UN General Assembly
1976

151. We must admit that some of the difficulties we are faced with are the result of some existing principles or of the lack of others; we must admit that these abnormalities should be largely attributed to the States themselves owing to the alternatives of international politics or to the fact that States do not subject themselves to existing principles. 152. There is very little marble that has no imperfections, says the dictum, and we can therefore say that no human endeavor is perfect. Hence we can state that if the United Nations is imperfect the same applies to the States that constitute it. There is therefore no reason for despair. 153. That being understood, it follows that the task we have before us requires the firm will to make the Charter more effective and worthy of respect so that it will always condition the objectives for which it was established on the basis of the experience of total war, whose consequences still to some extent weigh on our present civilization.