Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, 1945. 22 vols

Comma ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2019 (2) ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Aleksandr Gelfand

Seventy-five years ago (1945), the United Nations (UN) was founded in San Francisco by 50 nations. There, a small archives unit served to assemble the first records of the organization; this was the first iteration of today’s Archives and Records Management Section (ARMS). Throughout its history, the fortunes of the UN Archives have waxed and waned, while its role has continuously evolved. Trying to carve out a place for itself within the largest international organization in the world, its physical and administrative structures have undergone profound changes, as has its mission, number of staff, the type of records it holds and its users. This paper examines significant events in the development of the UN Archives, the challenges it has faced and what may be learned from them.


1965 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 788-811 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis O. Wilcox

Old soldiers may “just fade away” as General Douglas MacArthur reminded us, but the controversy over the relative merits of regionalism and globalism in international organization will ever be with us. That question generated as much heat as any other issue at San Francisco in 1945 with the possible exception of the veto. In more recent years the inadequacies of the United Nations, the changing nature of the Cold War, the growth and expansion of regional organizations, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and the continued shrinking of the universe have kept the heat of this controversy at a relatively high level.


1978 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-410 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mala Tabory

The United Nations Conference on International Organization (San Francisco, 25 April to 26 June 1945) initiated an era of quinquilingualism in the conduct of international organizational affairs, with Chinese, Russian, Spanish, English and French serving as its official languages, and the latter two as its working languages. The text of the United Nations Charter, according to Article 111, is authentic in these five languages. The distinction between official and working languages introduced at San Francisco set the pattern for linguistic practices at the United Nations. Each organ of the United Nations has since adopted language procedures suitable to its requirements, with the practices of the General Assembly initially following the pattern of the same two working languages and five official languages established at San Francisco. According to the rules of procedure of the General Assembly as in force until 1 January 1974, working languages were those in which verbatim records and the Journal were issued and into which all speeches were translated; as for the official languages, all resolutions, important documents and summary records were made available in them, and verbatim records and documents only upon the request of a delegation.Spanish was added to English and French as the third working language of the General Assembly on 7 December 1948. Two proposals for the inclusion of Russian and Chinese respectively among the working languages of the General Assembly were rejected in 1949. The General Assembly's rules of procedure were not further altered in this respect until 21 December 1968, when Russian was included among its working languages. An amendment submitted on that occasion by (Nationalist) China with a view to eliminating the distinction between official and working languages in the General Assembly and Security Council by granting Chinese the status of a working language was rejected. Chinese was included among the working languages of the General Assembly on 18 December 1973. At that point all five Charter languages acquired both official and working language status, and the distinction between the two classes of languages ceased to have practical relevance.


1945 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 664-679 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herbert W. Briggs

The Charter of the United Nations, signed at San Francisco on June 26, 1945, states in Article 2 (1) that “ the Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” Since the outstanding characteristics of the Charter are its recognition of the actual and legal inequality of the Members of the United Nations, and its provisions empowering the Organization to take action, binding on its Members, without their unanimous consent, an understanding of the Charter will be enhanced by placing its dominant features in their conceptual and historical setting.


2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-55
Author(s):  
Jessica Lynne Pearson

This article explores the French delegation’s approach to debates about colonial oversight and accountability that took place at the Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in 1945, where delegates from fifty nations gathered to draft the United Nations (UN) Charter. Drawing on documents from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the UN, and the American press, it argues that while French officials at home and in the empire were eagerly negotiating a new French Union that would put metropolitan France and the colonies on unprecedently equal footing, French delegates to the San Francisco conference were unwilling to take a stand for these reforms-in-progress. Ultimately, French delegates to the conference lacked confidence that the incipient French Union would stand up to international scrutiny as these delegates worked to establish new international standards for what constituted “self-government.”


1970 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. H. Krill de Capello

The history of the creation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) encompasses essentially two international conferences: the Conference of Ministers of Education of the Allied Governments and the French National Committee (CAME) which took pJace in London from 1942 through 1945 and the Conference of the United Nations for the Establishment of an International Organization for Education and Culture, held November 1–16, 1945. The latter conference, called jointly by the governments of France and the United King dom, was partially a result of the former and was also held in London. At this two-week conference UNESCO's constitution was drafted and adopted. In this development a part was played by the founding process of the United Nations whose Charter, adopted at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in June 1945, foresaw the advancement of international cooperation in culture and education. The founding conference of UNESCO considered itself the executor of this mandate. This article will show how the idea of international cultural cooperation was developed during the Second World War at the meetings of CAME, how it was modified by the United States aid policy toward Europe, how it was influenced by French traditions of intellectual cooperation manifested within the framework of the League of Nations, and how it led finally to the creation of a new specialized agency of the United Nations.


Author(s):  
Georgia Lindsay

After over a decade of reports, designs, and public outreach, the United Nations Plaza in San Francisco was dedicated in 1976. Using historical documents such as government reports, design guidelines, letters, meeting minutes, and newspaper articles from archives, I argue that while the construction of the UN Plaza has failed to completely transform the social and economic life of the area, it succeeds in creating a genuinely public space. The history of the UN Plaza can serve both as a cautionary tale for those interested in changing property values purely through changing design, and as a standard of success in making a space used by a true cross-section of urban society.


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