United Nations Day, 2013

Proclamation 9045 of October 23, 2013

United Nations Day, 2013

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

In 1945, after two world wars that showed the horrific
lethality of modern conflict, 51 member states came
together to create the United Nations, a bold new
organization that sought to build a lasting peace for
the generations to follow. Today, 68 years after the
adoption of the United Nations Charter, we mark United
Nations Day by reaffirming our commitment to its
purposes and principles. We celebrate the
organization's challenging and often unheralded work of
forging a world in which every man, woman, and child
can live in freedom, dignity, and peace.

With the aim of sparing their children and
grandchildren from the ravages of war, the members of
the United Nations committed ``to unite our strength to
maintain international peace and security.'' In the
nearly seven decades since they adopted these words in
the United Nations Charter, the global threats to
international peace and security have changed, but the
need for international cooperation has only increased.
While the United Nations was founded after a period of
cataclysmic war among states, today many of the
principal challenges to international peace and
security are rooted in the need to prevent or address
unconscionable slaughter and violence within states. As
the United States works to address challenges old and
new, we will continue our close cooperation with
partners across the globe, including at the United
Nations. And recognizing that the path to conflict
often begins with the denial of basic human dignity, we
remain committed to realizing another fundamental
principle set forth in the Charter--that no one should
be denied the fundamental freedoms that are their
birthright.

As we mark the founding of a body built to pursue peace
in an imperfect world, let us reaffirm that the values
set forth in its Charter guide us still. They remind us
that leaders and citizens alike, in the United States
and around the world, will be judged by whether we
contributed to a world that is more peaceful, just, and
free. Let us honor the men and women of the United
Nations itself, who work in countries across the globe,
often unseen and uncelebrated, to improve the lives of
the world's most vulnerable people. May we stand firm
in our resolve to give voice to the voiceless and to
turn swords into plowshares. And may we never lose
sight of the essential truth that we live in a world
where our fates are bound together as a community of
nations, strengthened by our differences and united by
our shared hopes for the future.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the
United States of America, by virtue of the authority
vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the
United States, do hereby proclaim October 24, 2013, as
United Nations Day. I urge the Governors of the 50
States, and the officials of all other areas under the
flag of the United States, to observe United Nations
Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-third day of October, in the year of our Lord
two thousand thirteen, and of the Independence of the
United States of America the two hundred and thirty-
eighth.