The Origins of the UN Veto and Why it Should be Abolished
By Augusto Lopez-Claros The birth of the United Nations With the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 efforts were set in motion for the creation of a new organization that might provide a secure basis for peace and prosperity. The organization that emerged from the efforts at the San Francisco conference in 1945 was the United Nations, but the work leading to this outcome was the result of long and delicate negotiations. On January 1, 1942 the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China and 22 other nations then fighting the Axis powers created an alliance in which members pledged to work for the establishment of a broad-based and effective system of international security. The name adopted for this alliance was United Nations, suggested by President Roosevelt himself. This was no small act of imagination. In early 1942, the war effort was not going well for the United States and its allies; Japan had made major territorial gains in Asia and G...