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This clip shows silent black-and-white footage of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO) held in San Francisco, USA in 1945. It opens with footage of the Australian delegation to the conference, including Deputy Prime Minister Francis Forde, Dr Evatt and Jessie Street. The footage shows individual delegates addressing the conference, including Forde and Evatt, and the US delegate, Dean Virginia Gildersleeve. It also shows various delegations sitting behind placards bearing the names of their countries.

Educational value points

• As the Second World War was drawing to a close in 1945, the largest gathering of foreign ministers in history, representing 50 nations, met in San Francisco at UNCIO to draw up a charter for the United Nations, a new body founded with the intention of fostering international peace and security, as well as economic and social development. The conference ran from 25 April to 26 June 1945 when after numerous amendments, many moved by Dr Evatt, the assembled nations unanimously approved and signed the UN Charter.

• The death and destruction resulting from the Second World War was so great that even before the War had ended the Allied powers agreed on the need for an international body to prevent future conflict on such a scale. The failure of the League of Nations (1920–46), a similar international organisation created after the First World War with the aim of promoting international cooperation and achieving international peace and security, heightened the need for a new body.

• During the nine-week conference some 850 delegates constructed a charter that the assembled nations could agree on. The UN came into existence on 24 October 1945, after the UN Charter had been ratified by the five permanent members of the UN’s Security Council – China, France, Russia, Britain and the USA – and by a majority of the other 46 signatories. Australia was one of the 51 founding members of the UN, which by 2007 totalled 192 member states.

• The UN Charter established that the main aim of the UN is to prevent war and maintain international peace and security, as well as to provide a system to maintain international law, safeguard human rights and work towards a better quality of life for all people. In practice, however, the power of veto held by the five permanent members of the Security Council has sometimes resulted in proposed resolutions being blocked by one or more of these permanent members.

• The UN organisation consists of a General Assembly that includes delegates from each member state, and a Security Council made up of the five permanent members as well as representatives from ten member states that are elected for two-year terms. The five permanent members of the Security Council can veto any resolution passed by the General Assembly, which gives these countries enormous power within the UN.

• Jessie Street (1889–1970) was the only woman appointed by the Curtin government to the Australian delegation to UNCIO. A tireless defender of the rights of women in Australia, and, from the 1930s a member of the United Association of Women, Street was also an advocate for social justice and peace. She helped establish the UN Human Rights Commission and the UN Commission on the Status of Women, of which she was vice-president from 1947 to 1948. She believed that 'social security’ was the basis of security from war, and that achieving equality for women was a vital part of this.

• Dr Herbert Evatt (1894–1965) was Attorney-General and Minister for External Affairs in the Curtin federal Labor government when he was appointed to the Australian delegation to UNCIO. He was Deputy Prime Minister of Australia from 1946 to 1949 and Labor’s opposition leader during the 1950s. Evatt played a major role in the development of the UN Charter, ensuring that the views of smaller and middle-ranking nations such as Australia were given weight in the UN.

• Evatt was the third president of the UN’s General Assembly, serving from 1948 to 1949. In this role he was instrumental in easing the mounting tension that built up over the Berlin Blockade. He also protested vigorously at the Hungarian communist government’s arranged 'trial’ and imprisonment of Cardinal Mindszenty, the Roman Catholic Primate of that country.

• Evatt was hailed by the world’s press as the champion of the small powers and of just, democratic procedures in international affairs. However, there were those who were appalled that Australia should presume to have any differences with Britain or the USA.

• Francis 'Frank’ Forde (1890–1983) was Deputy Prime Minister of Australia from 1941 to 1946 in both the Curtin and Chifley federal Labor governments. A Queenslander, Forde was elected to federal Parliament in 1922 and also served as a minister in the Scullin government. Forde was caretaker prime minister for eight days from 6 to 13 July 1945 after Curtin died in office. Despite being passed over for party leadership, he served both Curtin and Chifley with great loyalty until he lost his seat of Capricornia in 1946.