UN General Assembly
1995

what effective leadership means, and have come to the conclusion that there is no gainsaying that a leadership with vision always has the nation’s interests at heart. Similarly, at the international level when the world’s leadership is characterized by statesmen with a vision, the collective interests of mankind always have primacy over other considerations emanating from narrow-minded nationalism. As great minds think alike, and as a bitter lesson had been learned from two world wars, the need was felt to create the United Nations. It is interesting to note that in the Preamble to the Charter we do not find the usual phrases that appear in other international legal instruments, such as “We the contracting parties” but instead we have the words “We the peoples of the United Nations”. The concept of international solidarity and the unity of the human race immediately come into play with the expressed determination not only “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” but also “to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples”.