Declaration by United Nations

Wartime poster for the United Nations, created in 1943 by the US Office of War Information.

The Declaration by the United Nations was a World War II document agreed on 1 January 1942 during the Arcadia Conference by 26 governments: the Allied "Big Four"^[1][2] (the US, the UK, the USSR, and China), nine other American countries in North and Central America and the Caribbean, the four British Dominions, British India, and eight Allied governments-in-exile, for a total of twenty-six nations.

The Declaration by United Nations, on 1 January 1942, was the basis of the modern UN.^[3]

Drafting the Declaration

The earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939.^[4] The text of the "Declaration by United Nations" was drafted by President Franklin Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Roosevelt aide Harry Hopkins, while meeting at the White House on 29 December 1941. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries. Roosevelt suggested "United Nations" as an alternative to the name "Associated Powers." Churchill accepted it, noting that the phase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35). The term was first officially used on 1–2 January 1942, when 26 governments signed the Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted.^[5][6] By spring 1945 it was signed by 21 more states.^[7]

The Declaration by United Nations, on 1 January 1942, was the basis of the modern UN.^[3] The term United Nations became synonymous during the war with the Allies and was considered to be the formal name that they were fighting under.^[8] The text of the declaration affirmed the signatories' perspective "that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world". The principle of "complete victory" established an early precedent for the Allied policy of obtaining the Axis' powers' "unconditional surrender". The defeat of "Hitlerism" constituted the overarching objective, and represented a common Allied perspective that the totalitarian militarist regimes ruling Germany, Italy, and Japan were indistinguishable.^[9] The declaration, furthermore, "upheld the Wilsonian principles of self determination," thus linking U.S. war aims in both world wars.^[10]

By the end of the war, 21 other states had acceded to the declaration, including the Philippines, France, every Latin American state except Argentina,^[11] and the various independent states of the Middle East and Africa. Although most of the minor Axis powers had switched sides and joined the United Nations as co-belligerents against Germany by the end of the war, they were not allowed to accede to the declaration. Occupied Denmark did not sign the declaration, but because of the vigorous resistance after 1943, and because the Danish ambassador Henrik Kauffmann had expressed the adherence to the declaration of all free Danes, Denmark was nonetheless invited among the allies in the San Francisco Conference in March 1945.^[12][13][14]

Text

A Joint Declaration By The United States Of America, The United Kingdom Of Great Britain And Northern Ireland, The Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics, China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, South Africa, Yugoslavia

The Governments signatory hereto,

Having subscribed to a common program of purposes and principles embodied in the Joint Declaration of the President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister of Great Britain dated August 14, 1941, known as the Atlantic Charter,

Being convinced that complete victory over their enemies is essential to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice in their own lands as well as in other lands, and that they are now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world,

Declare:

(1) Each Government pledges itself to employ its full resources, military or economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact and its adherents with which such government is at war.

(2) Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto and not to make a separate armistice or peace with the enemies.

The foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism.^[15]

Signatories

Wartime poster for the United Nations, created in 1942 by the US Office of War Information, showing the 26 members of the alliance.

The original signatories were[16]
Big Four[2][17]	Republic of China Soviet Union United Kingdom United States
British Commonwealth	Australia Canada India New Zealand South Africa
Central American and Caribbean powers	Costa Rica Cuba Dominican Republic El Salvador Guatemala Haiti Honduras Nicaragua Panama
In exile	Belgium Czechoslovakia Greece Luxembourg Netherlands Norway Poland Yugoslavia
Later signatories were[16]
1942	Ethiopia Mexico Philippines
1943	Bolivia Brazil Colombia Iran Iraq
1944	France Liberia
1945	Chile Ecuador Egypt Lebanon Paraguay Peru Saudi Arabia Syria Turkey Uruguay Venezuela

The parties pledged to uphold the Atlantic Charter, to employ all their resources in the war against the Axis powers, and that none of the signatory nations would seek to negotiate a separate peace with Nazi Germany or Japan in the same manner that the nations of the Triple Entente had agreed not to negotiate a separate peace with any or all of the Central Powers in World War I under the Unity Pact.

See also

• List of World War II conferences
• 1945 United Nations Conference on International Organization resulted in the creation of the United Nations Charter

Notes

1. Ma, Xiaohua (2003). The Sino-American alliance during World War II and the lifting of the Chinese exclusion acts. New York: Routledge. pp. 203–204. ISBN 0-415-94028-1. JSTOR 41279769.
2. "The Moscow Declaration on general security". Yearbook of the United Nations 1946-1947. Lake Success, NY: United Nations. 1947. p. 3. OCLC 243471225. Retrieved 25 April 2015.
3. Townsend Hoopes; Douglas Brinkley (1997). FDR and the Creation of the U.N. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-06930-3. Retrieved 10 June 2015.
4. Townsend Hoopes and Douglas Brinkley, FDR and the Creation of the U.N. (1997) pp 1-55
5. David Roll, The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler (2013) pp 172-75
6. Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, An Intimate History (1948) pp 447-53
7. Edmund Jan Osmańczyk (2003). Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements: T to Z. Taylor & Francis. p. 2445.
8. The name "United Nations" for the World War II allies was suggested by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States as an alternative to the name "Associated Powers." British Prime Minister Winston Churchill accepted it, noting that the phase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35). Manchester, William; Reid, Paul (2012). The Last Lion: Defender of the Realm. The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill. 3. New York: Little Brown and Company. p. 461. ISBN 978-0-316-54770-3.
9. Bevans, Charles I. Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949. Volume 3. Multilateral, 1931-1945. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1969, p. 697.
10. Thomas A. Bailey The Marshall Plan Summer: An Eyewitness Report on Europe and the Russians in 1947. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977, p. 227.
11. Act of Chapultepec The Oxford Companion to World War II, I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (2001)
15. Text from "The Washington Conference 1941-1942"
16. "The Declaration by United Nations". Yearbook of the United Nations 1946-1947. Lake Success, NY: United Nations. 1947. pp. 1–2. OCLC 243471225. Retrieved 20 April 2015.
17. Ma, Xiaohua (2003). The Sino-American alliance during World War II and the lifting of the Chinese exclusion acts. New York: Routledge. pp. 203–204. ISBN 0-415-94028-1. JSTOR 41279769.

References

• Declaration by the United Nations from ibiblio.
• Declaration by the United Nations
• Declaration by the United Nations