Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

This article investigates whether the drafters of the United Nations Charter intended to permit a state to use force in self defense, either preventatively or preemptively, before that state has been the victim of an armed attack. It makes extensive use of a source not much used previously--the volume in the Foreign Relations of the United States series that includes the minutes of the U.S. delegation to the U.N. Conference on International Organization at which the Charter was drafted, and in which the U.S. delegation played a key role in drafting Article 51, the self defense provision.