The International Court of Justice was brought into being by the Charter of the United Nations (Articles 7(1), 36(3), and 92-96), and by the Statute of the Court which was made an integral part of the Charter; both of which instruments were signed at San Francisco on June 26, 1945. The most important difference between the Statute of the new Court and that of its predecessor, the Permanent Court of International Justice, on which the new Statute was based, was that the new Court was to be one of the “principal organs” of the United Nations. The Charter and the new Statute entered into force on October 24, 1945. After the election of the Court’s first members the new Court met for the first time in the Peace Palace at The Hague on April 1, 1946, under the presidency of Judge Guerrero, with Judge Basdevant as Vice-President.