The United Nations — Purposes, Principles and Membership — Public International Law Notes

The United Nations — Purposes, Principles and Membership

On 26 June 1945, delegates of fifty nations gathered in the San Francisco Opera House and signed a document that opens with four unforgettable words — “We the peoples of the United Nations”. The League of Nations had just failed to stop a second world war; the drafters were determined the new body would not fail the same way. The Charter came into force on 24 October 1945 — still celebrated as United Nations Day. Everything in this unit flows from that one instrument: it names the purposes, lays down the principles, and creates the organs you are about to study.

What the United Nations is, and the constitutional core of the Charter

The United Nations Organisation (UNO) is a general international organisation of States, created by the Charter of the United Nations (1945) — a multilateral treaty that is also the “constitution” of the organisation. Think of the Charter as a company’s memorandum of association: it states the objects of the body (the purposes), the rules of conduct for its members (the principles), and the organs through which it acts. Learn it in three parts: purposes, principles, and membership.

A. Purposes (Article 1)

The Charter opens by stating four purposes — why the UN exists:

To maintain international peace and security — and to that end to take effective collective measures to prevent and remove threats to the peace, and to suppress acts of aggression. This is the first and dominant purpose.
To develop friendly relations among nations, based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
To achieve international co-operation in solving economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems, and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
To be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

B. Principles (Article 2)

Article 2 lays down the seven principles that bind the Organisation and its members in pursuing those purposes:

Sovereign equality of all members.
Good faith — members must fulfil their Charter obligations in good faith (pacta sunt servanda [agreements must be kept] applied to the Charter).
Peaceful settlement of international disputes, so that peace, security and justice are not endangered.
No threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State (Art. 2(4)) — the cornerstone prohibition of modern international law.
Assistance to the UN in any action it takes under the Charter, and no assistance to a State against which the UN is taking preventive or enforcement action.
Ensuring that non-member States act in accordance with these principles so far as necessary for peace.
Non-intervention — nothing authorises the UN to intervene in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any State (Art. 2(7)), except enforcement measures under Chapter VII.

C. Membership — admission, suspension, expulsion

Original members — the States that signed the Charter at San Francisco or had signed the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations (Art. 3).
Admission of new members (Art. 4) — open to all other peace-loving States which (i) accept the obligations of the Charter and (ii) are, in the UN’s judgment, able and willing to carry them out. Admission is by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council — so a permanent member’s veto in the Council can block admission.
Suspension (Art. 5) — a member against which the Security Council is taking preventive or enforcement action may be suspended from the rights and privileges of membership by the GA on the SC’s recommendation; those rights may be restored by the SC.
Expulsion (Art. 6) — a member which has persistently violated the Charter’s principles may be expelled by the GA on the SC’s recommendation. (In practice no member has ever been expelled.)

Article 2(4), UN Charter (1945): “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.”

Article 4(1), UN Charter (1945): “Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.”

In Simple Terms: The UN exists chiefly to keep the peace, and to do it by getting States to co-operate rather than fight. Its members promise to treat each other as sovereign equals, settle quarrels peacefully, and never use force against one another (Art. 2(4)) — while the UN in turn promises not to meddle in a State’s purely internal affairs (Art. 2(7)). To join you must be a peace-loving State willing to keep the Charter, admitted by the Assembly on the Council’s recommendation; break the rules badly enough and you can be suspended (Art. 5) or, in theory, expelled (Art. 6).

🧩 WORKED EXAMPLE — a State’s application to join is blocked in the Council

Facts. State X, a newly independent and peaceful State, applies for UN membership. Fourteen members of the Security Council favour admission, but one permanent member casts a negative vote.

Rule. Admission requires a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council (Art. 4(2)); a recommendation on admission is a substantive (non-procedural) matter, so it needs the concurring votes of all five permanent members (Art. 27(3)).

Apply. The decoy is that fourteen of fifteen members support X, so admission “obviously” succeeds. But one permanent member’s negative vote is a veto: without the Council’s positive recommendation the GA cannot admit X, however lopsided the vote.

Conclusion. X cannot be admitted while the veto stands. (This is exactly what the ICJ confirmed in the Admission of a State advisory opinion, 1948 — the GA cannot admit without a favourable SC recommendation.)

flowchart TD
    A["United Nations (Charter, 1945)"]
    A --> B["Purposes (Art. 1):<br/>peace & security; friendly relations;<br/>co-operation; centre for harmonising"]
    A --> C["Principles (Art. 2):<br/>sovereign equality; good faith;<br/>peaceful settlement; no force (2(4));<br/>non-intervention (2(7))"]
    A --> D["Membership"]
    D --> D1["Admission (Art. 4): peace-loving,<br/>accept & able/willing — GA on SC recommendation"]
    D --> D2["Suspension (Art. 5)"]
    D --> D3["Expulsion (Art. 6)"]
    classDef box fill:#e8f0fe,stroke:#333,color:#111;
    class A,B,C,D,D1,D2,D3 box;

Case Laws

Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the UN (1949, ICJ, Advisory Opinion) — the UN has international legal personality and the capacity to bring international claims; the Charter created a subject of international law distinct from its members.
Conditions of Admission of a State to Membership (1948, ICJ, Advisory Opinion) — the five conditions in Art. 4(1) are exhaustive; a member may not make admission depend on extraneous political conditions.
Competence of the General Assembly for the Admission of a State (1950, ICJ, Advisory Opinion) — the GA cannot admit a State without a favourable recommendation from the Security Council; the two organs’ roles under Art. 4(2) are cumulative.

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