Un
Charter
The Charter of the United Nations is the founding document of the United Nations. It was
signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations
Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945.
The United Nations can take action on a wide variety of issues due to its unique
international character and the powers vested in its Charter, which is considered an
international treaty. As such, the UN Charter is an instrument of international law, and
UN Member States are bound by it. The UN Charter codifies the major principles of
international relations, from sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of
force in international relations.
Articles
Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to
take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of
threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression
or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful
means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and
international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes
or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for
the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and
to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international
problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian
character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human
rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to
race, sex, language, or religion; and
4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the
attainment of these common ends.
Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article
1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.
1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality
of all its Members.
2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits
resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations
assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.
3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful
means in such a manner that international peace and security, and
justice, are not endangered.
4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political
independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with
the Purposes of the United Nations.
5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any
action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall
refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United
Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.
6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of
the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as
may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and
security.
7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United
Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the
domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to
submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but
this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement
measures under Chapter Vll
Un
resoluti
ons
The general assembly,
Recalling its resolution 2373 (XXII), of June 12, 1968, relative to the
Treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons,
Taking note of the provisions of Article VIII, paragraph 3, of said
Treaty relating to the holding of successive review conferences,
Noting that in the Final Document of the first Conference of the Parties
in charge of the review, held in Geneva from 5 to 30 October 1975, a
majority of the States Parties to the Treaty proposed to the depositary
governments that a new conference be convened in 1980,
Recalling its resolution 31/75, of December 10, 1976, in which it decided
include in the provisional agenda of its thirty-third session a
topic entitled Application of the conclusions of the first Conference of the
Parties to the Review of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Weapons
nuclear weapons and establishment of a preparatory committee for the
Second Conference",
1. Takes note that, after holding the pertinent consultations,
has set up a preparatory committee made up of Parties to the Treaty on
the
non-proliferation of nuclear weapons who are members of the Board of
Governors
of the International Atomic Energy Agency or who are represented on the
Disarmament Committee;
2. Requests the Secretary-General to facilitate the necessary assistance
and services, including summary records, that may be required for the
Conference in charge of the review and for its preparation.
UN
CHRO
NICLE
INTERNATIONAL DAY AGAINST NUCLEAR TESTS—29
AUGUST 2022
Ending Nuclear Testing to Advance Global Peace and Security
About the author
Robert Floyd
Robert Floyd is Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).
26 August 2022
The spread of nuclear weapons and the threat of their use is
creating well-founded anxiety in all parts of the world. In the face
of current circumstances, it can be difficult to discern the hard-
fought mechanisms and tools in place to address concerns about
the truly global threat posed by these terrible weapons.
In 2009, the United Nations General Assembly brought attention
to the investments made in global peace and security with its
unanimous adoption of resolution 64/35, by which it declared 29
August the International Day against Nuclear Tests. The
resolution recognized that “every effort should be made to end
nuclear tests in order to avert devastating and harmful effects on
the lives and health of people and the environment,” and that
“the end of nuclear tests is one of the key means of achieving the
goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world.”
More than 60 years after the devastating use of nuclear weapons
on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the General Assembly
had acknowledged the need for increased public awareness and
education about the dangers of nuclear testing and the need to
end such tests.
Between 1945 and 1996, more than 2,000 nuclear tests were
conducted at dozens of sites around the world. During that
period, the average explosive yield of nuclear tests each year was
equivalent to nearly 1,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. The tests
helped create weapons that are orders of magnitude more
powerful than those used during the Second World War and have
long-lasting health and environmental consequences.
In 1996, while recognizing that a nuclear arms race was one that
could not be won, States adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-
Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) to ban nuclear tests by anyone,
anywhere, for all time. In the 25 years since the Treaty was
opened for signature, 186 States have signed it and 174 have
ratified it; fewer than a dozen nuclear tests have been conducted,
with only one country carrying out tests this millennium. This
underscores the meaningful and measurable CTBT contribution to
preventing the further spread and use of nuclear weapons.
Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), speaking
at the Fifty-Eighth Session of the CTBTO Preparatory
Commission, Vienna, 27 June 2022. CTBTO Preparatory
Commission
Due to the success of the Treaty, it is often taken for granted that
we live in an age where nuclear testing is recognized as a clear
threat to international peace and security. This is understandable
because for more than two decades, every nuclear test has been
met with near universal condemnation, and nuclear test sites
have been shut down or converted for other national security
purposes.
The adoption of a total ban on nuclear testing was never a
foregone conclusion. More than 40 years passed between the first
call for a stand-still agreement on nuclear testing in 1954 and the
adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty in 1996.
Putting in place a comprehensive, universal, verifiable and non-
discriminatory prohibition on nuclear testing was a momentous
achievement for humanity, and a victory for science and
diplomacy in support of peace and security. We can all be
inspired by the history of the Treaty and the efforts it took to
make it a reality, from the extensive scientific research to the
long hours of negotiations.
This Treaty has already accomplished a lot. The signatures and
ratifications from countries committing themselves to a global
ban on nuclear tests are an essential contribution to our collective
efforts to strengthen the powerful international norm against
nuclear testing and to achieve a world free of such tests.
The CTBT prohibition on nuclear testing is backed by a proven
global verification regime. The lynchpin of this regime—
the International Monitoring System (IMS), with over 300
monitoring facilities around the world—is nearly complete. A
union of ingenuity, engineering and international cooperation, IMS
has demonstrated its ability to meet the verification requirements
of the Treaty on multiple occasions, including detection of all six
nuclear tests conducted this century. The global cooperation
required to design, implement and operate the verification regime
offers a blueprint for how to develop effective multilateral
verification measures.
The verification regime also provides value beyond the core
mission of nuclear test monitoring. The range of applications of
data collected by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty
Organization (CTBTO) are broad and offer myriad benefits for the
global community, from the contribution of real-time data to
tsunami early warning systems to earthquake detection and
climate change research.
While the Treaty has already helped advance the nuclear non-
proliferation and disarmament agenda, we must remain vigilant.
The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the threat of their use
continue to pose unacceptable risks to humanity. There are
nearly 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, and as United
Nations Secretary-General António Guterres noted in his address
to the Tenth Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on
the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (New York, 1–26 August
2022), humanity is “just one misunderstanding, one
miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”
Effective arms control and disarmament measures are the best
tools we have to address this risk, and the Comprehensive
Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and its verification regime are integral to
the non-proliferation and disarmament architecture.