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

The parties pledged to uphold the Atlantic Charter, to employ all their resources in the war against the Axis powers and agreed not to negotiate a separate peace with Nazi Germany, Italy or Japan.

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

Other countries subsequently signed the declaration. These were Mexico, the Philippines, 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.

External links

• Declaration by the United Nations text