An age-old dream....

• Position: Address by United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali at 1995 ceremony honoring 50th anniversary of the UN - Special 50th Anniversary Edition - Transcript - Cover Story

The United Nations expresses the age-old dream of universal cooperation. We are here to renew this dream. The blueprint for the world Organization was drawn here in San Francisco 50 years ago. The Charter created here is more than a document of history; it is the foundation stone of international relations.

For five decades, the United Nations has permitted nations to join together to deal with challenges that no single nation can resolve. Universal membership offers a forum for expressing universal ideals. Through the United Nations, the world has enshrined the ideal of sovereign independence - to accommodate the emergence of new States and to secure the dignity of their peoples. Fifty-one Member States ratified the Charter of the United Nations in 1945. Since then, millions of the world's citizens won the right to determine their destiny as independent nations. Today, the United Nations comprises 185 Member States. Decolonization utterly changed the international landscape, and could have led to chaos. But through the United Nations, the framework of international relations survived - and was strengthened by - this profound transformation.

At the United Nations, peoples took their first steps as States on the international stage. Within the United Nations, they could assume their rightful place and gain recognition as legitimate members of the world community.

Through the United Nations, the world has embraced the ideals of peace and security - to preserve the integrity of States and to project the lives of their peoples. The concept of peacekeeping is not explicit in the Charter, but the Charter proved flexible enough to respond when the need for such missions arose. Peace-keeping is a manifestation of the world's capacity to work together. For both troop-contributing countries and the lands that they serve, United Nations peace operations reinforce the ideal of international solidarity in the face of conflict. Peace-keeping operations have proven their practical importance. They can...