General Assembly marks sixtieth anniversary of UN Charter

With solemn music and pleas for urgent reform, with expressions of pride in the past and hope for the future, the United Nations today held a special commemorative session in the General Assembly Hall at its Headquarters in New York to mark the 60th anniversary of the signing of its Charter.

“The words we have just heard – the words of the preamble to our Charter – are engraved on the collective memory of mankind,” said Secretary-General Kofi Annan, following a reading of the preamble by UN tour guides and a musical presentation from the United Nations Singers.

“Over 60 years, the United Nations has striven to redeem those pledges,” he added, reviewing the successes and failures of the Organization in keeping and building peace, protecting human rights and promoting respect for justice and the rule of law.

He said that in a new century, the UN faces new threats and challenges, but also new opportunities, with the “better standards of life in larger freedom,” as mentioned in the Charter, now within mankind’s reach. To reach them, he said, the Organization must advance on all three fronts: development, security and human rights.

General Assembly President Jean Ping of Gabon said that 60 years after its entry into force in October 1945, the Charter has not lost either its force or the relevance of its vision, and continues to guide the action of the Organization in the face of challenges and threats with which our world is challenged.

“This commemoration is then a new occasion to reaffirm our dedication to the goals and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, in promoting development, in rejecting war as a way of settling differences between nations, and in condemning without reservation all violations of the most basic human rights,” he said.

The UN Charter was signed on 26 June, 1945 by 50 nations in San Francisco, California. Its preamble 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 to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples –

“have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims.

“Accordingly, our respective Governments, through representatives assembled in the city of San Francisco, who have exhibited their full powers found to be in good and due form, have agreed to the present Charter of the United Nations and do hereby establish an international organization to be known as the United Nations.”