Charter of the United Nations

Flag of the United Nations

The Charter of the United Nations (also known as the UN Charter) of 1945 is the foundational treaty of the United Nations, an intergovernmental organization.The UN Charter articulated a commitment to uphold human rights of citizens and outlined a broad set of principles relating to achieving ‘higher standards of living’, addressing ‘economic, social, health, and related problems,’ and ‘universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.’ As a charter, it is a constituent treaty, and all members are bound by its articles. Furthermore, Article 103 of the Charter states that obligations to the United Nations prevail over all other treaty obligations.

We the people of the United Nations

Quotes

The Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice is an integral part of the Charter.
- Introductory Note, The United Nations

Preamble to the United Nations Charter (excerpt)

World War II poster from the United States on the United Nations - Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations

(full text online)

United Nations Members

The Preamble to the treaty reads as follows:

WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and...

Chapter I: Purposes And Principles

(full text online)

Article 1 (excerpt)

The Purposes of the United Nations are

To maintain international peace and security, to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

Article 2 (excerpt)

The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles:

The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
All Members, in order to ensure, to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.
All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

Quotes about

(Sorted alphabetically by author/source)

Predictably, without any proof whatsoever, and in violation of international law and the United Nations Charter, the US, the UK and France criminally attacked a country, Syria that had not attacked them. These three countries are acting with the barbarism that their vast military arsenals makes not only possible, but tempting... (the scandalous contemporary record of the USA in the use of assassinations of foreign leaders, and their subjects would consume a vast library...Suffice it to mention the more than 23 assassination attempts against Cuban President, Fidel Castro, to which the CIA has admitted, since 1950 the targets of the USA’s assassination attempts have included the Congo’s leader, Patrice Lumumba, Indonesia’s President Sukarno, the democratically elected President of Chile, Salvador Allende, Chilean General Rene Schneider, Bolivian President Torres, murdered in Argentina, Chilean General Carlos Prats, to mention only a few of the targets of assassination by the “intelligence” agencies of the USA.
- Global Research.ca Mass Hysteria Grips the United Nations Security Council: Russophobia Is a Dangerous Psychosis, Carla Stea, Global Research, (1 May 2018)

Following the horrific destruction left in the wake of World War II, the United Nations in its seminal and founding document, the Charter of the United Nations, set out to prevent future wars among member nations. The Charter’s admonition against war was also voiced in the lessons learned from the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals in its condemnation of war: “starting or waging a war against a territorial integrity, political independence or sovereignty of a state, or violation of international treaties or agreements.” are crimes against peace and “makes all war crimes possible.”... The few and the wealthy of many nations are no longer constrained by rules that categorize civilized and enlightened behavior toward other nations such as Venezuela and Iran. They’ve had many nations in their crosshairs and have met with much “success.” Their attacks against Venezuela’s sovereignty are the final nail in the coffin of the endless wars, and the preparation for war, that are now all the rage among the sycophants of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
- Howard Lisnoff The Mother of All Bombs: U.S. Foreign Policy, CounterPunch, (6 February 2019)

Venezuela is absolutely no threat to the U.S., and therefore, the U.N. Charter prohibits the kinds of dangerous and lethal idiocy that the Trump administration is now orchestrating against Venezuela. Readers need to consider that presidents are viewed in a positive light when they are seen as acting in a presidential manner, i.e., threaten or incite war against other nations. Recall the popularity of the newly elected Trump when he ordered the use of the mother of all bombs against Afghanistan. The bipartisan talking heads in the U.S. loved that theatre (“Trump Drops The Mother Of All Bombs On Afghanistan,” New Yorker, April 14, 2017).
- Howard Lisnoff The Mother of All Bombs: U.S. Foreign Policy, CounterPunch, (6 February 2019

Your national representatives... want to invade and intervene in Venezuela – they say... in the name of democracy and freedom. But it’s not like that... is as false as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq... This complex multiform aggression is carried out with total impunity and in clear violation of the Charter of the United Nations, which expressly outlaws the threat or use of force, among other principles... for the sake of peace and the friendly relations between the Nations....
- Nicolás Maduro, President of Venezuela: An Open Letter To The People Of The U.S. From President Nicolás Maduro (10 February 2019)

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday that Washington's threats to Venezuela's military violated the United Nations Charter, and are representative of direct interference in the state's internal affairs.
- Sputnik: US Threats to Venezuelan Military Violate UN Charter - Lavrov, Sputnik (20 Feb 2019)

Seeking to foment a military coup, a popular rebellion, or civil war, the Trump administration has made it clear that the punishment will continue until the current government is ousted. “Maduro must go,” said U.S. Vice President Mike Pence yet again in early March.... All of this is illegal under numerous treaties that the U.S. has signed, including the charter of the United Nations, the charter of the Organization of American States, and other international law and conventions. To legitimize this brutality, which has likely already killed thousands of Venezuelans by reducing access to life-saving goods and services, the Trump administration has presented the sanctions as a consensus of the “international community”—similar to what George W. Bush did when he put together a “coalition of the willing” of 48 countries to support his disastrous 2003 invasion of Iraq.
- Mark Weisbrot in The Reality Behind Trump’s Coalition for Regime Change in Venezuela, The New Republic, (13 March 2019)

US Foreign Policy Is the Greatest Crime Since WWII,” Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Jay Janson, Global Research,(14 February 2018)

“US Foreign Policy Is the Greatest Crime Since WWII,” Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Jay Janson, Global Research,

Back in 1991, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark wrote, “US Foreign Policy is the Greatest Crime Since WWII,” in his book, The Fire This Time – US War Crimes in the Gulf, in which, Attorney Clark cites specific crimes in dozens of nations bombed and invaded by Americans since WW II... Thirteen years later, back in Iraq for the crimes of a second President Bush, Clark declared, that: “American aggression had already created incalculable levels of “misery for the world”; that “the poor of the planet [are] made poorer, dominated and exploited by the foreign policies of the U.S. and its rich allies;” that “the U.S. invasion of Iraq was a war of aggression, an offense called ‘the supreme international crime’ in the Nuremberg Judgment.”

The question arises, ‘how long can indescribably enormous crimes go unpunished?’ How long can the human race, so phenomenally accomplished in science and art, in space exploration and medicine, afford to let this unearthly criminal insanity continue – an indescribably idiotic wholesale extermination of millions of children, women and men?

There are few countries in Latin America that have not experienced the USA both secretly and overtly backing a right wing military government coup... Human suffering has never been of any consequence to the financial interests of that 1/10 of 1 per cent of Americans who, to one degree or another, rule us all.

At Nuremberg in 1945, Nazi Germans and Japanese leaders were held legally accountable for their much shorter run at doing the same as Americans have been doing since these principles were universally signed on to. It is also worth remembering that according to the long since universally adopted Nuremberg Principles of International Law, every single soldier following illegal orders to invade or bomb shall be tried as criminally responsible for his actions.
- “US Foreign Policy Is the Greatest Crime Since WWII,” Former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, Jay Janson, Global Research, (14 February 2018)

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