Charter of the United Nations

The Charter of the United Nations is the constituent instrument of the United Nations Organization, signed at San Francisco on 26 June 1945 by 50 of the 51 original member states (Poland signed later) at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and entering into force on 24 October 1945 — now observed annually as United Nations Day — once ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council and a majority of other signatories. It superseded the Covenant of the League of Nations and absorbed the Statute of the International Court of Justice as an annexed integral part. Its drafting was prefigured by the Atlantic Charter (1941), the Declaration by United Nations (1942), the Moscow and Tehran Conferences (1943), and the Dumbarton Oaks Conversations (1944), with the great-power voting formula settled at the Yalta Conference (February 1945). The Charter is a treaty registered under its own Article 102, and Article 103 establishes its supremacy over conflicting obligations under any other international agreement.

The Charter comprises a Preamble ("We the peoples of the United Nations…") and 111 articles across 19 chapters. Article 1 sets out the purposes — maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations based on self-determination, and achieving international cooperation — while Article 2 enumerates the governing principles, including the sovereign equality of states (Art. 2(1)), the prohibition on the threat or use of force (Art. 2(4)), and non-intervention in domestic jurisdiction (Art. 2(7)). It creates six principal organs: the General Assembly (Chapters IV), the Security Council (Chapter V), the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. Chapter VI governs pacific settlement of disputes; Chapter VII confers binding enforcement powers including sanctions (Art. 41) and military action (Art. 42), preserving the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence under Article 51. Chapter VIII recognizes regional arrangements, and amendment requires a two-thirds Assembly vote ratified by two-thirds of members including all five permanent members (Art. 108–109).

In its current (2026) status the Charter binds 193 member states, the most recent admission being South Sudan in 2011. It has been formally amended only three times — enlarging the Security Council from 11 to 15 members and ECOSOC's membership (Articles 23, 27, 61, 109) between 1965 and 1973. The "enemy state" clauses (Articles 53, 77, 107) remain textually intact though obsolete. Persistent reform debates concern the permanent-member veto and Security Council expansion, pressed by the G4 (India, Brazil, Germany, Japan) and the African Union's Ezulwini Consensus.

For the examinations the Charter is foundational to the Global Institutions and Diplomacy & Statecraft papers, and to UPSC GS-II (international relations) and FSOT world-history segments. Question angles typically test the distinction between Chapter VI and Chapter VII powers, the Article 2(4)–Article 51 force regime, the veto under Article 27(3), Article 103 supremacy, and the dates of signature versus entry into force. Candidates should memorize the six principal organs, the amendment threshold, and the Uniting for Peace Resolution 377 (1950) as a workaround to Security Council paralysis.