The United Nations had its origins during the Second World War as part of the vision for the postwar world set out by Britain, China, the Soviet Union and the USA. The failure of the League of Nations, established after the First World War to prevent another world war, did not mean that the principle of a multinational body was wrong – rather, that it had been implemented poorly. The leaders who pushed the most for the creation of a new international body were US president Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill.
The wartime declarations of the United Nations set out the core principles by which the Allies would conduct the war. In the summer of 1941, that included a commitment that they would support each other and not conclude a separate peace with the enemy. There was also a commitment that the future of Europe would be determined by the ‘willing co-operation of free peoples’.
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