Declaration by United Nations

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The Declaration by United Nations was the main treaty that formalized the Allies of World War II and was signed by 47 national governments between 1942 and 1945. On 1 January 1942, during the Arcadia Conference in Washington D.C., the Allied "Big Four"—the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China—signed a short document which later came to be known as the United Nations Declaration, and the next day the representatives of 22 other nations added their signatures.

The other original signatories on the next day (2 January 1942) were the four dominions of the British Commonwealth (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa); eight European governments-in-exile (Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia); nine countries in the Americas (Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama); and one non-independent government, the British-appointed Government of India.

The Declaration by United Nations became the basis of the United Nations (UN), which was formalized in the UN Charter, signed by 50 countries on 26 June 1945.

Background

The Allies of World War II first expressed their principles and vision for the post-World War II world in the Declaration of St. James's Palace agreed at the First Inter-Allied Conference in June 1941.[1][2] The Anglo-Soviet Agreement was signed in July 1941 forming a military alliance between the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union.[3][4] The two main principles of these agreements, a commitment to the war and renunciation of a separate peace, formed the basis for the later Declaration by United Nations.[5]

The Atlantic Charter was agreed a month later between Britain and the United States, to which the other Allies, now including the Soviet Union, agreed to adhere at the Second Inter-Allied Conference in September.[6][7]

Drafting

The Declaration by United Nations was drafted during the Arcadia Conference at the White House on December 29, 1941, by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Roosevelt's aide Harry Hopkins. It incorporated Soviet suggestions but left no role for France, which was under German occupation at the time.

Roosevelt coined the term "United Nations" to describe the Allied countries and suggested it as an alternative to the name "Associated Powers" (the U.S. was never formally a member of the Allies of World War I but entered the war in 1917 as a self-styled "Associated Power"). Churchill accepted it and noted that the phrase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35).[8][9][10]

The parties pledged to uphold the Atlantic Charter, to employ all their resources in the war against the Axis powers, and not to seek to negotiate a separate peace with any of them; similarly, the Allied nations had agreed not to negotiate a separate peace with the Central Powers in World War I.

One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted.[11][12]

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.[13]

The declaration, furthermore, was consistent with the Wilsonian principles of self determination, thus linking U.S. war aims in both world wars.[14]

Adoption

The Declaration was officially signed on 1 January 1942 by the Big Four —the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China—followed the next day by representatives of 22 other governments. 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.[15][16][17]

The Declaration by United Nations became the basis of the modern United Nations.[18] By the end of the war, 21 other states had acceded to the declaration, including the Philippines (a non-independent, US commonwealth at the time), France, every Latin American state except Argentina,[19] 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.[5][20]

Text

File:"Declaration by the United Nations" - NARA - 514106.jpg
Declaration by United Nations

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Signatories

File:United Nations Fight for Freedom poster.jpg
Wartime poster for the United Nations, created by the US Office of War Information
File:Original United Nations.jpg
Wartime poster for the Allies of World War II, created in 1942 by the US Office of War Information, showing the 26 members of the alliance
Original signatories[21]
Big Four[17][22] Template:Unbulleted list
Dominions of the British Commonwealth Template:Unbulleted list
Independent countries in the Americas Template:Unbulleted list
European governments-in-exile Template:Unbulleted list
Non-independent subjects of the British Empire Template:Flagdeco India
Later signatories[21]
1942 Template:Unbulleted list
1943 Template:Unbulleted list
1944 Template:Unbulleted list
1945 Template:Unbulleted list

See also

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Notes

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References

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  6. ↑ "The Inter-Allied Council Meeting in London." Bulletin of International News 18, no. 20 (1941): 1275-280. Accessed April 5, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/25643120.
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  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 phrase was used by Lord Byron in the poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (Stanza 35). Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ David Roll, The Hopkins Touch: Harry Hopkins and the Forging of the Alliance to Defeat Hitler (2013) pp 172–175
  12. ↑ Robert E. Sherwood, Roosevelt and Hopkins, An Intimate History (1948) pp 447–453
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. ↑ Thomas A. Bailey The Marshall Plan Summer: An Eyewitness Report on Europe and the Russians in 1947. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1977, p. 227.
  15. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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  17. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ "Act of Chapultepec". The Oxford Companion to World War II, I. C. B. Dear and M. R. D. Foot (2001)
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
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