The UN Charter at 80:
A Forgotten Roadmap for Peace
by Douglas Roche | June 20, 2025
On June 26, 1945, the Charter of the United Nations was adopted in San Francisco to maintain international peace and security, uphold international law, achieve economic and social development, and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, gender, language or religion. In addition to prohibiting the use of force against a state, the Charter calls for the maintenance of international peace and security with the “least diversion for armaments of the world’s human and economic resources.”
The U.N started out as a central dynamic organization helping populations everywhere to move forward. It saved the peace in diverse regions and lifted millions out of destitution. It continues to try to prevent nuclear warfare and environmental catastrophe. Its core message insists that the eight billion people on Earth can live together in a culture of peace through nonviolence as a starting point. It is the base of our hopes for a lasting peace.
Despite its many successes during the eighty years of its existence, the U.N. today is swept aside by political leaders. No better example of the disdain for the U.N. can be seen than the recent G7 summit of the world’s leading industrial countries held in Kananaskis, Alberta. The meeting dealt with such subjects as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and transnational repression, but the underlying theme of the two-day meeting was the stated intention to increase military spending to cope with the challenges to the world order presented by Russia and China.
Just prior to the meeting, the host and new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, suddenly boosted Canada’s defence spending by $9 billion in order to reach, before March 2026, NATO’s target of 2 per cent of each member’s GDP for defence. It was evident that, in doing so, Carney was trying to satisfy the gargantuan military demands of U.S. President Donald Trump who, in the meantime, has raised the military spending demand of NATO states to 5 per cent of GDP.
These artificial military spending targets are a great fraud perpetrated on the public by the military-industrial complex, which drives American policy, which, in turn, drives NATO. The annual U.S. defence budget is now approaching $1 trillion, which is larger than the military spending of the next ten countries combined. NATO accounts for 55 per cent of the annual $2.4 trillion the world spends on the military.
Carney justified increased military spending by saying the world is at a “hinge moment” similar to the end of the Second World War, and the country must act in the face of new aggressions and threats to Arctic security. By championing a military response to the present chaos of the world and staying silent on the U.N.’s wide agenda for building the conditions for peace, the G7 leaders bought into the old shibboleth: “If you want peace, prepare for war.” This argument completely ignores the U.N. Agenda for Peace, which sets out a wide range of diplomatic actions to build the conditions for peace.
The G7 meeting concerned itself with strengthening trade ties among the rich Western states while ignoring the desperate poverty of millions of people in the developing countries. While the leaders discussed the military route to peace from the scenic splendour of the Rockies, the U.N. was reporting that, without urgent funding, global hunger hotspots are growing and the U.N.’s refugee agency is forced to make deep cuts despite rising needs worldwide. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attended the part of the G7 meeting he was invited to, but his voice was not heard. In fact, the U.N. today is at the weakest point in its entire existence. Not only is it shut out of the deliberations of world leaders, it is forced to slash social and environmental programs because the rich countries refuse to pay their fair share.
The G7 summit personified the crux of the global problem today: as the world staggers through a lawlessness worsened by the imperious U.S. President Donald Trump, the rich minority keep piling up arms in the delusion that they can capture an elusive peace.
It is a tragic stain on the honour of the industrial countries that they fail to champion the U.N. Charter’s insistence that the “least” amount of money be spent on armaments. What is most troubling about the Western rush to boost military spending — at the expense of domestic needs in the health care field, to say nothing of the deplorable low rate of foreign aid and virtual absence in the peacekeeping field — is the normalization of war thinking that is now sweeping through the Western world. Disarmament campaigns are a thing of the past. The Agenda for Peace is swept aside. The 2024 U.N. “Pact for the Future,” which brought into sharp focus the need for a recommitment to international cooperation based on respect for international law, shows little sign of being actually implemented.
The world is struggling to move from the old culture of war that dominated the 20th century to a new culture of peace that has been defined but not yet achieved. We are falteringly transforming a world where life was once brutish, nasty and short to a life where the benefits of science, medicine, industry, agriculture, communications, travel are felt by growing millions of people. This is the basis of a culture of peace.
A culture of peace is centred on nonviolence and reconciliation, and these are human — political — accomplishments. Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gorbachev are just some of the heroic political figures who paved the way and devoted their lives to building a culture of peace.
What does this mean in practice? It means that in economic and social development, we actively support the Sustainable Development Goals, which aim for the eradication of extreme poverty and inequality. In global warming, we produce policies to effectively reduce carbon emissions and drive investment in sustainable energy to prevent catastrophic climate consequences. In arms control, we call for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons under strict international control and for Canada to sign the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. In human rights, we demand the protection of the peoples of Ukraine and Gaza and other war-torn places, and that they be given their human rights under international law.
These positive steps towards peace are being torn apart by the re-militarization of key countries that still put their faith and money into expanded armaments rather than robust diplomacy. The answer to the problems of international security today is not more arms. The answer lies in a robust application of common security — a security in which no one is safe unless all are safe. It is hard to stand up against the torrent of militarism today, but it must be done. Canada, which has made great contributions to peace in the past through putting resources into peacekeeping, the Landmines Treaty, the International Criminal Court and the Responsibility to Protect, needs to recover its sense of purpose in the world. That purpose is not served by more arms but rather diplomatic initiatives to foster peace rather than more war.
Douglas Roche is a former Canadian Member of Parliament, Ambassador for Disarmament and Senator. His latest book is Keep Hope Alive: Essays for a War-free World .