Remarks by H.E. Annalena Baerbock
President of the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly
at the Commemoration of the signing of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ Charter –
General Assembly, Informal Plenary meeting
GA Hall, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ HQ, New York
26 June 2026
[As Delivered]
Mr. Secretary-General,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Dear guests, especially our younger guests,
81 years ago today, in San Francisco, our founders signed the Charter of our United Nations.
That moment was a promise – that humanity did not have to endure atrocities seen before¡ that together, we could do better, we could be better.
And frankly speaking my original script focused on this momentous occasion.
Yet, since we hear these days more and more the chatter about the value and worth of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ¡ questions even whether we would build a United Nations again today as in 1945, or if we need something totally new¡ I thought it is best to address this head on especially on Charter Day.
Because: It is difficult to imagine how we would build the house again.
Back then, there were only 51 Member States.
Many of today’s 193 Member States did not even exist as free and independent countries, many of your countries were still under colonial rule.
This is one part of the answer, the technical one.
The other, more candid part is:
Can we really imagine, today, 193 distinct Member States agreeing, as equals¡ to common principles and purposes?
Some with nuclear weapons, while others do not even have air defenses.
In some people own billions, while the populations in others survive on just a few dollars a day.
And now just imagine all of them coming together again¡ granting every country, despite these vast disparities, an equal seat and an equal voice in this General Assembly?
When we cannot even find consensus anymore to tackle global health threats together.
So, my point of view, the answer is simple, … no, it¡¯s hard to imagine that we would find the same resolve to do it again.
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ is a miracle of humanity.
The greatest achievement of the United Nations is probably the simple fact that it exists at all.
And therefore, our biggest responsibility is to protect this United Nations.
This doesn¡¯t mean in any way that the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ is perfect.
Without doubt we have to do better to deliver on the promise of peace ¨C for the people in Sudan, Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon, and in the many other conflict areas we do not even speak enough about.
And without doubt an organization grown over eight decades with overlapping structures, with more than 40,000 mandates and 27,000 meetings a year, needs a deep reform to be more agile and more efficient.
So, the greatest tribute we can pay to the founders of the United Nations today is not simply to celebrate what they built, but to ensure it is fit for the future through a successful Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ80 reform.
Yet, without doubt, we should not allow cynics to weaponize these shortcomings.
By romanticizing or even rewriting the past decades of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ, which unfortunately all have witnessed horrible war.
Nor by oversimplifying things by arguing that the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ has taken on too much ¨C that we should go ¡°back to basics¡±.
Delivering on the SDGs and on human rights is the basics.
In the Preamble to the Charter, we promised since 1945:
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“To save succeeding generations from the scourge of war…”
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“To reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights… and the equal rights of men and women…”
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“To promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.”
Those principles have been there from the very beginning on.
Of course, the founders knew nothing about AI or climate change, nor did they experience COVID.
Yet they anticipated that the world would change and committed us “to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character.”
So, engagement in these fields is nothing new, nor woke, and definitely not against the Charter.
It is adapting an institution built in 1945 to a world in 2026¡. Delivering on the promise made in San Francisco: that together we could achieve more than any nation could alone.
Yet, unlike in 1945, in a digitalized social media-driven world, where bad news and hate spread at lightning speed, successes of multilateralism rarely make the front page.
A war which never happened because of peacebuilding does not make it to the headlines.
Nobody applauds the famine that was avoided.
Nor the rainforest that was never cut down.
But saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war will never be possible without this conflict prevention, without preventive diplomacy, without sustainable development, and certainly not without human rights.
Even if there is no glory in prevention, and even if not covered in the headlines, the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ is delivering on that promise every single day.
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵICEF-led immunizations have saved more than 150 million children’s lives over the last decades.
More than two million peacekeepers, from many countries around the world, have served across more than 70 operations around the world, some even giving their lives for the protection of others.
Not to mention the number of people who would never have attended a school or received medical treatment if not for the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ and its bodies.
So, to all those whispering these days, is the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ still worth it¡
Just imagine for one second what the world would look like without these untold stories¡
“My tummy hurts. I want to go home and play with my friends.”
These were the last words of seven-year-old Saki in the arms of his mother, before he died of malnutrition in Sudan, because humanitarian aid did NOT reach him.
How many more children like Saki would have died without the United Nations?
How many already did?
And how many more would we lose if we stopped doing what we do? Stopped funding.
Doing the right thing, even in the darkest hours, is what this institution was built for.
To keep delivering life-saving assistance.
To keep funding hope where it is needed most.
And to keep speaking the names in this Hall, of those we failed to protect from war or to uphold their most basic rights until we do.
Because this institution was not built for the easy times.
Because giving up was never the promise of the Charter.
The Charter is a promise to keep trying, especially when facing headwinds like today.
So, no¡ multilateralism has not failed.
Multilateralism works every day when humanitarian workers are delivering food even before sunrise in a crisis.
Multilateralism works, every day, even if the Security Council is blocked, when peacekeepers protect civilians.
Multilateralism works, every day, when young people, without even knowing the emblem of the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ, volunteer to provide basic education in refugee camps.
And multilateralism works every day in this Assembly, when Member States, you, as permanent representatives, choose dialogue over division¡
And when you summon the courage to speak up for our common principles and purposes.
As in a world where the principles of this institution are not only under pressure, but under attack, our responsibility is clear.
To defend the Charter.
Not only today, through commemorations, but through our actions.
And by proving, through what we do every day, also in this Hall, that the promise made in San Francisco still lives on.
Better Together. One Charter. One Future.
I thank you.
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