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sion in Manchuria. In addition, one of the strongest nations in the world, the United States, was not a member of the League, which fell apart at the outset of World War II [6] .

During the war, the United States, and particularly President Roosevelt, took the lead in creating an international organization to replace the foregone League of Nations. “The Big Four”, consisting of the United States, Russia, China and Britain, signed the Moscow Declaration of the Four Nations on General Security in October of 1943. In the declaration, the four powers decided that there would be an international organization established after the war, and it was to be global in its membership. By stating this goal early on, the powers hoped to avoid one of the failings of the United Nations by including all powers, big and small, in the arrangement. The organization was to be based on the idea of sovereign equality, and as such, the “Big Four” would have a right to veto on matters of security. This was one way to ensure that national governments would support UN membership, as had not been the case with the United States Senate on the League of Nations issue [7] .

In 1943, drafts of the UN Charter were being written by the great powers, and by 1945, the final Charter was signed in San Francisco. The Security Council was given wide powers in the UN Charter, a necessary step to guaranteeing great power involvement in the United Nations. With these powers came the responsibility to keep world peace. The Council was originally to consist of eleven members, five of whom would be permanent: the United State, France, Britain, the Soviet Union, and China. The six remaining members would be elected by the General Assembly, and would serve on the Council for two-year terms. In addition to being an important factor in the agreement of the Charter, by giving extensive powers to the “Big Five”, the framers hoped that no aggressor nation would be able to stand up to their collective power in the international system [8] .

One of the most important powers given to the permanent members was the veto. The United States, the Soviet Union and Britain insisted on the right to veto power prior to the signing of the Charter. These three states made it clear that without the veto power, they would not agree to the formation of the United Nations. China and France were more flexible on the veto issue, but they also took advantage of the power given to them in the Charter. The specifics of the veto are outlined in Chapter 27 of the United Nations Charter, but in sum, the permanent members had to be in agreement before anything could pass through the Security Council [9] . In 1966, the Security Council was enlarged from eleven to fifteen members, However, the power of the “Big Five” was unchanged, and they still must be in agreement today before the Council can act [10] .

As stated, the United Nations as an institution was established on the basis of ‘sovereign equality’ of its members. As such, it cannot fulfill its goals without the cooperation of those members. Since the power granted to the UN in the areas of implementation and enforcement of decisions is necessarily quite limited, a desire to follow UN decisions must come from the member states themselves. Thus, one of the most important elements of maintaining peace and security through the United Nations is the universality of membership [11] . As such an important el