This is the foundation treaty of the UN, as described in an Introductory Note to the UN Charter on the UN website. The full text of the UN Charter can be found on the United Nations website. A digitised copy of the Charter can be viewed on the US National Archives website , with the original held in Washington DC.

Key resources

The Charter of the United Nations : a commentary (3rd Edition) edited by Bruno Simma is the primary English reference book on the UN Charter, which can be found in the Main Reading Room. 

A Research guide on the Charter is online at the Dag Hammarsköld Library.

Search tip: To find resources about the UN Charter in our collection, search the catalogue for the term "United Nations. Charter"

Founding of the United Nations

Australia was one of the founding signatories of the Declaration of St James Palace in 1941. A proposal for the UN's organisational structure and procedures was presented in 1944 at the Dumbarton Oaks conference in Washington DC. Drafted by China, Great Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States, this proposal was submitted to the other UN countries for further discussion.

At the San Francisco conference of 1945, Australia's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr Herbert Evatt worked hard to make Australia an active voice for smaller nations, putting forward a number of amendments to the Dumbarton Oaks proposal. The Charter was altered to better reflect the concerns of the smaller nations, and enlarged the scope of the General Assembly.

For more detailed information on Australia's role in the founding of the UN, see the National Museum of Australia website.

Mr. R. G. Casey addresses the United Nations General Assembly, New York, 1954, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-137165408

Australia and the UN General Assembly

Australia has been a Member of the UN since its formation in 1945. In 1948, Australia was elected to the Presidency of the General Assembly. Dr Herbert Evatt presided over the third session of the General Assembly as President for 1948-49.

Each year at the opening of the new session of the General Assembly the Australian Head of Government, or Head of UN delegation, speaks at the General Debate. In the General Debate each speeches are delivered by representatives of all Member States. You can view statements from Australia by browsing through past General Debates on the UN website.

Related links

• Permanent Mission of Australia to the United Nations
• Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade - United Nations
• United Nations Association of Australia

Australia in the International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice is comprised of 15 judges elected by the UN General Assembly and Security council, serving 9-year terms.

Australia has been represented on the ICJ on 2 occasions: Sir Percy Spender who served 1958-1967 and James Crawford (PDF, 235KB) who was elected in 2015.

Australia : candidate for the United Nations Security Council 2013-14, Commonwealth of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.cat-vn5156785

Australia on the security council

Australia's permanent delegate to the UN, Norman Makin, became the first President of the United Nations Security Council in 1946. 

Australia has been a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council on 5 occasions: 1946-47, 1956-57, 1973-74, 1985-86 and 2013-14.

Information about Australia's membership of the Security Council from 2013-14 can be found on the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website.

We also hold publications of reprinted United Nations resolutions, including indexes, voting records and related material.

Serial print publications we hold include:

We also hold a number of single works, such as:

• Human rights: a compilation of international instruments / Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
• Everyone's United Nations / UN Department of Public Information

These individual documents are not recorded in the catalogue, but are held in off-site storage. They are filed as single documents (not bound), stapled together. The Library stopped receiving these documents in 2005, after official documents were made available online. 

They can be requested via the catalogue at United Nations Documents. When requesting these documents, you will need to provide the title, date and UN Document Symbol for each document. The UN Document Symbol can be found by using the Indexes to publications (see below).

The UN Official Document System (ODS) was first launched in 1993 and updated in 2016. It has full-text digital documents published from 1993 onward, including documents of the Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and their subsidiaries. Other documents, such as administrative issuances, are also available.

This service also includes scanned documents published between 1946 and 1993, including all resolutions of the principal organs, all documents of the Security Council and Official Records of the General Assembly. 

You can get these at home through Copies Direct or interlibrary loan.

UNiLibrary provides digital access to United Nations sales publications from 2013 onward. Publications are available in all official languages of the United Nations and have been authored by United Nations funds, agencies, departments and programs.

It can be accessed through our eResources portal, either in our building or at home using your Library login.  

We hold a number of published print indexes to assist in searching for official records, prior to 2005. 

Index to Official Documents

Index to Proceedings

Index to Resolutions

Index to Sales publications

Official documents are each assigned a unique symbol by which they can be identified.

For example, the UN Document symbol:

S / RES / 1244 (1999)

would refer to the Security Council Resolution no. 1244, adopted in the year 1999.

For a detailed overview, refer to the guide to the UN Document Symbols on the Dag Hammarskjöld Library's website.

Useful tip

If you already know the UN Document Symbol, a quick way to access a document is to add the symbol after the following url: https://undocs.org/

For example: undocs.org/A/RES/67/1

(Note: This will not work for some older documents that have not yet been scanned.)

Most official documents can be accessed online, either via the Official Document System, or through the UN Library.

UN bodies publish flagship reports to share information about the work of the organisation with the public.

The following reports are available through our collections or the UNiLibrary database - to access UNiLibrary, visit our eResources portal and search for this resource under the Browse eResources tab.