Curated playlist
Treaties of the United Kingdom
- International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural RightsOn the 16th of December 1966, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a treaty that promised something startling. It said that everyone, everywhere, has a right to work, to health, to education, and to enough food, clothing, and…
- Anglo-Polish allianceThe Anglo-Polish alliance was born on the 31st of March 1939, when British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain stood in Parliament and pledged that if Poland's independence was threatened, His Majesty's Government would lend the Polish…
- United Nations Framework Convention on Climate ChangeOn the 9th of May 1992, in a conference room in New York, negotiators from around the world put the finishing touches on a document that would bind nations together in an unprecedented way. A few weeks later, in Rio de Janeiro, 154…
- Montreal ProtocolThe Montreal Protocol carries a distinction no other treaty in United Nations history holds: it is the only international agreement ever ratified by all 198 parties, including every UN member state, the Cook Islands, Niue, the Holy See,…
- Munich AgreementThe Munich Agreement was signed at about 1:30 in the morning on the 30th of September 1938, in a city that gave it its name and its permanent stain. Four men put their signatures to a document in the Führerbau: Adolf Hitler, Neville…
- Paris AgreementThe Paris Agreement was adopted on the 12th of December 2015, inside a conference hall outside Paris, by 195 nations and the European Union. The vote was unanimous, or nearly so. Nicaragua wanted to object, arguing the deal was too weak,…
- International Covenant on Civil and Political RightsThe International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on the 16th of December 1966, yet it would not carry the force of international law for nearly a decade. The world had to wait…
- Convention on Certain Conventional WeaponsThe Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons was concluded in Geneva on the 10th of October 1980, born from a question that arms negotiators had long avoided: what happens when the weapon itself is the problem, not just how it is used?…
- Outer Space TreatyThe Outer Space Treaty was opened for signature on the 27th of January 1967, with the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union all signing on the same day. That date fell squarely in the middle of the space race, just months…
- Potsdam AgreementThe Potsdam Agreement was signed on the 1st of August 1945, at Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam, as the guns fell silent across Europe but war still raged in the Pacific. Three men put their names to it: General Secretary Joseph Stalin,…
- Locarno TreatiesThe Locarno Treaties were born from a contradiction. Germany, still raw from the humiliations of the Treaty of Versailles, sat down in October 1925 with the very nations that had defeated it and signed a set of agreements that would, for a…
- Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear WeaponsThe Non-Proliferation Treaty, known almost universally as the NPT, opened for signature in 1968 with a single overriding fear driving its creation: that within two decades, as many as thirty nuclear-armed nations could exist on earth. That…
- Kyoto ProtocolOn the 11th of December 1997, in the ancient Japanese city of Kyoto, delegates from countries spanning nearly every corner of the world signed their names to a document they hoped would change the chemistry of the Earth's atmosphere. The…
- North Atlantic TreatyThe North Atlantic Treaty, also called the Washington Treaty, was signed on the 4th of April 1949 in Washington, D.C., and it created the legal foundation for what would become the most consequential military alliance of the twentieth…
- Antarctic Treaty SystemThe Antarctic Treaty System governs an entire continent where no human being has ever been born. On the 1st of December 1959, twelve nations signed an agreement in Washington that would freeze territorial ambitions, ban military…
- Partial Nuclear Test Ban TreatyOn the 5th of August 1963, three governments gathered in Moscow to sign a document that had taken nearly two decades of argument, scientific dispute, and near-catastrophe to produce. The Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty forbade nuclear…