Permanent Missions of the United Kingdom to the United Nations are maintained in New York City, Geneva, and Vienna. These diplomatic missions represent the UK during negotiations and ensure Britain's interests and views are taken into account by UN bodies and other member states.[6]
On 12 June 1941, representatives of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Union of South Africa, and of the exiled governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and Yugoslavia, as well as General de Gaulle of France, met in London and signed the Declaration of St James's Palace. This was the first step that led up to the founding of the United Nations.[7][8][9] The United Kingdom and the USSR agreed a military alliance the next month with the Anglo-Soviet Agreement.[10] The two main principles of these agreements, a commitment to mutual assistance and renunciation of a separate peace, formed the basis for the later Declaration by United Nations.[11]
The Declaration by United Nations was drafted by Roosevelt and Churchill with Roosevelt's aide Harry Hopkins at the White House in December 1941. The phrase "Four Powers" was used to refer to the four major Allied countries, the United States, United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and the Republic of China.[15][16] The term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration in January 1942.
After the Moscow Conference the following year, the Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security stated the aim of creating "at the earliest possible date of a general international organization." The Tehran Conference followed at which Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met and discussed the idea of a post-war international organization
The concept of the United Nations as an international organisation to replace the ineffective League of Nations was formulated and negotiated among the delegations from the Big Four at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in 1944. During the conference, the U.S. and U.K. delegations met first with the Soviet Union and then with China, since the USSR would not meet with China directly.[18][19] Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met at the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and agreed to the establishment of the United Nations, as well as the structure of the United Nations Security Council. Churchill urged Roosevelt to restore France to its status of a major Power after the liberation of Paris in August 1944.
After months of planning, the UN Conference on International Organization opened in San Francisco in April 1945 attended by 50 governments and a number of non-governmental organisations involved in drafting the United Nations Charter. The heads of the delegations of the four sponsoring countries (the U.S., the U.K., the Soviet Union, and China) invited the other nations to take part and took turns as chairman of the plenary meetings beginning with Anthony Eden of Britain. At the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Eden.[20]
The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council—the U.S., the U.K., France, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China—and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.[21]Gladwyn Jebb served as ActingSecretary-General from 24 October 1945 to 2 February 1946 until the election of the first Secretary-General.
The United Kingdom has used its Security Council veto power on 32 occasions.[26] The first occurrence was in October 1956 when the United Kingdom and France vetoed a letter from the US to the president of the Security Council concerning Palestine. The most recent was in December 1989 when the United Kingdom, France and the United States vetoed a draft resolution condemning the United States invasion of Panama.[27]
Along with France, the United Kingdom used its power to veto a draft resolution aimed at resolving the Suez Canal crisis in 1956. The UK and France eventually withdrew after the US instigated an 'emergency special session' of the General Assembly, under the terms of the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, which led to the establishment of the United Nations Emergency Force I (UNEF I), by the adoption of Assembly resolution 1001.[28] The UK also used its veto seven times in relation to Rhodesia from 1963 to 1973, five of these occasions were unilateral which are the only occasions on which the UK has used its veto power unilaterally.[27]
The United Kingdom has stated its support for modernisation of the United Nations and reform the Security Council.[29] According to a formal statement made jointly by the United Kingdom and France in 2008:
Reform of the UNSC, both its enlargement and the improvement of its working methods, must therefore succeed. We reaffirm the support of our two countries for the candidacies of Germany, Brazil, India and Japan for permanent membership, as well as for permanent representation for Africa on the Council. ...
We will work with all our partners to define the parameters of such a reform.
UNSC reform requires a political commitment from the member states at the highest level. We will work in this direction in the coming months with a view to achieving effective reform.[30]
As the fifth largest provider of financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping, the UK provided 6.7 percent of the budget in 2013–15.[4] In September 2015, the UK was contributing 286 troops and five police officers to United Nations peacekeeping missions.[31] In November 1990, it was contributing 769.[32]
The Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015 included a commitment to double the number of UK military personnel contributed to UN peacekeeping operations as well as increasing the number of UK law enforcement and civilian experts on UN peace operations and
in UN headquarters.[33]
^"United Nations". Wordorigins.org. 3 February 2007. Retrieved 28 March 2016.
^Ward, Geoffrey C.; Burns, Ken (2014). "Nothing to Conceal". The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 397. ISBN978-0385353069.
^Urquhart, Brian. Looking for the Sheriff. New York Review of Books, July 16, 1998.
^"The "Special Relationship" between Great Britain and the United States Began with FDR". Roosevelt Institute. 22 July 2010. Retrieved 24 January 2018. and the joint efforts of both powers to create a new post-war strategic and economic order through the drafting of the Atlantic Charter; the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; and the creation of the United Nations.
^"Remarks by the President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron in Joint Press Conference" (Press release). The White House. 22 April 2016. Retrieved 24 January 2018. That's what we built after World War II. The United States and the UK designed a set of institutions – whether it was the United Nations, or the Bretton Woods structure, IMF, World Bank, NATO, across the board.
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