The United Nations organization itself, after several interim agreements, was founded in 1945 in San Francisco, California, immediately following the end of World War II. That disastrous war was imprinted on the world’s collective mind,
particularly amongst political and economic elites. The overwhelming devastation wrought in Europe and, if more indirectly, worldwide forced world leaders to confront the indisputable fact that war on a massive scale had ravaged their territories and populations.