UN Charter: Eighty years of a fragile miracle
By Andrea Tornielli
Eighty years have passed—and the UN Charter is feeling every one of them.
On June 26, 1945, the Charter of the United Nations was signed in San Francisco. The Preamble sets out the goal to "save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” and “promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
The signatories were representatives of 50 countries emerging from the most catastrophic—and not yet concluded—world war in human history. That war claimed the macabre record of around 50 million deaths, most of them civilians.
Eighty years later, this institution—a 'temple' of multilateralism, whose very purpose lies in prioritizing negotiation over the use of force, in maintaining peace, and in upholding international law—shows all its wrinkles.
Yet, the UN's creation represented a true miracle, one that occurred in the American city named after the Saint of Assisi. This fragile miracle is in a way like the glass of the UN's "Glass Palace," but it is one that has produced significant achievements: the codification and development of international law, the construction of the human rights framework, the refinement of humanitarian law, the resolution of numerous conflicts, and many peacekeeping and reconciliation missions.
Today, more than ever, we are in need of this fragile miracle. We must make it less fragile, believe in it—as the Successors of Peter have believed, visiting the UN Headquarters from 1965 to 2015, recognizing the United Nations as the appropriate legal and political response for the times in which we live—times marked by technological power that, in the hands of ideology, can produce horrific atrocities.
A few days ago, speaking at a conference at the University of Padua, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto spoke with clear realism. “We must guard the achievements of years that have led us to codify international law, which is totally different from an international order and very often in opposition to it. Because the international order,” the minister added, “is normally imposed by someone, by the strongest, who can decide that in some cases that law does not matter. That’s what we are living now… This is because multilateralism has died, and the UN matters in the world about as much as Europe does: nothing!”
It doesn’t take much imagination to understand what he’s referring to. Just look at what has happened over the past three years: from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine to Hamas’ inhumane October 7 attack on Israel; from the war that razed Gaza, turning it into a ghostly heap of rubble and corpses, to the alarming conflict between Israel and Iran that drew in the United States as well.
Sadly, it is true: the international order is imposed by the strongest, who decide when to proclaim and when to ignore international and humanitarian law, depending on what suits them.
That is why, eighty years after the beginning of that fragile miracle, we repeat with the voice of ĐÓMAPµĽş˝ Leo XIV the “more urgent than ever” words of the prophet Isaiah: “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”
“Let this voice from on high be heard,” said the ĐÓMAPµĽş˝. “Let the wounds caused by the bloody actions of recent days be healed. Let all logic of domination and revenge be rejected, and let the path of dialogue, diplomacy, and peace be chosen with determination.”
Humanity must choose the path of multilateralism and negotiation, which began eighty years ago. It is the only alternative for a world teetering so dangerously on the edge of self-destruction.
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