UN Proposal Fulfilling the Mission: Empowering the UN to Live Up to the World’s Expectations

The structure of world peace cannot be the work of one man, or one party, or one Nation. … It must be a peace which rests on the cooperative effort of the whole world. [1] These were the words with which U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt—one of the parents of the United Nations, and indeed, the man who gave the organization its name—addressed the U.S. Congress in March 1945. Roosevelt didn’t live to see the birth of the international organization dedicated to world peace of which he had dreamed. He passed away in April 1945, just one month after speaking these words and a few weeks before the United Nations Conference on International Organization convened to draft the United Nations Charter. At the San Francisco Conference, attended by representatives of fifty nations, there was a surging sense of joy and hope that the birth of this international organization would help humankind break the vicious cycles of war and tragedy, and move the world toward peace and security. The conference was described as a “landmark ” and a “milestone in the long march of man to a better future, ” [2] indicative of the world’s great hope and expectation on the birth of the United Nations. The United Nations Charter was adopted after three months of intensive debate and discussions, and was the culmination of the vow “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind… ” [3