UN General Assembly
1995

have cast a dark shadow on our contemporary world and intensified our sense of uncertainty as we stand on the threshold of a new century. On the other hand, a deepening sense of interdependence has prompted nations to devise more equitable and mutually beneficial patterns of cooperation — and this has provided us with a new source of hope. Fittingly indeed, on this fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations, hope is the dominant feeling in the world today just as it was hope, for a more peaceful and tolerant world, which inspired the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco half a century ago. 6 With the Second World War barely over, the international community of that time sought to establish a world organization which would “save succeeding generations from the scourge of war” by instituting a system of collective security based on the repudiation of the use of force “save in the common interest”, and on the basic principles of sovereign equality, freedom, justice and the rule of law. This splendid vision was not to be realized,