The UN Charter

Charter of the United Nations
${{{image_alt}}}$ UN Charter
Drafted	14 August 1941
Signed	26 June 1945
Location	San Francisco, California, United States
Effective	24 October 1945
Condition	Ratification by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, United States and by a majority of the other signatory states.
Parties	193
Depositary	United States
Languages	Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish
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The Charter of the United Nations (also known as the UN Charter) of 1945 is the foundational treaty of the United Nations, an intergovernmental organization. It was signed at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center in San Francisco, United States, on 26 June 1945, by 50 of the 51 original member countries (Poland, the other original member, which was not represented at the conference, signed it two months later). It entered into force on 24 October 1945, after being ratified by the original five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council—the Republic of China (after 1949, located in Taiwan and was later replaced by the People's Republic of China), the Provisional Government of the French Republic (later replaced by the Fourth Republic and then the Fifth Republic), the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (later replaced by the Russian Federation), the United Kingdom, and the United States—and a majority of the other signatories. The UN-Charter articulated a commitment to uphold human rights of citizens and outlined a broad set of principles relating to achieving ‘higher standards of living’, addressing ‘economic, social, health, and related problems,’ and ‘universal respect for, and observance of, human rights an fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.’