Adopted in London on 16 November 1945 and amended by the General Conference at its
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 19th, 20th, 21st,
24th, 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th and 31st sessions.
The Governments of the States Parties to this Constitution on behalf of their peoples
declare:
That since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences
of peace must be constructed;
That ignorance of each other’s ways and lives has been a common cause, throughout
the history of mankind, of that suspicion and mistrust between the peoples of the
world through which their differences have all too often broken into war;
That the great and terrible war which has now ended was a war made possible by the
denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of
men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the
doctrine of the inequality of men and races;
That the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and
liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man and constitute a sacred
duty which all the nations must fulfil in a spirit of mutual assistance and concern;
That a peace based exclusively upon the political and economic arrangements of governments
would not be a peace which could secure the unanimous, lasting and sincere support
of the peoples of the world, and that the peace must therefore be founded, if it is
not to fail, upon the intellectual and moral solidarity of mankind.
For these reasons, the States Parties to this Constitution, believing in full and
equal opportunities for education for all, in the unrestricted pursuit of objective
truth, and in the free exchange of ideas and knowledge, are agreed and determined
to develop and to increase the means of communication between their peoples and to
employ these means for the purposes of mutual understanding and a truer and more perfect
knowledge of each other’s lives;
In consequence whereof they do hereby create the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization for the purpose of advancing, through the educational and
scientific and cultural relations of the peoples of the world, the objectives of international
peace and of the common welfare of mankind for which the United Nations Organization
was established and which its Charter proclaims.
