The UN Charter was designed to institutionalise and project into the future the ‘Alliance of the Victorious Powers’ of the Second World War, as well as their vision of what the post-war world should be. Such vision harboured great potentialities for the future, but it was largely premised, consciously or unconsciously, on the image and presumed structures of the pre-existing world as reflected in classical international law. This heritage is clearly apparent in Article 2 of the Charter, which lays down the ‘principles’ of the United Nations.