United Nations Charter

In a daylong ceremony on June 26, 1945, the nations that participated in the United Nations Conference on International Organization, representing more than 80 percent of the world's population, signed the United Nations Charter at the Veterans Building in San Francisco, California. The first nation to sign was China, which was also the first nation to have been attacked in World War II (by Japan). In the months that followed, the participating nations ratified the charter, which entered into force on October 24, 1945.

The United Nations Charter was the result of two months of work that stretched from April 25 to June 26, 1945, as World War II was coming to an end. The four nations that sponsored the conference—China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the United States—invited delegations from nations that were at war with one of the Axis powers (by that time, Japan and Nazi Germany and their allies) and that had adhered to the Declaration by United Nations of January 1942, a document considered to be the forerunner of the United Nations. Ultimately, fifty nations participated. (Poland, still under the control of Germany, did not attend but later signed and thus was one of fifty-one original members.) The delegations arrived in San Francisco having been given the text of the Dumbarton Oaks agreements.

These agreements were the outcome of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference held in 1944 in Washington, D.C., where the World War II Allies agreed in principle to the framework for the United Nations. They were used as starting points for discussion, and throughout the course of the Conference on International Organization, the delegates, meeting in committees and plenary sessions, discussed and debated each provision of the proposed charter. The discussions were often marked by tension, for each nation had its own interests, cultural traditions, form of government, and other institutions that influenced its views. Finally, at 5:00 AM on June 25, 1945, the drafters of the charter, having worked through the night, completed the document.