle that in the administration of
such territories the interests of the inhabitants’ political,
economic, social and educational welfare. It further
obligated the administering states to transmit regular
reports to the Secretary-General on the economic, social
and educational conditions in these territories. (Eventually,
the General Assembly adopted a declaration stating that all
peoples have a right to independence and selfdetermination in 1960).

26.  The Charter provided that it would become effective
upon ratification by the five permanent members of
the Security Council and by a majority of the other
signatories. The Charter was signed by representatives
of all the participating states on June 26, 1945. By
October 1945, the required number of ratification had
been deposited with the US government, and the
Charter came into force.