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served that Roosevelt delivered a very bold vision – one that put him in conflict with the isolationists of his time and with United States nationalism. About eight months later, Roosevelt and Churchill met on a boat off Canada’s most eastern Province, Newfoundland. Ambassador Rae recounted that each leader had his own objectives for the meeting which were not fully achieved. But the product of the meeting was the Atlantic Charter, a document setting out American and British goals for the world after the end of World War II. The Charter is con- sidered to be the basis for both the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 1941 Atlantic Charter principles were: (1) No territo- rial changes made against the wishes of the people; (2) Self government is the defining principle of the post-war order (replacing colonialism); (3) Freer trade; (4) Freedom of the seas; (5) Global cooperation to secure better economic and social conditions for all; (6) Freedom from fear and want; (7) Abandonment of the use of force and disarmament of aggres- sor nations. The Atlantic Charter paved the way for establish- ment of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and all of the major institutions at the United Nations. In fact some of the Atlantic Charter language appears the Unit- ed Nations Charter. A reminder of that Charter’s preamble is timely, given today’s precarious global circumstances: Ambassador Rae reminded the audience that our two countries and their allies fought the second World War at enormous cost in order to stop the kind of aggression which Russia began a year ago. The international legal ar- chitecture which we have today would not exist without Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms vision and without American leadership decades ago. Moving to his third theme, Ambassador Rae’s main message to the College was that American global leadership is truly needed today. A country embracing its own exceptionalism, as American and other politicians are known to do, is not the key to effective leadership. Rather, it is a country’s will- ingness to accept for itself the same rules as it is promoting for others which is the recipe for success. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s first speech to the United Nations was about Indigenous rights and many wondered why that was his focus. The reality was that he was speaking about the world. Indigenous history is shared between Canada and the United States, and with the many peoples around the world whose history includes colonialism. Neither Canada nor the United States typically describe themselves as prod- SUMMER 2023 JOURNAL 32 WE THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED NATIONS DETERMINED to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sor- row to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and to establish conditions un- der which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and bet- ter standards of life in larger freedom, AND FOR THESE ENDS to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and to employ in- ternational machinery for the promotion of the eco- nomic and social advancement of all peoples, HAVE RESOLVED TO COMBINE OUR EFFORTS TO ACCOMPLISH THESE AIMS.