The Charter of the United Nations was signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 and entered into force on 24 October 1945, a date now celebrated as United Nations Day. It is the constituent treaty of the United Nations and the closest thing the international community has to a constitution.
Purposes and Principles
Article 1 sets out the purposes of the organisation: to maintain international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among nations based on equal rights and self-determination of peoples, to achieve international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights, and to be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations.
Article 2 establishes the principles on which states must act, including the sovereign equality of all members, the fulfilment in good faith of Charter obligations, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and, in Article 2(4), the prohibition of the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.
The Principal Organs
The Charter creates six principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat. Under Article 25, members agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council, and under Article 103, Charter obligations prevail over conflicting obligations under any other international agreement.
Why It Matters in Daily Life
The Charter's commitment to human rights and self-determination underpins the post-war order of independent states, including the decolonisation movement from which Indonesia emerged. Its principles of non-intervention and peaceful dispute settlement shape how governments conduct foreign policy, trade and security cooperation.
Indonesia and the Charter
Indonesia was admitted as the sixtieth member of the United Nations on 28 September 1950. The Preamble to the 1945 Constitution commits the state to participate in establishing a world order based on freedom, lasting peace and social justice, a commitment that resonates with the purposes of the Charter.