Declaration by United Nations

(1942, also called the Washington Declaration; in Russian, the Declaration of the 26 States), a declaration signed in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 1, 1942, by the representatives of states of the anti-Hitler coalition—Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Poland, the Union of South Africa, the USSR, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Yugoslavia.

The states’ signatories declared that complete victory over their enemies was essential “to defend life, liberty, independence and religious freedom, and to preserve human rights and justice” and that they were “now engaged in a common struggle against savage and brutal forces seeking to subjugate the world.” They pledged themselves to employ their full resources, military and economic, against those members of the Tripartite Pact and its adherents with which they were at war, to cooperate with each other, and conclude no separate armistice or peace with their enemies. The declaration was left open for signature by other nations that were, or might be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. The state signatories of the declaration and those that subsequently adhered to it were named the United Nations. The declaration was instrumental in uniting the anti-Hitlerite coalition.