UN General Assembly
1969

respected, good relations can be developed among all States regardless of their size or potential. Strict observance of these principles furnishes and ensures the best international setting for the development of each nation’s creative capacities and for its economic and spiritual advancement. At the same time, it represents the key to the establishment of relations of mutual trust and confidence and of collaboration among States, while reinforcing their international rule of law. The course of international affairs has shown — and continues to show — that the consistent application of these principles in international relations, the total elimination of policies of domination and pressure, the assurance that the necessary conditions will exist for each nation freely to choose the course of its development constitute the essential prerequisite for peace, international security and co-operation in the modern world. 49. Of the principles that shape the background to relations among the sovereign nations with equal rights that make up the international community, co-operation, one of the fundamental tenets of the Charter of the United Nations, is having an ever-increasing impact on present-day