Declaration by United Nations

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The Declaration by United Nations was a World War II document agreed to on January 1, 1942 by 26 governments, several of them governments-in-exile. The original signatories were the United States, the United Kingdom, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the Republic of China, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, British India, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, South Africa, and Yugoslavia.

The parties pledged to uphold the Atlantic Charter, to employ all their resources in the war against the Axis powers, and that none of the signatory nations would seek to negotiate a separate peace with Nazi Germany, Italy or Japan in the same manner that the nations of the Triple Entente had agreed not to negotiate a separate peace with any or all of the Central Powers in World War I under the Unity Pact.

The term United Nations became synonymous during the war with the Allies and was considered to be the formal name that they were fighting under.

Other countries subsequently signed the declaration. These were Mexico, the Philippine Commonwealth, and Ethiopia in 1942, Iraq, Brazil, Bolivia, Iran and Colombia in 1943, Liberia and France in 1944 and Peru, Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Uruguay, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Ecuador in 1945.