The Africa Governance Report
ANNEXES
ANNEX 1: Highlights of The Interrelationships of The Global UN and OAU/AU Principles, Purposes and
Objectives.
NOTE: The bold highlights similar or directly reflected purposes, principles, and objectives in the UN, OAU/AU
founding documents.
Charter of the United Nations Organization (UN) (1945)68
PURPOSES AND PRINCIPLES
Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:
1. To maintain international peace and security, and to
that end: to take effective collective measures for the
prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for
the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of
the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in
conformity with the principles of justice and international
law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or
situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;
2. To develop friendly relations among nations based
on respect for the principle of equal rights and selfdetermination of peoples, and to take other appropriate
measures to strengthen universal peace;
3. To achieve international cooperation in solving
international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or
humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging
respect for human rights, and for fundamental freedoms for
all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion;
and
4. To be a centre for harmonising the actions of nations
in the attainment of these common ends.
Article 2
The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes
stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following
Principles.
68
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
The Organization is based on the principle of the
sovereign equality of all its Members.
All Members, to ensure to all of them the rights and
benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfil in good
faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with
the present Charter.
All Members shall settle their international disputes by
peaceful means in such a manner that international peace
and security, and justice, are not endangered.
All Members shall refrain in their international relations
from the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any state, or in
any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the
United Nations.
All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance
in any action it takes in accordance with the present
Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any
state against which the United Nations is taking preventive
or enforcement action.
The Organization shall ensure that states which are not
Members of the United Nations act in accordance with
these Principles so far as may be necessary for the
maintenance of international peace and security.
Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorise
the United Nations to intervene in matters which are
essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state
or shall require the Members to submit such matters to
settlement under the present Charter; but this principle
shall not prejudice the application of enforcement
measures under Chapter VII.
Charter of the United Nations (1945).http://www.un.org/en/sections/un-charter/un-charter-full-text/
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