United Nations, Jun 27 (UNI) Reaffirming faith in human rights, promoting social justice and saving the world from the “scourge of war”: just some of the founding principles of the United Nations, which appear in the Organisation’s bedrock Charter, signed exactly 74 years ago in San Francisco.
To mark the occasion, a special event took place in the General Assembly Hall at UN Headquarters in New York, on Tuesday, which also served as an opportunity to launch activities commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Organisation, which will be celebrated next year.
In her opening address, María Fernanda Espinosa, President of the General Assembly, reminded delegates that the Charter, when it was signed in 1945, carried the “hopes of a world tired by war”. While it is easy to see the Charter as an “idealistic endeavour from another time”, she said, its founders were not dreamers, but hard-headed leaders who “weighed the downside of compromise against the benefits of cooperation and the heavy cost of war.”