Today, for any international conflict, any war, or danger of war, the question usually arises: “What is the United Nations doing?”

Yet, this is the same as if, for road traffic, the only safety measure was the power of the police. The primary safety measure is the law organizing the rules of traffic, which the police are in charge of enforcing.

Because if there were no law, you would be subject to the whims of each police officer.

Law is what is established so that you can adapt your behavior in confidence, together with others.

In ancient Rome, it was said, “Ubi societas, ibi jus” — where there is society, there is law.

Where there are two people, they need rules (i.e., law) to know how they will live together.

How could football be played without rules? And these rules are law.

Similarly, school schedules are law; otherwise, anyone could come at any time, and there could be no school.

Of course, law can be bad, and then you must fight for its improvement. But if there were no law, it would lead to disorder, leaving social relations to the strongest.

And in international relations, leaving them to the strongest means war.

Before and until 1945, there was no real international law, only a balance of power between states through customary practices, ultimatums, alliances, coalitions, and peace treaties.

But after two world wars, with millions of victims, peace appeared as an obvious necessity. The UN Charter was established.

The UN Charter has a preamble outlining its fundamental philosophical principles, a list of implementation rules, and the organizational means for their enforcement.

Since there are many useful agencies of the UN serving various goals, and because the UN provides an opportunity for possible cooperation between the states of the world, we shall focus our discussion on the issue of peace.

This leads to an important clarification: it is not, as is often said, the Charter of the United Nations, as if the Charter had been issued by the UN, but rather the United Nations of the Charter, since it was established by the Charter.

Similarly, it is incorrect to claim that the UN is a continuation of the former League of Nations. The League of Nations was merely an agreement between some nations, with no Charter as a legal framework, whereas the UN operates under the Charter and is universal.

Above all, the main difference is that the League of Nations was an agreement between states, whereas, recognizing that the main victims of wars are the people, the UN Charter places peace in the hands of the people.

Globalization is a reality, with mutual dependence.

However, this can be organized under either a vertical central power, leaving control in unknown hands, or horizontal cooperation between free and equal entities.

By choosing the second option, the UN Charter is the highest achievement of democracy.

The word “democracy” comes from the ancient Greek “demou kratos,” meaning “power of the people.”

It is not populism, which is the manipulation of people to make them surrender their power to a leader acting on their behalf.

It is “popular sovereignty,” which means power exercised by citizens through their elected deliberative councils.

The UN Charter promotes popular sovereignty as a universal value.

The first words of the Charter are “We the Peoples” — it is the peoples who establish the Charter.

But to truly be in the hands of the people, the instruments of power must not be too distant.

Otherwise, it becomes difficult to achieve a majority, and more importantly, to have an effective impact.

This is why the call for the “democratization of the UN,” implying that the UN should become a superstate above national ones, is misguided.

A different proposal is the creation of a consultative assembly of NGOs. However, this assembly would be only consultative, and NGOs are private associations that do not include all citizens. Peoples consist of all citizens, whether or not they are members of NGOs.

This is why the preamble states “We the Peoples” in plural, recognizing that there is no single global people but different peoples on different territories with distinct needs and capacities.

Each people is the master of its territory, without any foreign interference, even from the UN.

This is “national sovereignty,” meaning that popular sovereignty is exercised within the plurality of peoples. It is not “nationalism,” which implies that one nation may act against others, but rather a mutual respect among nations. The states serve as instruments for exercising and implementing this right and power, and the UN is the forum in which, through their states, the peoples unite in their efforts.

The preamble says that the peoples have decided to unite their efforts, and therefore their governments signed the Charter.

This means that peoples are accountable for what their states do, fail to do, or allow to happen.

This is why knowledge of the Charter is essential for citizenship.

Thus, we arrive at the rules of the Charter to secure peace:

The preamble proclaims a fundamental motivation: to save future generations from the scourge of war, which, twice within a single human lifetime, has inflicted terrible devastation upon mankind.

The rules are clear: under Article 2.4, the use of force and even the threat of force are forbidden. Additionally, because many aggressions have been justified under the pretext of preempting a threat, preemptive defense is also forbidden.

To secure peace and uphold the Charter, there is an organ elected by the General Assembly of 193 states: the Security Council. Its police power is limited to maintaining and restoring peace.

Maintaining peace may involve deploying international military forces, provided by member states, to interpose between potential enemies. Restoring peace may require expelling an aggressor from a territory.

The Security Council may also impose economic or diplomatic sanctions.

Under Article 26, the Security Council is also responsible for promoting a global disarmament program.

However, concerns are often raised that the Security Council includes five permanent members with veto power, which frequently hinders the UN’s effectiveness.

In fact, this veto power is not explicitly stated in the Charter. The actual text requires any decision to include the affirmative vote of the five permanent members.

The rationale was that, in 1945, the world was divided into two blocs, socialist and Western, and each feared that the other might form a majority against it. Since the five permanent members came from both blocs, this arrangement eliminated that danger.

This was called the principle of unanimity.

However, in 1950, during the session that decided on the war against North Korea, the USSR, in protest, abstained from attending. This made unanimity impossible.

The United States then sought the opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled that abstention implied no opposition. Thus, without any amendment to the Charter, but merely through interpretation, abstention was redefined from “not yes” to “not no,” effectively transforming the principle of unanimity into a veto right.

A revision of the Charter to remove the veto could be considered necessary.

However, the real need for amendment should be the abolition of permanent membership in the Security Council, which contradicts the Charter’s fundamental principle of equality among nations, big or small.

Yet, any proposal to revise the Charter carries risks, as it could provide opportunities for those seeking harmful changes.

Thus, knowledge of the Charter and constant advocacy are essential for securing peace.

That is why we are here today.