Apartheid

One of the great successes of the United Nations was the abolition of apartheid in South Africa, which demonstrated ways in which it can bring an end to major injustices in the world. Practically from its inception, the UN was involved in the struggle against apartheid, a system of institutionalized racial segregation and discrimination imposed by the South African government from 1948 until the early 1990s. Apartheid was condemned by the UN as a “crime against humanity” incompatible with the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and it remained on the General Assembly’s agenda until its demise. When the newly elected Nelson Mandela addressed the General Assembly as the President of South Africa he observed: “That historic change has come about not least because of the great efforts in which the United Nations engaged to ensure the suppression of the apartheid crime against humanity.”