The United Nations (UN) is an
intergovernmental organization
Globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of ...
whose stated purposes are to maintain
international peace
World peace, or peace on Earth, is the concept of an ideal state of peace within and among all people and nations on Planet Earth. Different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations have varying concepts on how such a state would ...
and
security" \n\n\nsecurity.txt is a proposed standard for websites' security information that is meant to allow security researchers to easily report security vulnerabilities. The standard prescribes a text file called \"security.txt\" in the well known locat ...
, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations. It is the world's largest and most familiar international organization. The UN is
headquartered
Headquarters (commonly referred to as HQ) denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top ...
on
international territory
Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...
in New York City, and has other main offices in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
,
Nairobi
Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...
,
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, and
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
(home to the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
).
The UN was established after
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
with
the aim of preventing future world wars, succeeding the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
, which was characterized as ineffective. On 25 April 1945, 50 governments met in San Francisco for
a conference and started drafting the
UN Charter
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: th ...
, which was adopted on 25 June 1945 and took effect on 24 October 1945, when the UN began operations. Pursuant to the Charter, the organization's objectives include maintaining international peace and security, protecting
human rights
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
, delivering
humanitarian aid, promoting
sustainable development, and upholding
international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
. At its founding, the UN had 51
member states; with the addition of
South Sudan
South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...
in 2011, membership is now 193, representing almost all of the world's
sovereign state
A sovereign state or sovereign country, is a political entity represented by one central government that has supreme legitimate authority over territory. International law defines sovereign states as having a permanent population, defined te ...
s.
The organization's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the
Cold War between the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
and their respective allies. Its missions have consisted primarily of unarmed
military observers and lightly armed troops with primarily monitoring, reporting and confidence-building roles. UN membership grew significantly following widespread
decolonization
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
beginning in the 1960s. Since then, 80 former colonies have gained independence, including 11
trust territories
United Nations trust territories were the successors of the remaining League of Nations mandates and came into being when the League of Nations ceased to exist in 1946. All of the trust territories were administered through the United Natio ...
that had been monitored by the
Trusteeship Council
The United Nations Trusteeship Council (french: links=no, Conseil de tutelle des Nations unies) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests ...
. By the 1970s, the UN's budget for economic and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on
peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN shifted and expanded its field operations, undertaking a wide variety of complex tasks.
The UN has six principal organs: the
General Assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presb ...
; the
Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
; the
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC); the
Trusteeship Council
The United Nations Trusteeship Council (french: links=no, Conseil de tutelle des Nations unies) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests ...
; the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
; and the
UN Secretariat
The United Nations Secretariat (french: link=no, Secrétariat des Nations unies) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), The secretariat is the UN's executive arm. The secretariat has an important role in setting the a ...
. The
UN System
The United Nations System consists of the United Nations' six principal organs (the United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly, United Nations Security Council, Security Council, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Economic and S ...
includes a multitude of
specialized agencies, funds and programmes such as the
World Bank Group
The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Gr ...
, the
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...
, the
World Food Programme
The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен ...
,
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
, and
UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...
. Additionally,
non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization (NGO) or non-governmental organisation (see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is an organization that generally is formed independent from g ...
s may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work.
The UN's chief administrative officer is the
secretary-general
Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
, currently Portuguese politician and diplomat
António Guterres, who began his first five year-term on 1 January 2017 and was re-elected on 8 June 2021. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states.
The UN, its officers, and its agencies have won many
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
s, though other evaluations of its effectiveness have been mixed. Some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called it ineffective, biased, or corrupt.
History
Background (pre-1941)
In the century prior to the UN's creation, several
international organization
An international organization or international organisation (see spelling differences), also known as an intergovernmental organization or an international institution, is a stable set of norms and rules meant to govern the behavior of states a ...
s such as the
International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...
were formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife.
During World War I, several major leaders, especially US President
Woodrow Wilson
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...
, advocated for a world body to guarantee peace. The winners of the war, the
Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
, met to hammer out formal peace terms at the
Paris Peace Conference. The
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference that ...
was approved, and started operations, but the U.S. never joined. On 10 January 1920, the League of Nations formally came into being when the
Covenant of the League of Nations
The Covenant of the League of Nations was the charter of the League of Nations. It was signed on 28 June 1919 as Part I of the Treaty of Versailles, and became effective together with the rest of the Treaty on 10 January 1920.
Creation
Early d ...
, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, took effect. The League Council acted as a type of executive body directing the Assembly's business. It began with four permanent members—
the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
,
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
, and
Japan.
After some limited successes and failures during the 1920s, the League proved ineffective in the 1930s. It failed to act against the
Japanese invasion of Manchuria
The Empire of Japan's Kwantung Army invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931, immediately following the Mukden Incident. At the war's end in February 1932, the Japanese established the puppet state of Manchukuo. Their occupation lasted until the ...
in 1933. Forty nations voted for Japan to withdraw from
Manchuria
Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer M ...
but Japan voted against it and walked out of the League instead of withdrawing from Manchuria. It also failed against the
Second Italo-Ethiopian War
The Second Italo-Ethiopian War, also referred to as the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, was a war of aggression which was fought between Italy and Ethiopia from October 1935 to February 1937. In Ethiopia it is often referred to simply as the Itali ...
when calls for economic sanctions against Italy failed. Italy and other nations left the league. All of them realized that it had failed and they began to re-arm as fast as possible.
When
war broke out in 1939, the League closed down.
Declarations by the Allies of World War II (1941–1944)
![United Nations organization sketch by Franklin Roosevelt with the Four Policemen in 1943](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/United_Nations_organization_sketch_by_Franklin_Roosevelt_with_the_Four_Policemen_in_1943.jpg)
The first specific step towards the establishment of the United Nations was the Inter-Allied conference that led to the
Declaration of St James's Palace
The Declaration of St James's Palace, or London Declaration, was the first joint statement of goals and principles by the Allied Powers during World War II. The declaration was issued after the first Inter-Allied Meeting at St James's Palace in ...
on 12 June 1941. By August 1941, American president
Franklin Roosevelt and British prime minister
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
had drafted the
Atlantic Charter to define goals for the post-war world. At the subsequent meeting of the Inter-Allied Council in London on 24 September 1941, the eight
governments in exile of countries under Axis occupation, together with the Soviet Union and representatives of the
Free French Forces
__NOTOC__
The French Liberation Army (french: Armée française de la Libération or AFL) was the reunified French Army that arose from the merging of the Armée d'Afrique with the prior Free French Forces (french: Forces françaises libres, l ...
, unanimously adopted adherence to the common principles of policy set forth by Britain and United States.
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in ...
in December 1941 for the
Arcadia Conference The First Washington Conference, also known as the Arcadia Conference (ARCADIA was the code name used for the conference), was held in Washington, D.C., from December 22, 1941, to January 14, 1942. President Roosevelt of the United States and Prime ...
. Roosevelt, considered a founder of the UN, coined the term ''United Nations'' to describe the
Allied countries. Churchill accepted it, noting its use by
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
. The text of the
Declaration by United Nations
The Declaration by United Nations was the main treaty that formalized the Allies of World War II and was signed by 47 national governments between 1942 and 1945. On 1 January 1942, during the Arcadia Conference, the Allied " Big Four"—the Unite ...
was drafted on 29 December 1941, by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Roosevelt aide
Harry Hopkins. It incorporated Soviet suggestions but included no role for France. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted.
Roosevelt's idea of the "
Four Powers", referring to the four major Allied countries, the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
,
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
,
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
, and
Republic of China, emerged in the Declaration by United Nations.
On New Year's Day 1942, President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill,
Maxim Litvinov
Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (; born Meir Henoch Wallach; 17 July 1876 – 31 December 1951) was a Russian revolutionary and prominent Soviet statesman and diplomat.
A strong advocate of diplomatic agreements leading towards disarmament, Litvinov w ...
, of the USSR, and
T. V. Soong
Soong Tse-vung, more commonly romanized as Soong Tse-ven or Soong Tzu-wen (; 4 December 1894 – 25 April 1971), was a prominent businessman and politician in the early 20th-century Republic of China, who served as Premier. His father was Char ...
, of China, signed the "
Declaration by United Nations
The Declaration by United Nations was the main treaty that formalized the Allies of World War II and was signed by 47 national governments between 1942 and 1945. On 1 January 1942, during the Arcadia Conference, the Allied " Big Four"—the Unite ...
", and the next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures. During the war, "the United Nations" became the official term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the
Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
.
The October 1943
Moscow Conference resulted in the
Moscow Declarations, including the
Four Power Declaration on General Security which aimed for the creation "at the earliest possible date of a general international organization". This was the first public announcement that a new international organization was being contemplated to replace the League of Nations. The
Tehran Conference
The Tehran Conference ( codenamed Eureka) was a strategy meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill from 28 November to 1 December 1943, after the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. It was held in the Soviet Union's embass ...
followed shortly afterwards at which Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin met and discussed the idea of a post-war international organization.
The new international organization was formulated and negotiated among the delegations from the
Allied Big Four at the
Dumbarton Oaks Conference
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference, or, more formally, the Washington Conversations on International Peace and Security Organization, was an international conference at which proposals for the establishment of a "general international organization", w ...
from 21 September to 7 October 1944. They agreed on proposals for the aims, structure and functioning of the new international organization. It took the
conference at Yalta in February 1945, and further negotiations with Moscow, before all the issues were resolved.
Founding (1945)
![United Nations Member States-1945](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3a/United_Nations_Member_States-1945.png)
By 1 March 1945, 21 additional states had signed the Declaration by United Nations. After months of planning, the
UN Conference on International Organization opened in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...
, 25 April 1945, attended by 50 governments and a number of non-governmental organizations.
The Big Four sponsoring countries invited other nations to take part and the heads of the delegations of the four chaired the plenary meetings. Winston Churchill urged Roosevelt to restore France to its status of a major Power after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. The drafting of the
Charter of the United Nations
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
was completed over the following two months; it was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries.
Jan Smuts
Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, (24 May 1870 11 September 1950) was a South African statesman, military leader and philosopher. In addition to holding various military and cabinet posts, he served as prime minister of the Union of South Af ...
was a principal author of the draft. The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, upon ratification of the Charter by the five permanent members of the
Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
—the US, the UK, France, the Soviet Union and
the Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
—and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.
The first meetings of the
General Assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presb ...
, with 51 nations represented, and the Security Council took place in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
beginning in January 1946.
Debates began at once, covering topical issues such as the presence of Russian troops in
Iranian Azerbaijan, British forces in
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...
and within days the first
veto
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto ...
was cast. British diplomat
Gladwyn Jebb
Hubert Miles Gladwyn Jebb, 1st Baron Gladwyn (25 April 1900 – 24 October 1996) was a prominent British civil servant, diplomat and politician who served as the acting secretary-general of the United Nations between 1945 and 1946.
Early ...
served as acting secretary-general.
The General Assembly selected
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
as the site for the headquarters of the UN, construction began on 14 September 1948 and the facility was completed on 9 October 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in
Geneva
, neighboring_municipalities= Carouge, Chêne-Bougeries, Cologny, Lancy, Grand-Saconnex, Pregny-Chambésy, Vernier, Veyrier
, website = https://www.geneve.ch/
Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevr ...
,
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, and
Nairobi
Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...
—is designated as
international territory
Border control refers to measures taken by governments to monitor and regulate the movement of people, animals, and goods across land, air, and maritime borders. While border control is typically associated with international borders, it a ...
. The Norwegian foreign minister,
Trygve Lie
Trygve Halvdan Lie ( , ; 16 July 1896 – 30 December 1968) was a Norwegian politician, labour leader, government official and author. He served as Norwegian foreign minister during the critical years of the Norwegian government in exile in Lond ...
, was elected as the first
UN secretary-general
The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the six principal organs of the United Nations.
The role of the secretary- ...
.
Cold War (1947–1991)
![Dag Hammarskjöld](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Dag_Hammarskj%C3%B6ld.jpg)
Though the UN's primary mandate was
peacekeeping, the division between the US and USSR often paralysed the organization, generally allowing it to intervene only in conflicts distant from the
Cold War. Two notable exceptions were a Security Council resolution on 7 July 1950 authorizing a
US-led coalition to repel the
North Korean invasion of South Korea, passed in the absence of the USSR,
and the signing of the
Korean Armistice Agreement
The Korean Armistice Agreement ( ko, 한국정전협정 / 조선정전협정; zh, t=韓國停戰協定 / 朝鮮停戰協定) is an armistice that brought about a complete cessation of hostilities of the Korean War. It was signed by United Sta ...
on 27 July 1953.
On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly approved
a resolution to partition
Palestine, approving the creation of the
state of Israel. Two years later,
Ralph Bunche, a UN official, negotiated an armistice to the resulting conflict. On 7 November 1956, the
first UN peacekeeping force was established to end the
Suez Crisis;
however, the UN was unable to intervene against the USSR's simultaneous invasion of Hungary following
that country's revolution.
On 14 July 1960, the UN established
United Nations Operation in the Congo
The United Nations Operation in the Congo (french: Opération des Nations Unies au Congo, abbreviated to ONUC) was a United Nations peacekeeping force deployed in the Republic of the Congo in 1960 in response to the Congo Crisis. ONUC was the ...
(UNOC), the largest military force of its early decades, to bring order to the breakaway
State of Katanga, restoring it to the control of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...
by 11 May 1964. While traveling to meet rebel leader
Moise Tshombe
Moise is a given name and surname, with differing spellings in its French and Romanian origins, both of which originate from the name Moses: Moïse is the French spelling of Moses, while Moise is the Romanian spelling. As a surname, Moisè and Mo ...
during the conflict,
Dag Hammarskjöld
Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld ( , ; 29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish economist and diplomat who served as the second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 196 ...
, often named as one of the UN's most effective secretaries-general,
died in a plane crash; months later he was posthumously awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
. In 1964, Hammarskjöld's successor,
U Thant
Thant (; ; January 22, 1909 – November 25, 1974), known honorifically as U Thant (), was a Burmese diplomat and the third secretary-general of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, the first non-Scandinavian to hold the position. He held t ...
, deployed the
UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, which would become one of the UN's longest-running peacekeeping missions.
With the spread of
decolonization
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
in the 1960s, the organization's membership saw an influx of newly independent nations. In 1960 alone, 17 new states joined the UN, 16 of them from Africa.
On 25 October 1971, with opposition from the United States, but with the support of many
Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
nations, the mainland, communist
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
was given the Chinese seat on the Security Council in place of the
Republic of China; the vote was widely seen as a sign of waning US influence in the organization. Third World nations organized into the
Group of 77 coalition under the leadership of Algeria, which briefly became a dominant power at the UN. On 10 November 1975, a bloc comprising the USSR and Third World nations passed
a resolution, over the strenuous US and Israeli opposition, declaring
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...
to be racism; the resolution was repealed on 16 December 1991, shortly after the end of the Cold War.
With an increasing Third World presence and the failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (Europ ...
,
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...
, and
Kashmir, the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its ostensibly secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange. By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its peacekeeping budget.
Post–Cold War (1991–present)
![UN Members Flags2](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f2/UN_Members_Flags2.JPG)
After the Cold War, the UN saw a radical expansion in its peacekeeping duties, taking on more missions in five years than it had in the previous four decades. Between 1988 and 2000, the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled, and the peacekeeping budget increased more than tenfold. The UN negotiated an end to the
Salvadoran Civil War
The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front
The Farabundo Ma ...
, launched a successful
peacekeeping mission in Namibia, and oversaw democratic elections in post-
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
South Africa and post-
Khmer Rouge Cambodia. In 1991, the UN authorized a
US-led coalition that repulsed the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was an operation conducted by Iraq on 2 August 1990, whereby it invaded the neighboring State of Kuwait, consequently resulting in a seven-month-long Iraqi military occupation of the country. The invasion and Ira ...
.
Brian Urquhart
Major Sir Brian Edward Urquhart ( ) (28 February 1919 – 2 January 2021) was a British international civil servant and World War II veteran, and author. He played a significant role in the founding of the United Nations. He went on to serve as ...
, under-secretary-general from 1971 to 1985, later described the hopes raised by these successes as a "false renaissance" for the organization, given the more troubled missions that followed.
Beginning in the last decades of the
Cold War, American and European critics of the UN condemned the organization for perceived mismanagement and corruption. In 1984, US President
Ronald Reagan, withdrew his nation's funding from
(UNESCO) over allegations of mismanagement, followed by the UK and Singapore.
Boutros Boutros-Ghali
Boutros Boutros-Ghali (; , ar, بطرس بطرس غالي ', ; 14 November 1922 – 16 February 2016) was an Egyptian politician and diplomat who served as the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) from 1992 to 1996. An academic ...
, secretary-general from 1992 to 1996, initiated a reform of the Secretariat, reducing the size of the organization somewhat.
His successor,
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founde ...
(1997–2006), initiated further management reforms in the face of threats from the US to withhold its UN dues.
Though the UN Charter had been written primarily to prevent aggression by one nation against another, in the early 1990s the UN faced a number of simultaneous, serious crises within nations such as Somalia, Haiti, Mozambique, and the former Yugoslavia. The
UN mission in Somalia was widely viewed as a failure after the US withdrawal following casualties in the
Battle of Mogadishu. The
UN mission to Bosnia faced "worldwide ridicule" for its indecisive and confused mission in the face of ethnic cleansing. In 1994, the
UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the
Rwandan genocide
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed H ...
amid indecision in the Security Council.
From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, international interventions authorized by the UN took a wider variety of forms.
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244
United Nations Security Council resolution 1244, adopted on 10 June 1999, after recalling resolutions 1160 (1998), 1199 (1998), 1203 (1998) and 1239 (1999), authorised an international civil and military presence in the Federal Republic of Y ...
authorised the
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
-led
Kosovo Force beginning in 1999. The
UN mission (1999-2006) in the
Sierra Leone Civil War
The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002), or the Sierra Leonean Civil War, was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Liberian dictator Char ...
was supplemented by a
British military intervention. The
invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was overseen by NATO. In 2003, the United States
invaded Iraq despite failing to pass a UN Security Council resolution for authorization, prompting a new round of questioning of the organization's effectiveness.
Under the eighth secretary-general,
Ban Ki-moon, the UN intervened with peacekeepers in crises such as the
War in Darfur
The War in Darfur, also nicknamed the Land Cruiser War, is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups bega ...
in Sudan and the
Kivu conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and sent observers and chemical weapons inspectors to the
Syrian Civil War. In 2013,
an internal review of UN actions in
the final battles of the
Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 concluded that the organization had suffered "systemic failure". In 2010, the organization suffered the worst loss of life in its history, when 101 personnel died in the
Haiti earthquake
Some of the earthquakes in Haiti have been very destructive to the country. The widespread damage and high-number of casualties of events in 2010 and 2021 can be partially blamed on the fact that most of the population in Haiti resides in struct ...
.
Acting under
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973
Resolution 1973 was adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 17 March 2011 in response to the First Libyan Civil War. The resolution formed the legal basis for military intervention in the Libyan Civil War, demanding "an immediate ceas ...
in 2011,
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
countries intervened in the
Libyan Civil War
Demographics of Libya is the demography of Libya, specifically covering population density, ethnicity, education level, health of the populace, economic status, and religious affiliations, as well as other aspects of the Libyan population. The ...
.
The
Millennium Summit
The Millennium Summit was a meeting among many world leaders, lasting three days from 2000, held at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. Its purpose was to discuss the role of the United Nations at the turn of the 21st century. At ...
was held in 2000 to discuss the UN's role in the 21st century.
The three-day meeting was the largest gathering of world leaders in history, and culminated in the adoption by all member states of the
Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millenn ...
(MDGs), a commitment to achieve international development in areas such as
poverty reduction
Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.
Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics cl ...
,
gender equality
Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...
, and
public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the det ...
. Progress towards these goals, which were to be met by 2015, was ultimately uneven. The
2005 World Summit
The 2005 World Summit, held between 14 and 16 September 2005, was a follow-up summit meeting to the United Nations' 2000 Millennium Summit, which had led to the Millennium Declaration of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Representatives ( ...
reaffirmed the UN's focus on promoting development, peacekeeping, human rights, and global security. The
Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 to succeed the Millennium Development Goals.
In addition to addressing global challenges, the UN has sought to improve its accountability and democratic legitimacy by engaging more with civil society and fostering a global constituency. In an effort to enhance transparency, in 2016 the organization held its first public debate between candidates for secretary-general. On 1 January 2017, Portuguese diplomat
António Guterres, who previously served as
UN High Commissioner for Refugees
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integratio ...
, became the ninth secretary-general. Guterres has highlighted several key goals for his administration, including an emphasis on diplomacy for preventing conflicts, more effective peacekeeping efforts, and streamlining the organization to be more responsive and versatile to global needs.
Structure
The United Nations is part of the broader
UN system
The United Nations System consists of the United Nations' six principal organs (the United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly, United Nations Security Council, Security Council, United Nations Economic and Social Council, Economic and S ...
, which includes an extensive network of institutions and entities. Central to the organisation are five principal organs established by the UN Charter: the
General Assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presb ...
(UNGA), the
Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
(UNSC), the
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the
International Court of Justice
The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
(ICJ) and the
UN Secretariat
The United Nations Secretariat (french: link=no, Secrétariat des Nations unies) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), The secretariat is the UN's executive arm. The secretariat has an important role in setting the a ...
. A sixth principal organ, the
Trusteeship Council
The United Nations Trusteeship Council (french: links=no, Conseil de tutelle des Nations unies) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, established to help ensure that trust territories were administered in the best interests ...
, suspended operations on 1 November 1994, upon the independence of
Palau
Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the ...
, the last remaining UN trustee territory.
Four of the five principal organs are located at the main UN Headquarters in New York City, while the ICJ is seated in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
. Most other major agencies are based in the
UN offices at Geneva,
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, and
Nairobi
Nairobi ( ) is the capital and largest city of Kenya. The name is derived from the Maasai phrase ''Enkare Nairobi'', which translates to "place of cool waters", a reference to the Nairobi River which flows through the city. The city proper h ...
; additional UN institutions are located throughout the world. The six
official language
An official language is a language given supreme status in a particular country, state, or other jurisdiction. Typically the term "official language" does not refer to the language used by a people or country, but by its government (e.g. judiciary, ...
s of the UN, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
,
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
,
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
,
French,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
, and
Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
**Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Can ...
.
On the basis of the
, the UN and its agencies are
immune
In biology, immunity is the capability of multicellular organisms to resist harmful microorganisms. Immunity involves both specific and nonspecific components. The nonspecific components act as barriers or eliminators of a wide range of pathogens ...
from the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding the UN's impartiality with regard to host and member countries.
Below the six organs sit, in the words of the author Linda Fasulo, "an amazing collection of entities and organizations, some of which are actually older than the UN itself and operate with almost complete independence from it". These include specialized agencies, research and training institutions, programs and funds, and other UN entities.
All organisations in the UN system obey the ''Noblemaire principle'', which calls for salaries that will attract and retain citizens of countries where compensation is highest, and which ensures equal pay for work of equal value regardless of the employee's nationality.
[Salaries](_blank)
, United Nations website In practice, the
International Civil Service Commission
The International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) is a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly, established pursuant to ''General Assembly Resolution 3357 (XXIX)'' of 18 December 1974. According to its statute, the ICSC is charged w ...
, which governs the conditions of UN personnel, takes reference to the highest-paying national civil service. Staff salaries are subject to an internal tax that is administered by the UN organizations.
General Assembly
![RIAN archive 828797 Mikhail Gorbachev addressing UN General Assembly session](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/RIAN_archive_828797_Mikhail_Gorbachev_addressing_UN_General_Assembly_session.jpg)
The General Assembly is the main
deliberative assembly
A deliberative assembly is a meeting of members who use parliamentary procedure.
Etymology
In a speech to the electorate at Bristol in 1774, Edmund Burke described the British Parliament as a "deliberative assembly," and the expression became th ...
of the UN. Composed of all
UN member states
The United Nations member states are the sovereign states that are members of the United Nations (UN) and have equal representation in the UN General Assembly. The UN is the world's largest intergovernmental organization.
The criteria ...
, the assembly meets in regular yearly sessions at the
General Assembly Hall, but emergency sessions can also be called. The assembly is led by a
president
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
, elected from among the member states on a rotating regional basis, and 21 vice-presidents. The first session convened 10 January 1946 in the
Methodist Central Hall
The Methodist Central Hall (also known as Central Hall Westminster) is a multi-purpose venue in the City of Westminster, London, serving primarily as a Methodist church and a conference centre. The building, which is a tourist attraction, also ho ...
in London and included representatives of 51 nations.
When the General Assembly decides on important questions such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, a two-thirds majority of those present and voting is required. All other questions are decided by a majority vote. Each member country has one vote. Apart from the approval of budgetary matters, resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security that are under consideration by the Security Council.
Draft resolutions can be forwarded to the General Assembly by its six main committees:
*
First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)
*
Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
*
Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural)
*
Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization)
*
Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)
*
Sixth Committee (Legal)
As well as by the following two committees:
*
General Committee
A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry.
In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". OED O ...
– a supervisory committee consisting of the assembly's president, vice-president, and committee heads
*
Credentials Committee – responsible for determining the credentials of each member nation's UN representatives
Security Council
![Powell-anthrax-vial](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Colin_Powell_anthrax_vial._5_Feb_2003_at_the_UN.jpg)
The Security Council is charged with maintaining peace and security among countries. While other organs of the UN can only make "recommendations" to member states, the Security Council has the power to make binding decisions that member states have agreed to carry out, under the terms of Charter Article 25.
The decisions of the council are known as
United Nations Security Council resolution
A United Nations Security Council resolution is a United Nations resolution adopted by the fifteen members of the Security Council (UNSC); the United Nations (UN) body charged with "primary responsibility for the maintenance of international pea ...
s.
The Security Council is made up of fifteen member states, consisting of five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—and ten non-permanent members elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly:
Albania
Albania ( ; sq, Shqipëri or ), or , also or . officially the Republic of Albania ( sq, Republika e Shqipërisë), is a country in Southeastern Europe. It is located on the Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea and shares ...
(term ends 2023),
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
(2023),
Gabon
Gabon (; ; snq, Ngabu), officially the Gabonese Republic (french: République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the nort ...
(2023),
Ghana
Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...
(2023),
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
(2022),
Ireland
Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
(2022),
Kenya
)
, national_anthem = " Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"()
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, image_map2 =
, capital = Nairobi
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Nairobi
...
(2022),
Mexico
Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
(2022),
Norway
Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...
(2022), and the
United Arab Emirates
The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...
(2023). The five permanent members hold
veto power
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto pow ...
over UN resolutions, allowing a permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, though not debate. The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms, with five member states per year voted in by the General Assembly on a
regional basis. The presidency of the Security Council rotates alphabetically each month.
UN Secretariat
![António Guterres 2021](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Ant%C3%B3nio_Guterres_2021.jpg)
The UN Secretariat carries out the day-to-day duties required to operate and maintain the UN system. It is composed of tens of thousands of international civil servants worldwide and headed by the
secretary-general
Secretary is a title often used in organizations to indicate a person having a certain amount of authority, power, or importance in the organization. Secretaries announce important events and communicate to the organization. The term is derived ...
, who is assisted by the
deputy secretary-general. The Secretariat's duties include providing information and facilities needed by UN bodies for their meetings; it also carries out tasks as directed by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and other UN bodies.
The secretary-general acts as the ''de facto'' spokesperson and leader of the UN. The position is defined in the UN Charter as the organization's "chief administrative officer". Article 99 of the charter states that the secretary-general can bring to the Security Council's attention "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security", a phrase that secretaries-general since
Trygve Lie
Trygve Halvdan Lie ( , ; 16 July 1896 – 30 December 1968) was a Norwegian politician, labour leader, government official and author. He served as Norwegian foreign minister during the critical years of the Norwegian government in exile in Lond ...
have interpreted as giving the position broad scope for action on the world stage. The office has evolved into a dual role of an administrator of the UN organization and a diplomat and mediator addressing disputes between member states and finding consensus to global issues.
The secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly, after being recommended by the Security Council, where the permanent members have veto power. There are no specific criteria for the post, but over the years it has become accepted that the position shall be held for one or two terms of five years. The current secretary-general is
António Guterres of Portugal, who replaced
Ban Ki-moon in 2017.
International Court of Justice
![Grand Hall de Justice de Palais de La Paix à La Haye Pays-Bas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8e/Grand_Hall_de_Justice_de_Palais_de_La_Paix_%C3%A0_La_Haye_Pays-Bas.jpg)
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), sometimes known as the World Court,
is the primary judicial organ of the UN. It is the successor to the
Permanent Court of International Justice
The Permanent Court of International Justice, often called the World Court, existed from 1922 to 1946. It was an international court attached to the League of Nations. Created in 1920 (although the idea of an international court was several cent ...
and occupies that body's former headquarters in the
Peace Palace
, native_name_lang =
, logo =
, logo_size =
, logo_alt =
, logo_caption =
, image = La haye palais paix jardin face.JPG
, image_size =
, image_alt =
, image_caption = The Peace Palace, The Hague
, map_type =
, map_alt =
, m ...
in
The Hague, Netherlands
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
, making it the only principal organ not based in New York City. The ICJ's main function is adjudicating disputes among states; it has heard cases concerning war crimes, violations of state sovereignty, ethnic cleansing, and other issues. The court can also be called upon by other UN organs to provide advisory opinions on matters of international law. All UN member states are parties to the
ICJ Statute, which forms an integral part of the UN Charter, and nonmembers may also become parties. The ICJ's rulings are binding upon parties and, along with its advisory opinions, serve as
sources of international law
International law, also known as "law of nations", refers to the body of rules which regulate the conduct of sovereign states in their relations with one another. Sources of international law include treaties, international customs, general ...
.
The court is composed of 15 judges appointed to nine-year terms by the General Assembly; every sitting judge must be from a different nation.
Economic and Social Council
The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) assists the General Assembly in promoting international economic, social, and humanitarian co-operation and development.
It was established to serve as the UN's primary forum for global issues and is the largest and most complex UN body.
ECOSOC's functions include gathering data, conducting studies, advising member nations, and making recommendations. Its work is carried out primarily by subsidiary bodies focused on a wide variety of topics; these include the
United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII or PFII) is the UN's central coordinating body for matters relating to the concerns and rights of the world's indigenous peoples. There are more than 370 million indigenous peop ...
, which advises UN agencies on issues relating to
indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...
; the
United Nations Forum on Forests
The United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) is a high-level intergovernmental policy forum. The forum includes all United Nations member states and permanent observers, the UNFF Secretariat, the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, Regional Orga ...
, which coordinates and promotes sustainable forest management; the
United Nations Statistical Commission
The United Nations Statistical Commission (StatCom) is a Functional Commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, established in 1947. The Statistical Commission oversees the work of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD). I ...
, which co-ordinates information-gathering efforts between agencies; and the
Commission on Sustainable Development
The United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) was a body under the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) tasked with overseeing the outcomes of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development/Earth Summit. It ...
, which co-ordinates efforts between UN agencies and NGOs working towards
sustainable development. ECOSOC may also grant consultative status to nongovernmental organizations; as of April 2021, close to 5,600 organizations have this status.
Specialized agencies
The UN Charter stipulates that each primary organ of the United Nations can establish various specialized agencies to fulfil its duties.
Specialized agencies are autonomous organizations working with the United Nations and each other through the co-ordinating machinery of the Economic and Social Council. Each was integrated into the UN system through an agreement with the UN under UN Charter article 57.
There are fifteen specialized agencies, which perform functions as diverse as facilitating international travel, preventing and addressing pandemics, and promoting economic development.
Other bodies
The United Nations system includes a myriad of autonomous, separately-administered
funds, programmes, research and training institutes, and other subsidiary bodies.
Each of these entities have their own area of work, governance structure, and budget; several, such as the
World Trade Organization
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization that regulates and facilitates international trade. With effective cooperation
in the United Nations System, governments use the organization to establish, revise, and ...
(WTO) and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), operate independently of the UN but maintain formal partnership agreements. The UN performs much of its humanitarian work through these institutions, such as preventing famine and malnutrition (
World Food Programme
The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен ...
), protecting vulnerable and displaced people (
UNHCR
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integrat ...
), and combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic (
UNAIDS
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) (, ONUSIDA) is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
The mission of UNAIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an ...
).
Membership
![United Nations (Member States and Territories)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/United_Nations_%28Member_States_and_Territories%29.svg)
All the world's
undisputed
Undisputed may refer to:
Film
* ''Undisputed'' (film), a 2002 action-thriller-drama film
** ''Undisputed'' (soundtrack), the soundtrack to the film
* Undisputed II: Last Man Standing, a 2006 American martial arts film
* Undisputed III: Redempt ...
independent states, apart from
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
, are members of the United Nations.
South Sudan
South Sudan (; din, Paguot Thudän), officially the Republic of South Sudan ( din, Paankɔc Cuëny Thudän), is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is bordered by Ethiopia, Sudan, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the ...
, which joined 14 July 2011, is the most recent addition, bringing a total of UN member states.
[
] The UN Charter outlines the rules for membership:
![Presiden_Sukarno](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Presiden_Sukarno.jpg)
In addition, there are two
non-member observer states of the United Nations General Assembly: the
Holy See
The Holy See ( lat, Sancta Sedes, ; it, Santa Sede ), also called the See of Rome, Petrine See or Apostolic See, is the jurisdiction of the Pope in his role as the bishop of Rome. It includes the apostolic episcopal see of the Diocese of R ...
(which holds sovereignty over Vatican City) and the
State of Palestine. The
Cook Islands
)
, image_map = Cook Islands on the globe (small islands magnified) (Polynesia centered).svg
, capital = Avarua
, coordinates =
, largest_city = Avarua
, official_languages =
, lan ...
and
Niue
Niue (, ; niu, Niuē) is an island country in the South Pacific Ocean, northeast of New Zealand. Niue's land area is about and its population, predominantly Polynesian, was about 1,600 in 2016. Niue is located in a triangle between Tong ...
, both
states in free association with
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, are full members of several UN specialized agencies and have had their "full treaty-making capacity" recognized by the Secretariat.
Indonesia
Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...
is the first and the only nation to withdraw its membership from the United Nations, in protest to the election of Malaysia as a non-permanent member of the
Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
in 1965 during
conflict between the two countries. After forming
CONEFO
The Conference of the New Emerging Forces (CONEFO) was an effort by President Sukarno of Indonesia to create a new bloc of "emerging countries" that would be an alternative power centre to the United Nations and to the "old-established forces"— ...
as a short-lived rival to the UN, Indonesia resumed its full membership in 1966.
Group of 77
The Group of 77 (G77) at the UN is a loose coalition of
developing nations
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreeme ...
, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the UN. Seventy-seven nations founded the organization, but by November 2013 the organization had since expanded to 133 member countries. The group was founded 15 June 1964 by the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) is an intergovernmental organization within the United Nations Secretariat that promotes the interests of developing countries in world trade. It was established in 1964 by the ...
(UNCTAD). The group held its first major meeting in
Algiers in 1967, where it adopted the Charter of Algiers and established the basis for permanent institutional structures. With the adoption of the
New International Economic Order
The New International Economic Order (NIEO) is a set of proposals advocated by developing countries to end economic colonialism and dependency through a new interdependent economy. The main NIEO document recognized that the current international e ...
by developing countries in the 1970s, the work of the G77 spread throughout the UN system. Similar groupings of developing states also operate in other UN agencies, such as the
Group of 24
The Intergovernmental Group of Twenty-Four on International Monetary Affairs and Development, or The Group of 24 (G-24) was established in 1971 as a chapter of the Group of 77 in order to help coordinate the positions of developing countries on ...
(G-24), which operates in the IMF on monetary affairs.
Objectives
Peacekeeping and security
The UN, after approval by the Security Council, sends peacekeepers to regions where armed conflict has recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements and to discourage combatants from resuming hostilities. Since the UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states. These soldiers are sometimes nicknamed "Blue Helmets" for their distinctive gear. Peacekeeping forces as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
The UN has carried out 71 peacekeeping operations since 1947; as of April 2021, over 88,000 peacekeeping personnel from 121 nations were deployed on 12 missions, mostly in Africa. The largest is the
United Nations Mission in South Sudan
The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is a United Nations peacekeeping mission for South Sudan, which became independent on 9 July 2011. UNMISS was established on 8 July 2011 by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1996 (201 ...
(UNMISS), which has close to 19,200 uniformed personnel; the smallest, the
United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan
The United Nations has played an advisory role in maintaining peace and order in the Kashmir region soon after the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947, when a dispute erupted between the two States on the question of Jammu and Kashmir. Indi ...
(UNMOGIP), consists of 113 civilians and experts charged with monitoring the ceasefire in
Jammu and Kashmir. UN peacekeepers with the
United Nations Truce Supervision Organization
The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) is an organization founded on 29 May 1948 for peacekeeping in the Middle East. Established amidst the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, its primary task was initially to provide the military c ...
(UNTSO) have been stationed in the Middle East since 1948, the longest-running active peacekeeping mission.
A study by the RAND Corporation in 2005 found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts. It compared efforts at nation-building by the UN to those of the United States, and found that seven out of eight UN cases are at peace, as compared with four out of eight U.S. cases at peace. Also in 2005, the
Human Security Report documented a decline in the number of wars,
genocide
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the Lat ...
s, and
human rights abuses
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
since the end of the Cold War, and presented evidence, albeit circumstantial, that international activism—mostly spearheaded by the UN—has been the main cause of the decline in armed conflict in that period. Situations in which the UN has not only acted to keep the peace but also intervened include the Korean War (1950–53) and the authorization of intervention in Iraq after the Gulf War (1990–91). Further studies published between 2008 and 2021 determined UN peacekeeping operations to be more effective at ensuring long-lasting peace and minimizing civilian casualties.
![GreenLine BufferZone Large](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/GreenLine_BufferZone_Large.JPG)
The UN has also drawn criticism for perceived failures. In many cases, member states have shown reluctance to achieve or enforce Security Council resolutions. Disagreements in the Security Council about military action and intervention are seen as having failed to prevent the
Bangladesh genocide in 1971, the
Cambodian genocide in the 1970s, and the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Similarly, UN inaction is blamed for failing to either prevent the
Srebrenica massacre
The Srebrenica massacre ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Masakr u Srebrenici, Масакр у Сребреници), also known as the Srebrenica genocide ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Genocid u Srebrenici, Геноцид у Сребрен ...
in 1995 or complete the peacekeeping operations in 1992–93 during the
Somali Civil War
The Somali Civil War ( so, Dagaalkii Sokeeye ee Soomaaliya; ar, الحرب الأهلية الصومالية ) is an ongoing civil war that is taking place in Somalia. It grew out of resistance to the military junta which was led by Siad Bar ...
. UN peacekeepers have also been accused of child rape, soliciting prostitutes, and sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Liberia, Sudan and what is now South Sudan, Burundi, and Côte d'Ivoire. Scientists cited UN peacekeepers from Nepal as the likely source of the
2010s Haiti cholera outbreak
The 2010s Haiti cholera outbreak is the first modern large-scale outbreak of cholera—a disease once considered beaten back largely due to the invention of modern sanitation. The disease was reintroduced to Haiti in October 2010, not long after ...
, which killed more than 8,000 Haitians following the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
In addition to peacekeeping, the UN is also active in encouraging
disarmament
Disarmament is the act of reducing, limiting, or abolishing weapons. Disarmament generally refers to a country's military or specific type of weaponry. Disarmament is often taken to mean total elimination of weapons of mass destruction, such as ...
. Regulation of armaments was included in the writing of the UN Charter in 1945 and was envisioned as a way of limiting the use of human and economic resources for their creation.
The advent of
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
s came only weeks after the signing of the charter, resulting in the first
resolution
Resolution(s) may refer to:
Common meanings
* Resolution (debate), the statement which is debated in policy debate
* Resolution (law), a written motion adopted by a deliberative body
* New Year's resolution, a commitment that an individual mak ...
of the first
General Assembly
A general assembly or general meeting is a meeting of all the members of an organization or shareholders of a company.
Specific examples of general assembly include:
Churches
* General Assembly (presbyterian church), the highest court of presb ...
meeting calling for specific proposals for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction". The UN has been involved with arms-limitation treaties, such as the
Outer Space Treaty
russian: link=yes, Договор о космосе es, link=yes, Tratado sobre el espacio ultraterrestre
, long_name = Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moo ...
(1967), the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation ...
(1968), the
Seabed Arms Control Treaty (1971), the
Biological Weapons Convention
The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), or Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), is a disarmament treaty that effectively bans biological and toxin weapons by prohibiting their development, production, acquisition, transfer, stockpil ...
(1972), the
Chemical Weapons Convention (1992), and the
Ottawa Treaty
The Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on their Destruction of 1997, known informally as the Ottawa Treaty, the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention, or often simply the Mine ...
(1997), which prohibits landmines. Three UN bodies oversee arms proliferation issues: the
International Atomic Energy Agency, the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force on 29 April 1997. The OPCW, with its 193 member ...
, and the
. Additionally, many peacekeeping missions focus on disarmament: several operations in West Africa disarmed roughly 250,000 former combatants and secured tens of thousands of weapons and millions of munitions.
Human rights
One of the UN's primary purposes is "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion", and member states pledge to undertake "joint and separate action" to protect these rights.
![Eleanor Roosevelt UDHR (27758131387)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Eleanor_Roosevelt_UDHR_%2827758131387%29.jpg)
In 1948, the General Assembly adopted a
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
, drafted by a committee headed by American diplomat and activist
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt () (October 11, 1884November 7, 1962) was an American political figure, diplomat, and activist. She was the first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945, during her husband President Franklin D. Roosevelt's four ...
, and including the French lawyer
René Cassin
René Samuel Cassin (5 October 1887 – 20 February 1976) was a French jurist known for co-authoring the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.
Born in Bayonne, Cassin served as a soldier in the First Wo ...
. The document proclaims basic civil, political, and economic rights common to all human beings, though its effectiveness towards achieving these ends has been disputed since its drafting. The Declaration serves as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations" rather than a legally binding document, but it has become the basis of two binding treaties, the 1966
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, fr ...
and
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (GA) on 16 December 1966 through GA. Resolution 2200A (XXI), and came in force from 3 January 197 ...
. In practice, the UN is unable to take significant action against human rights abuses without a Security Council resolution, though it does substantial work in investigating and reporting abuses.
In 1979, the General Assembly adopted the
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, followed by the
Convention on the Rights of the Child
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (commonly abbreviated as the CRC or UNCRC) is an international human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Co ...
in 1989. With the end of the Cold War, the push for human rights action took on new impetus. The
United Nations Commission on Human Rights
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) was a functional commission within the overall framework of the United Nations from 1946 until it was replaced by the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2006. It was a subsidiary body of ...
was formed in 1993 to oversee human rights issues for the UN, following the recommendation of that year's
World Conference on Human Rights
The World Conference on Human Rights was held by the United Nations in Vienna, Austria, on 14 to 25 June 1993. It was the first human rights conference held since the end of the Cold War. The main result of the conference was the Vienna Declarati ...
. Jacques Fomerand, a scholar of the UN, describes this organization's mandate as "broad and vague", with only "meagre" resources to carry it out. In 2006, it was replaced by a
Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis. ...
consisting of 47 nations. Also in 2006, the General Assembly passed a
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in 2011 it passed its first resolution recognizing the rights of
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
people.
Other UN bodies responsible for
women's rights
Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countries, ...
issues include
United Nations Commission on the Status of Women
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW or UNCSW) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), one of the main UN organs within the United Nations. CSW has been described as the UN organ promoting gend ...
, a commission of ECOSOC founded in 1946; the
United Nations Development Fund for Women
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM, french: Fonds de développement des Nations unies pour la femme, ) was established in December 1976 originally as the Voluntary Fund for the United Nations Decade for Women in the Internationa ...
, created in 1976; and the
United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, founded in 1979. The UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, one of three bodies with a mandate to oversee issues related to indigenous peoples, held its first session in 2002.
Economic development and humanitarian assistance
Another primary purpose of the UN is "to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character".
[ Numerous bodies have been created to work towards this goal, primarily under the authority of the General Assembly and ECOSOC. In 2000, the 192 UN member states agreed to achieve eight ]Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were eight international development goals for the year 2015 that had been established following the Millennium Summit of the United Nations in 2000, following the adoption of the United Nations Millenn ...
by 2015. The Sustainable Development Goals were launched in 2015 to succeed the Millennium Development Goals. The SDGs have an associated financing framework called the Addis Ababa Action Agenda
The Addis Ababa Action Agenda was the outcome of the 2015 Third International Conference on Financing for Development, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It was adopted by heads of state and government on 15 July 2015. 174 United Nations member states ...
.
The UN Development Programme
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)french: Programme des Nations unies pour le développement, PNUD is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries Poverty reduction, eliminate poverty and achieve Sustainable development, ...
(UNDP), an organization for grant-based technical assistance founded in 1945, is one of the leading bodies in the field of international development. The organization also publishes the UN Human Development Index
The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistic composite index of life expectancy, education (mean years of schooling completed and expected years of schooling upon entering the education system), and per capita income indicators, wh ...
, a comparative measure ranking countries by poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, and other factors. The Food and Agriculture Organization
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)french: link=no, Organisation des Nations unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture; it, Organizzazione delle Nazioni Unite per l'Alimentazione e l'Agricoltura is an intern ...
(FAO), also founded in 1945, promotes agricultural development and food security. UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...
(the United Nations Children's Fund) was created in 1946 to aid European children after the Second World War and expanded its mission to provide aid around the world and to uphold the convention on the Rights of the Child.
The World Bank Group
The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Gr ...
and International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
(IMF) are independent, specialized agencies and observers within the UN framework, according to a 1947 agreement. They were initially formed separately from the UN through the Bretton Woods Agreement
The Bretton Woods system of monetary management established the rules for commercial and financial relations among the United States, Canada, Western European countries, Australia, and Japan after the 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement. The Bretto ...
in 1944. The World Bank provides loans for international development, while the IMF promotes international economic co-operation and gives emergency loans to indebted countries.
The World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level of ...
(WHO), which focuses on international health issues and disease eradication, is another of the UN's largest agencies. In 1980, the agency announced that the eradication of smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease caused by variola virus (often called smallpox virus) which belongs to the genus Orthopoxvirus. The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) c ...
had been completed. In subsequent decades, WHO
Who or WHO may refer to:
* Who (pronoun), an interrogative or relative pronoun
* Who?, one of the Five Ws in journalism
* World Health Organization
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Who, a creature in the Dr. Seuss book '' Horton He ...
largely eradicated polio
Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe s ...
, river blindness
Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a disease caused by infection with the parasitic worm ''Onchocerca volvulus''. Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin, and blindness. It is the second-most common cause of blindne ...
, and leprosy
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease (HD), is a long-term infection by the bacteria ''Mycobacterium leprae'' or ''Mycobacterium lepromatosis''. Infection can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin, and eyes. This nerve damag ...
. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS
The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS) (, ONUSIDA) is the main advocate for accelerated, comprehensive and coordinated global action on the HIV/ AIDS pandemic.
The mission of UNAIDS is to lead, strengthen and support an ...
(UNAIDS), begun in 1996, co-ordinates the organization's response to the AIDS epidemic. The UN Population Fund
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), formerly the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, is a UN agency aimed at improving reproductive and maternal health worldwide. Its work includes developing national healthcare strategies ...
, which also dedicates part of its resources to combating HIV, is the world's largest source of funding for reproductive health
Sexual and reproductive health (SRH) is a field of research, healthcare, and social activism that explores the health of an individual's reproductive system and sexual wellbeing during all stages of their life.
The term can also be further de ...
and family planning services.
Along with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the UN often takes a leading role in co-ordinating emergency relief. The World Food Programme
The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен ...
(WFP), created in 1961, provides food aid in response to famine, natural disasters, and armed conflict. The organization reports that it feeds an average of 90 million people in 80 nations each year. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is a United Nations agency mandated to aid and protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities, and stateless people, and to assist in their voluntary repatriation, local integratio ...
(UNHCR), established in 1950, works to protect the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless people. UNHCR and WFP programmes are funded by voluntary contributions from governments, corporations, and individuals, though the UNHCR's administrative costs are paid for by the UN's primary budget.
Environment and climate
Beginning with the formation of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1972, the UN has made environmental issues a prominent part of its agenda. A lack of success in the first two decades of UN work in this area led to the 1992 Earth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), also known as the Rio Conference or the Earth Summit (Portuguese: ECO92), was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from June 3 to June 14, 1992.
Earth Su ...
in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which sought to give new impetus to these efforts. In 1988, the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organization
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics.
The WMO originated from the Intern ...
(WMO), another UN organization, established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which assesses and reports on research on global warming
In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...
. The UN-sponsored Kyoto Protocol, signed in 1997, set legally binding emissions reduction targets for ratifying states.
Other global issues
Since the UN's creation, over 80 colonies have attained independence. The General Assembly adopted the in 1960 with no votes against but abstentions from all major colonial powers. The UN works towards decolonization through groups including the UN Committee on Decolonization, created in 1962. The committee lists seventeen remaining "non-self-governing territories
Chapter XI of the United Nations Charter defines a non-self-governing territory (NSGT) as a territory "whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government". In practice, an NSGT is a territory deemed by the United Nations Gener ...
", the largest and most populous of which is Western Sahara
Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while the ...
.
The UN also declares and co-ordinates international observance
Lists of holidays by various categorizations.
Religious holidays
Abrahamic holidays (Middle Eastern)
Jewish holidays
* Chag HaMatzot (Feast of Unleavened Bread – 7 days of consumption of matzo with wine and avoidance of leavened food ...
s that bring awareness to issues of international interest or concern; examples include World Tuberculosis Day
World Tuberculosis Day, observed on 24 March each year, is designed to build public awareness about the global epidemic of tuberculosis (TB) and efforts to eliminate the disease. In 2018, 10 million people fell ill with TB, and 1.5 million die ...
, Earth Day, and the International Year of Deserts and Desertification The year 2006 was declared the International Year of Deserts and Desertification by the United Nations General Assembly.
The Year aims to raise $20 million from industry and governments and will spend half on co-funding research, and half on "outrea ...
.
Funding
The UN budget for 2022 was $3.1 billion, not including additional resources donated by members, such as peacekeeping forces.
The UN is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The General Assembly approves the regular budget and determines the assessment for each member. This is broadly based on the relative capacity of each country to pay, as measured by its gross national income
The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total domestic and foreign output claimed by residents of a country, consisting of gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes earned by foreign ...
(GNI), with adjustments for external debt and low per capita income.
The Assembly has established the principle that the UN should not be unduly dependent on any one member to finance its operations. Thus, there is a "ceiling" rate, setting the maximum amount that any member can be assessed for the regular budget. In December 2000, the Assembly revised the scale of assessments in response to pressure from the United States. As part of that revision, the regular budget ceiling was reduced from 25% to 22%. For the least developed countries (LDCs), a ceiling rate of 0.01% is applied. In addition to the ceiling rates, the minimum amount assessed to any member nation (or "floor" rate) is set at 0.001% of the UN budget ($31,000 for the two-year budget 2021–2022).
A large share of the UN's expenditure addresses its core mission of peace and security, and this budget is assessed separately from the main organizational budget. The peacekeeping budget for the 2021–2022 fiscal year is $6.38 billion, supporting 75,224 personnel deployed in 10 missions worldwide. UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular funding scale that includes a weighted surcharge for the five permanent Security Council members, who must approve all peacekeeping operations. This surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries. The largest contributors to the UN peacekeeping
Peacekeeping by the United Nations is a role held by the Department of Peace Operations as an "instrument developed by the organization as a way to help countries torn by conflict to create the conditions for lasting peace". It is distinguished ...
budget for 2020–2021 are: the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
(27.89%), China (15.21%), Japan (8.56%), Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
(6.09%), the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
(5.78%), France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
(5.61%), Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
(3.30%), Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...
(3.04%), Canada (2.73%), and South Korea (2.26%).
Special UN programmes not included in the regular budget, such as UNICEF
UNICEF (), originally called the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund in full, now officially United Nations Children's Fund, is an agency of the United Nations responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to ...
and the World Food Programme, are financed by voluntary contributions from member governments, corporations, and private individuals.
Evaluations, awards, and criticism
Evaluations
In evaluating the UN as a whole, Jacques Fomerand writes that the "accomplishments of the United Nations in the last 60 years are impressive in their own terms. Progress in human development during the 20th century has been dramatic, and the UN and its agencies have certainly helped the world become a more hospitable and livable place for millions". Evaluating the first 50 years of the UN's history, the author Stanley Meisler writes that "the United Nations never fulfilled the hopes of its founders, but it accomplished a great deal nevertheless", citing its role in decolonization and its many successful peacekeeping efforts.
British historian Paul Kennedy
Paul Michael Kennedy (born 17 June 1945) is a British historian specialising in the history of international relations, economic power and grand strategy. He has published prominent books on the history of British foreign policy and great pow ...
states that while the organization has suffered some major setbacks, "when all its aspects are considered, the UN has brought great benefits to our generation and ... will bring benefits to our children's and grandchildren's generations as well."
Then French President François Hollande stated in 2012 that "France trusts the United Nations. She knows that no state, no matter how powerful, can solve urgent problems, fight for development and bring an end to all crises ... France wants the UN to be the centre of global governance". In his 1953 address to the United States Committee for United Nations Day, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed the view that, for all its flaws, "the United Nations represents man's best organized hope to substitute the conference table for the battlefield".
UN peacekeeping missions are assessed to be generally successful. An analysis of 47 peace operations by Virginia Page Fortna
Virginia Page Fortna is an American political scientist, a specialist in the study of peace negotiations. She is currently the Harold Brown Professor of U.S. Foreign and Security Policy at Columbia University. She is the recipient of the 2010 Kar ...
of Columbia University
Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
found that UN-led conflict resolution usually resulted in long-term peace. Political scientists Hanne Fjelde, Lisa Hultman and Desiree Nilsson of Uppsala University
Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation.
The university rose to significance during ...
studied twenty years of data on peacekeeping missions, including in Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Central African Republic, concluding that they were more effective at reducing civilian casualties than counterterrorism operations by nation states. Georgetown University
Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...
professor Lise Howard postulates that UN peacekeeping operations are more effective due to their emphasis on "verbal persuasion, financial inducements and coercion short of offensive military force, including surveillance and arrest", which are likelier to change the behavior of warring parties.
Awards
A number of agencies and individuals associated with the UN have won the Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiolog ...
in recognition of their work. Two secretaries-general, Dag Hammarskjöld and Kofi Annan, were each awarded the prize (in 1961 and 2001, respectively), as were Ralph Bunche (1950), a UN negotiator, René Cassin (1968), a contributor to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the US Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1945), the latter for his role in the organization's founding. Lester B. Pearson
Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian scholar, statesman, diplomat, and politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968.
Born in Newtonbrook, Ontario (now part of ...
, the Canadian Secretary of State for External Affairs
The Minister of Foreign Affairs (french: Ministre des Affaires étrangères) is the minister of the Crown in the Canadian Cabinet who is responsible for overseeing the Government of Canada's international relations and is the lead minister respo ...
, was awarded the prize in 1957 for his role in organizing the UN's first peacekeeping force to resolve the Suez Crisis. UNICEF won the prize in 1965, the International Labour Organization
The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards. Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and o ...
in 1969, the UN Peacekeeping Forces in 1988, the International Atomic Energy Agency (which reports to the UN) in 2005, and the UN-supported Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is an intergovernmental organisation and the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force on 29 April 1997. The OPCW, with its 193 member ...
in 2013. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees was awarded in 1954 and 1981, becoming one of only two recipients to win the prize twice. The UN as a whole was awarded the prize in 2001, sharing it with Annan. In 2007, IPCC
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an intergovernmental body of the United Nations. Its job is to advance scientific knowledge about climate change caused by human activities. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) ...
received the prize "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."
Criticism
Role
In a sometimes-misquoted statement, U.S. President George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
stated in February 2003—referring to UN uncertainty towards Iraqi provocations under the Saddam Hussein regime—that "free nations will not allow the UN to fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society."
In 2020, former U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
, in his memoir ''A Promised Land
''A Promised Land'' is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, it is the first of a planned two-volume series. Remaining focused on his political career, the preside ...
'' noted, "In the middle of the Cold War, the chances of reaching any consensus had been slim, which is why the U.N. had stood idle as Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...
tanks rolled into Hungary or U.S. planes dropped napalm on the Vietnamese countryside. Even after the Cold War, divisions within the Security Council continued to hamstring the U.N.'s ability to tackle problems. Its member states lacked either the means or the collective will to reconstruct failing states like Somalia, or prevent ethnic slaughter in places like Sri Lanka."
Since its founding, there have been many calls for reform of the UN but little consensus on how to do so. Some want the UN to play a greater or more effective role in world affairs, while others want its role reduced to humanitarian work.
Representation and structure
Core features of the UN apparatus, such as the veto
A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto ...
privileges of some nations in the Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
, are often described as fundamentally undemocratic, contrary to the UN mission, and a main cause of inaction on genocides and crimes against humanity.
Jacques Fomerand states the most enduring divide in views of the UN is "the North–South split" between richer Northern nations and developing Southern nations. Southern nations tend to favour a more empowered UN with a stronger General Assembly, allowing them a greater voice in world affairs, while Northern nations prefer an economically laissez-faire
''Laissez-faire'' ( ; from french: laissez faire , ) is an economic system in which transactions between private groups of people are free from any form of economic interventionism (such as subsidies) deriving from special interest groups ...
UN that focuses on transnational threats such as terrorism.
There have also been numerous calls for the UN Security Council's membership to be increased, for different ways of electing the UN's secretary-general, and for a UN Parliamentary Assembly.
Exclusion of countries
After World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, the French Committee of National Liberation
The French Committee of National Liberation (french: Comité français de Libération nationale) was a provisional government of Free France formed by the French generals Henri Giraud and Charles de Gaulle to provide united leadership, organi ...
was late to be recognized by the U.S. as the government of France, and so the country was initially excluded from the conferences that created the new organization. Future French president Charles de Gaulle criticized the UN, famously calling it a ''machin'' ("contraption"), and was not convinced that a global security
GlobalSecurity.org is an American nonpartisan, independent, nonprofit organization that serves as a think tank, and research and consultancy group. Focus
The site is focused on national and international security issues; military analysis, syste ...
alliance would help maintain world peace, preferring direct defence treaties between countries.
Since 1971, the Republic of China (ROC), or Taiwan, has been excluded from the UN and consistently denied membership in its reapplications; Taiwanese citizens are also barred from entering UN facilities with ROC passports. The UN officially adheres to the "One China
The term One China may refer to one of the following:
* The One China principle is the position held by the People's Republic of China (PRC) that there is only one sovereign state under the name China, with the PRC serving as the sole legit ...
" policy endorsed by most member states, which recognizes the People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
(PRC), a permanent member of the UN Security Council, as the only legitimate Chinese government. Critics allege that this position reflects a failure of the organization's development goals and guidelines, and it garnered renewed scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...
, when Taiwan was denied membership in the World Health Organization despite its relatively effective response to the virus. Support for Taiwan's inclusion is subject to pressure from the PRC, which regards the territories administered by the ROC as their own territory.
Independence
Throughout the Cold War, both the US and USSR repeatedly accused the UN of favouring the other. In 1950, the USSR boycotted the organization in protest to China's seat at the UN Security Council being given to the anticommunist government of the Republic of China. Three years later, the Soviets effectively forced the resignation of UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie
Trygve Halvdan Lie ( , ; 16 July 1896 – 30 December 1968) was a Norwegian politician, labour leader, government official and author. He served as Norwegian foreign minister during the critical years of the Norwegian government in exile in Lond ...
by refusing to acknowledge his administration due to his support of the Korean War
, date = {{Ubl, 25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953 (''de facto'')({{Age in years, months, weeks and days, month1=6, day1=25, year1=1950, month2=7, day2=27, year2=1953), 25 June 1950 – present (''de jure'')({{Age in years, months, weeks a ...
.
Ironically, the US had simultaneously scrutinized the UN for employing communists and Soviet sympathizers, following a high-profile accusation that Alger Hiss, an American who had taken part in the establishment of the UN, had been a Soviet spy. US Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed that the UN Secretariat
The United Nations Secretariat (french: link=no, Secrétariat des Nations unies) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), The secretariat is the UN's executive arm. The secretariat has an important role in setting the a ...
under Secretary-General Lie harbored American communists, leading to further pressure that the UN chief resign. The US saw nascent opposition to the UN into the 1960s, particularly among political conservatives, with groups such as the John Birch Society
The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, or libertarian ide ...
alleging that the organization was an instrument for communism. Popular opposition to the UN was expressed through bumper stickers and signs with slogans such as "Get the U.S. out of the U.N. and the U.N. out of the U.S.!" and "You can't spell communism without U.N."
National sovereignty
In the United States, there were concerns about supposed threats to national sovereignty, most notably promoted by the John Birch Society
The John Birch Society (JBS) is an American right-wing political advocacy group. Founded in 1958, it is anti-communist, supports social conservatism, and is associated with ultraconservative, radical right, far-right, or libertarian ide ...
, which mounted a nationwide campaign in opposition to the UN during the 1960s.
Beginning in the 1990s, the same concern appeared with the American Sovereignty Restoration Act The American Sovereignty Restoration Act is a bill that has been introduced by various members of Congress, proposing withdrawal from the United Nations. The most recent iteration is H.R.7806, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2022, intro ...
, which has been introduced multiple times in the United States Congress
The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...
. In 1997, an amendment containing the bill received a floor vote, with 54 representatives voting in favor. The 2007 version of the bill () was authored by U.S. Representative
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
Ron Paul, Republican
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
of the 14th district of Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
, to effect U.S. withdrawal from the United Nations. It would repeal various laws pertaining to the UN, terminate authorization for funds to be spent on the UN, terminate UN presence on U.S. property, and withdraw diplomatic immunity for UN employees. It would provide up to two years for the U.S. to withdraw. The '' Yale Law Journal'' cited the Act as proof that "the United States’s complaints against the United Nations have intensified." The most recent iteration, as of 2022, is H.R.7806, introduced by Rep. Mike D. Rogers.
Bias
The UN's attention to Israel's treatment of Palestinians is considered excessive by a range of critics, including Israeli diplomat Dore Gold
Dore Gold ( he, דורי גולד, born 1953) is an American-Israeli political scientist and diplomat who served as Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations from 1997 to 1999. He is currently the President of the Jerusalem Cente ...
, British scholar Robert S. Wistrich, American legal scholar Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...
, Australian politician Mark Dreyfus
Mark Alfred Dreyfus (born 3 October 1956) is an Australian politician and lawyer who has been attorney-general of Australia and cabinet secretary since June 2022, having held both roles previously in 2013 and from 2010 to 2013 respectively. ...
, and the Anti-Defamation League. In September 2015, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
's Faisal bin Hassan Trad was elected chair of an advisory committee in the UN Human Rights Council
The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), CDH is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights around the world. The Council has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis ...
that appoints independent experts, a move criticized by human rights groups. The UNHRC has likewise been accused of anti-Israel bias, as it has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined.
Effectiveness
According to international relations
International relations (IR), sometimes referred to as international studies and international affairs, is the scientific study of interactions between sovereign states. In a broader sense, it concerns all activities between states—such a ...
scholar Edward Luck, former director of the Center on International Organization of the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University, the United States has preferred a feeble United Nations in major projects undertaken by the organization so as to forestall UN interference with, or resistance to, American policies. "The last thing the U.S. wants is an independent U.N. throwing its weight around," Luck said. Similarly, former US Ambassador to the United Nations
The United States ambassador to the United Nations is the leader of the U.S. delegation, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. The position is formally known as the permanent representative of the United States of America to the United Nations ...
Daniel Patrick Moynihan explained that "The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with not inconsiderable success."
In 1994, former special representative of the secretary-general of the UN to Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
Mohamed Sahnoun
Mohamed Sahnoun ( ar, محمد سحنون ) (8 April 1931 – 20 September 2018) was an Algerian diplomat who served as ambassador of Algeria to Germany, France, the United States and Morocco as well as permanent representative of Algeria to the ...
published ''Somalia: The Missed Opportunities'', a book in which he analyses the reasons for the failure of the 1992 UN intervention in Somalia
Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...
. Sahnoun claims that between the start of the Somali civil war in 1988 and the fall of the Siad Barre regime in January 1991, the UN missed at least three opportunities to prevent major human tragedies; when the UN tried to provide humanitarian assistance, they were totally outperformed by NGOs, whose competence and dedication sharply contrasted with the UN's excessive caution and bureaucratic inefficiencies. Sahnoun warned that if radical reform were not undertaken, then the UN would continue to respond to such crises with inept improvisation.
Beyond specific instances or areas of alleged ineffectiveness, some scholars debate the overall effectiveness of the UN. Adherents to the Realism (international relations), realist school of international relations take a pessimistic position, arguing that the UN is not an effective organization because it is dominated and constrained by great powers. Liberalism (international relations), Liberal scholars counter that it is an effective organization because it has proved capable of solving many problems by working around the restrictions imposed by powerful member states. The UN is generally considered by scholars to be more effective in realms such as public health, humanitarian assistance, and conflict resolution.
Inefficiency and corruption
Critics have also accused the UN of bureaucratic inefficiency, waste, and corruption. In 1976, the General Assembly established the Joint Inspection Unit to seek out inefficiencies within the UN system. During the 1990s, the US withheld dues citing inefficiency and only started repayment on the condition that a major reforms initiative be introduced. In 1994, the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services, Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) was established by the General Assembly to serve as an efficiency watchdog.
In 2004, the UN faced accusations that its recently ended Oil-for-Food Programme—in which Iraq had been allowed to trade oil for basic needs to relieve the pressure of sanctions—had suffered from widespread corruption, including billions of dollars of Kickback (bribery), kickbacks. An independent inquiry created by the UN found that many of its officials had been involved in Oil-for-Food Program Hearings, the scheme, and raised "significant" questions about the role of Kojo Annan, the son of Kofi Annan.
Model United Nations
The United Nations has inspired the extracurricular activity Model United Nations (MUN). MUN is a simulation of United Nations activity based on the UN agenda and following UN procedure. It is usually attended by high school and university students who organize conferences to simulate the various UN committees to discuss important issues of the day. Today, MUN educates tens of thousands on the activities of the UN around the world. MUN has many famous and notable alumni, such as former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
See also
Notes
References
Citations
Bibliography
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Further reading
*
* Mazower, Mark (2009). ''No Enchanted Palace: The End of Empire and the Ideological Origins of the United Nations''. Princeton University Press.
*
External links
* Records o
the UN Registry
at the United Nations Archives
Official websites
*
The United Nations Regional Information Centre (UNRIC)
United Nations Volunteers
United Nations Documentation Research Guide
Official YouTube channel
(English)
Others
Searchable archive
of UN discussions and votes
United Nations Association of the UK
– independent policy authority on the UN
Website
of the Global Policy Forum – independent think tank on the UN
UN Watch
– NGO monitoring UN activities
UN Coronavirus page
United Nations COVID-19 Statement
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{{Authority control
United Nations,
Intergovernmental organizations established by treaty
Organizations awarded Nobel Peace Prizes
Organizations based in New York City
Organizations established in 1945
1945 establishments in the United States
Peace organizations
Sakharov Prize laureates