Editing United Nations Security Council (section)

=== Background and creation ===
{{Further|History of the United Nations}}
In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations and conferences had been formed to regulate conflicts between nations, such as the [[International Committee of the Red Cross]] and the [[Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907]].{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|p=5}} Following the catastrophic loss of life in [[World War I]], the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]] established the [[League of Nations]] to maintain harmony between the nations.{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|p=8}} This organization successfully resolved some territorial disputes and created international structures for areas such as postal mail, aviation, and opium control, some of which would later be absorbed into the UN.{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|p=10}} However, the League lacked representation for colonial peoples (then half the world's population) and significant participation from several major powers, including the US, the [[USSR]], Germany, and Japan; it failed to act against the 1931 [[Japanese invasion of Manchuria]], the [[Second Italo-Ethiopian War]] in 1935, the 1937 [[Japanese occupation of China]], and Nazi expansions under [[Adolf Hitler]] that escalated into [[World War II]].{{sfn|Kennedy|2006|p=13–24}}

[[File:Cairo conference.jpg|thumb|[[Chiang Kai-shek]], [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and [[Winston Churchill]] met at the [[Cairo Conference (1943)|Cairo Conference]] in 1943 during [[World War II]].]]
[[File:Yalta Conference (Churchill, Roosevelt, Stalin) (B&W).jpg|thumb|British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]], US President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and Soviet general secretary [[Joseph Stalin]] at the [[Yalta Conference]], February 1945]]

On New Year's Day 1942, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]], [[Maxim Litvinov]] of the USSR, and [[T. V. Soong]] of the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]], signed a short document, based on the [[Atlantic Charter]] and the [[Declaration of St James's Palace|London Declaration]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=United Nations|first=Dept of Public Information|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=98U8YSrp1YUC&q=%22The+first+of+the+specific+steps+that+led+to+the+establishment+of+the+United+Nations+was+the+Inter-Allied+Declaration%22%22|title=Everyone's United Nations|date=1986|publisher=UN|isbn=978-92-1-100273-7|pages=5|language=en|access-date=5 December 2020|archive-date=15 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230115074545/https://books.google.com/books?id=98U8YSrp1YUC&q=%22The+first+of+the+specific+steps+that+led+to+the+establishment+of+the+United+Nations+was+the+Inter-Allied+Declaration%22%22|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last1=Tandon|first1=Mahesh Prasad|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P5g6AQAAIAAJ&q=%22(1)+London+Declaration%22|title=Public International Law|last2=Tandon|first2=Rajesh|date=1989|publisher=Allahabad Law Agency|language=en}}</ref> which later came to be known as the [[United Nations Declaration]]. The next day the representatives of 22 other nations added their signatures.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.un.org/en/aboutun/history/declaration.shtml |title=Declaration by United Nations |publisher=United Nations |access-date=1 July 2015 |archive-date=3 July 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703023233/http://www.un.org/en/aboutun/history/declaration.shtml |url-status=live}}</ref> The term "United Nations" was first officially used when 26 governments had signed the Declaration. By 1 March 1945, 21 additional states had signed.{{sfn|Osmańczyk|2004|p=2445}} The term "[[Four Policemen|Four Powers]]" was coined to refer to the four major Allied countries: the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China.<ref name="sheriff">{{cite journal |last=Urquhart |first=Brian |author-link=Brian Urquhart |title=Looking for the Sheriff |journal=The New York Review of Books |date=16 July 1998 |volume=45 |issue=12 |publisher=New York Review of Books, 16 July 1998 |url=https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/07/16/looking-for-the-sheriff/ |access-date=2019-06-07 |archive-date=9 March 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220309235120/https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1998/07/16/looking-for-the-sheriff/ |url-status=live}}</ref> and became the foundation of an executive branch of the United Nations, the Security Council.{{sfn|Gaddis|2000}}

Following the 1943 [[Moscow Conference (1943)|Moscow Conference]] and [[Tehran Conference]], in mid-1944, the delegations from the Allied "[[Four Policemen|Big Four]]", the [[Soviet Union]], the UK, the US and the [[Republic of China (1912–1949)|Republic of China]], met for the [[Dumbarton Oaks Conference]] in Washington, D.C. to negotiate the UN's structure,<ref>{{cite video |year=1944 |title=Video: Allies Study Post-War Security Etc. (1944) |url= https://archive.org/details/gov.archives.arc.39024 |publisher=[[Universal Newsreel]] |access-date=28 November 2014}}</ref> and the composition of the UN Security Council quickly became the dominant issue. France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the UK and US were selected as permanent members of the Security Council; the US attempted to add [[Brazil]] as a sixth member but was opposed by the heads of the Soviet and British delegations.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|p=9}} The most contentious issue at Dumbarton and in successive talks proved to be the veto rights of permanent members. The Soviet delegation argued that each nation should have an absolute veto that could block matters from even being discussed, whilst the British argued that nations should not be able to veto resolutions on disputes to which they were a party. At the [[Yalta Conference]] of February 1945, the American, British and Russian delegations agreed that each of the "Big Five" could veto any action by the council, but not procedural resolutions, meaning that the permanent members could not prevent debate on a resolution.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|pp=10–13}}

On 25 April 1945, the [[UN Conference on International Organization]] began in San Francisco, attended by fifty governments and a number of non-governmental organizations involved in drafting the [[United Nations Charter]].<ref name=unmilestones>{{cite web |url=https://www.un.org/aboutun/milestones.htm |title=Milestones in United Nations History |publisher=Department of Public Information, United Nations |access-date=22 November 2013 |archive-date=11 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120111074909/https://www.un.org/aboutun/milestones.htm |url-status=dead}}</ref> At the conference, [[H. V. Evatt]] of the Australian delegation pushed to further restrict the veto power of Security Council permanent members.{{sfn|Schlesinger|2003|p=196}} Due to the fear that rejecting the strong veto would cause the conference's failure, his proposal was defeated twenty votes to ten.{{sfn|Meisler|1995|pp=18–19}}

The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the Security Council and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.<ref name=unmilestones/> On 17 January 1946, the Security Council met for the first time at [[Church House, Westminster]], in London, United Kingdom.<ref name=about>{{cite web |url=https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/what-security-council |title=What is the Security Council? |publisher=United Nations |access-date=15 January 2021 |archive-date=1 September 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220901050345/https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/content/what-security-council |url-status=live}}</ref> Subsequently, during the 1946–1951 period it conducted sessions at the United Nation's interim headquarters in [[Lake Success, New York]], which were televised live on [[CBS]] by the journalist [[Edmund Chester]] in 1949.<ref name="nyt-1951-05-19">{{Cite news |last=Rosenthal |first=A. M. |date=May 19, 1951 |title=U.N. Vacates Site at Lake Success; Peace Building Back to War Output |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1951/05/19/archives/un-vacates-site-at-lake-success-peace-building-back-to-war-output.html |access-date=July 26, 2022 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=July 26, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220726230531/https://www.nytimes.com/1951/05/19/archives/un-vacates-site-at-lake-success-peace-building-back-to-war-output.html |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://untappedcities.com/2021/05/19/united-nations-lake-success/ |title="The United Nations Headquarters in Long Island's Lake Success" First Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 1947 at Lake Success on untappedcitites.com |date=19 May 2021 |access-date=16 January 2023 |archive-date=19 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210519170543/https://untappedcities.com/2021/05/19/united-nations-lake-success/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/television-broadcast-of-a-new-series-reporting-the-sessions-news-photo/647173796?adppopup=true |title=''United Nations in Action'': Photograph of Edmund Chester, Larry LaSueur, Lyman Bryson at the interim headquarters of the UN General Assembly Lake Success, NY, March 8,1949 ongettyimages.com |date=2 March 2017 |access-date=16 January 2023 |archive-date=13 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113182015/https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/television-broadcast-of-a-new-series-reporting-the-sessions-news-photo/647173796?adppopup=true |url-status=live }}</ref>