- This article is about the United Nations, for other uses of UN see UN (disambiguation)
The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization made up of 191 states
established in 1945. With the notable exception of the Holy See/Vatican City (who is the sole permanent observer
state), all countries recognized by the CIA as "first-level sovereign entities", are members. Other entities recognized as sovereign by several, but not
a majority, of states - such as the Republic of China (Taiwan) and the Saharawi
Arab Democratic Republic (Western Sahara) - are also not members. For more information, see United Nations member states. UN membership is open
to all "peace-loving states" that accept the obligations of the UN Charter and,
in the judgment of the organization, are able and willing to fulfil these obligations. The General Assembly determines admission
upon recommendation of the Security Council. The organization's headquarters is in New York City, USA; see United Nations headquarters.
The term was coined by Franklin Delano
Roosevelt during World War II, to refer to the Allies. Its first formal use was in the 1942 Declaration by the United Nations, which
committed the Allies to the principles of the Atlantic Charter and
pledged them not to seek a separate peace with the Axis powers. The name was
transferred to the UN as it was founded by the victorious powers in the war as a condition of the Atlantic Charter and other wartime agreements. Initially, the body was
known as the United Nations Organization or UNO but by the 1950s English speakers were referring to it as the
United Nations or UN.
The United Nations System is based on six principal organs, part of what is collectively called the United Nations System:
Background and history
Main article: History of the United
Nations
The idea for the United Nations was elaborated in declarations signed at the wartime Allied conferences in Moscow and Tehran in 1943. United States president Franklin Delano Roosevelt suggested the name "United
Nations" and the first official use of the term occurred on January 1, 1942 with the Declaration by the United Nations. During World War II, the Allies used the term "United Nations Fighting
Forces" to refer to their alliance. From August to October 1944, representatives of
France, the Republic of
China, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the USSR met to elaborate the plans
at the Dumbarton Oaks Estate in Washington, D.C. Those and later
talks produced proposals outlining the purposes of the organization, its membership and organs, as well as arrangements to
maintain international peace and security and international economic and social cooperation. These proposals were discussed and
debated by governments and private citizens worldwide.
On April 25, 1945, the United Nations
Conference on International Organizations began in San Francisco. In
addition to the Governments, a number of non-government organisations, including Lions Clubs International were invited to assist in the drafting of the charter. The 50 nations
represented at the conference signed the Charter of the United Nations two months later on June 26. Poland, which was not represented at the conference, but for
which a place among the original signatories had been reserved, added its name later, bringing the total of original signatories
to 51. The UN came into existence on October 24, 1945, after the Charter had been ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council — Republic of China, France, the
Soviet Union, United
Kingdom, and the United States — and by a majority of the other
46 signatories.
The United Nations headquarters building
was constructed in New York City in 1949 and 1950 beside the East River on land purchased by an 8.5 million dollar
donation from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. UN
headquarters officially opened on January 9, 1951. While the principal headquarters of the UN are in New York, there
are major agencies located in Geneva, The
Hague, Vienna, and elsewhere.
The founders of the UN had high hopes that it would act to prevent conflicts between nations and make future wars impossible,
by fostering an ideal of collective security. Those hopes
have obviously not been fully realised. From about 1947 until 1991 the division of the world into hostile camps during the Cold War
made agreement on peacekeeping matters extremely difficult. Following the end of the Cold War, there were renewed calls for the
UN to become the agency for achieving world peace and co-operation, as several dozen active military conflicts continue to rage
around the globe. The breakup of the Soviet Union has also left the United
States in a unique position of global dominance, creating a variety of new problems for the UN (See the United States and the United
Nations).
Arms control and disarmament
The 1945 UN Charter envisaged a system
of regulation that would ensure "the least diversion for armaments of the world's human and economic resources". The advent of
nuclear weapons came only weeks after the signing of the Charter and
provided immediate impetus to concepts of arms limitation and disarmament. In
fact, the first resolution of the first meeting of the UN General Assembly (January 24, 1946) was entitled "The Establishment of a Commission to Deal
with the Problems Raised by the Discovery of Atomic Energy" and called upon the commission to make specific proposals for "the
elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction".
The UN has established several forums to address multilateral disarmament issues. The principal ones are the First Committee
of the General Assembly and the UN Disarmament Commission. Items on the agenda include consideration of the possible merits of a
nuclear test ban, outer-space arms control, efforts to ban chemical weapons, nuclear and conventional disarmament,
nuclear-weapon-free zones, reduction of military budgets, and measures to strengthen international security.
The Conference on Disarmament is the sole
forum established by the international community for
the negotiation of multilateral arms control and disarmament agreements. It has 66 members representing all areas of the world,
including the five major nuclear-weapon states (the People's Republic of China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States). While the
conference is not formally a UN organization, it is linked to the UN through a personal representative of the Secretary-General; this representative serves as the secretary
general of the conference. Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly often request the conference to consider specific
disarmament matters. In turn, the conference annually reports on its activities to the General Assembly.
Peace-keeping
UN peacekeepers are sent to various regions where armed conflict has recently ceased, in order to enforce the terms of peace
agreements and to discourage the combatants from resuming hostilities. These forces are provided by member states of the UN; the
UN does not maintain any independent military. All UN peacekeeping operations must be approved by the Security Council.
UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular scale, but including a surcharge for
the five permanent members of the Security Council (who must approve all peacekeeping operations); this surcharge serves to
offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries.
In December 2000, the UN revised the assessment rate scale for the regular budget and for peacekeeping. The peacekeeping scale
is designed to be revised every six months and is projected to be near 27% in 2003. The United States intends to pay peacekeeping
assessments at these lower rates and has sought legislation from the U.S. Congress to allow payment at these rates and to make payments towards arrears.
Total UN peacekeeping expenses peaked between 1994 and 1995; at the end of 1995 the total cost was just over $3.5 billion.
Total UN peacekeeping costs for 2000, including operations funded from the UN regular budget as well as the peacekeeping budget,
were on the order of $2.2 billion.
The UN Peace-Keeping
Forces received the 1988 Nobel
Prize for Peace.
For participation in various peacekeeping operations, the United Nations maintains a series of United Nations Medals which are awarded to military service members
of various countries who enforce U.N. accords. The first such decoration issued was the United Nations Service Medal, awarded to U.N.
forces who participated in the Korean War. The NATO Medal is designed on a similar concept and both the U.N. Service Medal, and the NATO Medal, are
considered international decorations instead of
military decorations.
Humanitarian Assistance
In conjunction with other organizations, such as the Red Cross, the UN
provides food, drinking water, shelter and other humanitarian services to populaces suffering from famine, displaced by war, or
afflicted by some other disaster. Major humanitarian arms of the UN are the World Food Program and the High Commissioner for Refugees.
Human rights
The pursuit of human rights was one of the central reasons for creating
the United Nations. World War II atrocities and genocide led to a ready consensus that the new organization must work to prevent any similar tragedies in
the future. An early objective was creating a legal framework for considering and acting on complaints about human rights
violations.
The UN Charter obliges all member nations to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights" and to take "joint and separate action" to that end. The Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, though not legally binding, was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 as a common standard of achievement for all.
The General Assembly regularly takes up human rights issues. The UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR), under ECOSOC, is the primary UN body charged with promoting human rights, primarily through investigations and offers of
technical assistance. As discussed, the High Commissioner for Human Rights is the official principally responsible for all UN
human rights activities (see, under "The UN Family", the section on "Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights").
The United Nations and its various agencies are central in upholding and implementing the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. A case in point is support by the United Nations for countries in transition to democracy. Technical assistance in providing free and fair elections, improving judicial structures, drafting
constitutions, training human rights officials, and transforming armed movements into political parties have contributed significantly to democratization worldwide.
The United Nations is also a forum in which to support the right of women to participate fully in the political, economic, and
social life of their countries.
See also: United Nations Convention on the Abolition of
Slavery and United
National Convention on the Rights of the Child
United Nations System
Main article: United Nations System
The United Nations System has six principal organs:
For more information on the organizational structure see the main article.
International conferences
The member countries of the UN and its specialized agencies — the "stakeholders" of the system — give guidance and
make decisions on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout each year. Governing bodies made up
of member states include not only the General Assembly,
Economic and Social Council, and the
Security Council, but also counterpart bodies dealing with
the governance of all other UN system agencies. For example, the World Health Assembly
and the Executive Board oversee the work of WHO.
Each year, the United States Department of State accredits United States delegations to more than 600 meetings of governing
bodies.
When an issue is considered particularly important, the General Assembly may convene an international conference to focus
global attention and build a consensus for consolidated action. High-level United States delegations use these opportunities to
promote United States policy viewpoints and develop international agreements on future activities. Recent examples include:
- The UN Conference on Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in June
1992, led to the creation of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development to advance the conclusions reached in
Agenda 21, the final text of agreements negotiated by governments at UNCED;
- The International Conference on Population and Development, held
in Cairo, Egypt, in September 1994, approved a program of action to address the critical challenges and interrelationships
between population and sustainable development over the next 20 years;
- The World Summit on Trade Efficiency, held in October 1994 in Columbus, Ohio, cosponsored by UN Conference on
Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the city of Columbus, and private-sector business,
focused on the use of modern information technology to expand international trade;
- The World Summit for Social Development, held in March 1995 in Copenhagen, Denmark, underscored national responsibility for sustainable development and secured high-level commitment to plans
that invest in basic education, health care, and economic opportunity for all, including women and girls;
- The Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China, in September 1995,
sought to accelerate implementation of the historic agreements reached at the Third World Conference on
Women held in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1985; and
- The Second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), convened in
June 1996 in Istanbul, Turkey, considered the challenges of human settlement development and management in the 21st century.
Financing
The UN system is financed in two ways: assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The regular two-year budgets
of the UN and its specialized agencies are funded by assessments. In the case of the UN, 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 national income statistics, along with other factors.
The Assembly has established the principle that the UN should not be overly dependent on any one member to finance its
operations. Thus, there is a 'ceiling' rate, setting the maximum amount any member is assessed for the regular budget. In
December 2000, the Assembly agreed to revise
the scale of assessments to make them better reflect current global circumstances.
As part of that agreement, the regular budget ceiling was reduced from 25 to 22 percent; this is the rate at which the United
States is assessed. The United States is the only member that is assessed this rate, though it is in arrears hundreds of millions
of dollars;(see also United
States and the United Nations) all other members' assessment rates are lower. Under the scale of assessments adopted in 2000,
other major contributors to the regular UN budget for 2001 are Japan (19.63%), Germany (9.82%), France (6.50%), the U.K. (5.57%), Italy (5.09%), Canada (2.57%) and Spain (2.53%).
Special UN programs not included in the regular budget (such as UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, and WFP)
are financed by voluntary contributions from member governments. In 2001, it is estimated
that such contributions from the United States will total approximately $1.5 billion. Much of this is in the form of agricultural
commodities donated for afflicted populations, but the majority is financial contributions.
Communications
The six official languages of the United Nations include those of the founding
nations: Chinese, English, French, Russian. In addition, two widely spoken tongues -- Arabic and Spanish -- were added in 1973. All formal meetings are interpreted
at least in these official languages. Additionally, all official documents, in print or
online, are translated in all six languages.
Successes of the UN
- Raising consciousness of the concept of human rights through its
covenants and of its attention to specific abuses through its resolutions or rulings.
- Health successes such as the World Health
Organization's elimination of small pox.
Criticism of the UN
Throughout its history, the UN has been a source of controversy, dating back to the handling of its involvement in the
conflict in Katanga, including allegations of massive rape campaigns and genocide. Over the past decade, an increasing number
of voices have questioned the overall direction that the UN has taken. Many now see it as ineffective, overly bureaucratic, prone
to corruption, and acting outside the intended limits of its original charter (or, on the converse, not acting sufficiently
within its charter or that the charter is too weak for present-day needs).
Some respond that much of the blame can only lie with the member states that support it (or fail to support it), including
their perceived failure to make needed systemic changes to the institution (whether in its own administrative bureaucracy or in
its structure governing member countries). See the reform section below on proposals for addressing the perceived systemic
failures of the latter type.
General criticisms of its structure governing member countries:
- Charges that the UN is increasingly attempting to usurp or forcefully establish national sovereignty.
- These include the original controversies surrounding UN involvement in Katanga
- The UN involvement in the Korean Conflict in which the UN was
instrumental in causing the perpetuation of the political division of the Korean
peninsula, rather than in promoting a peaceful resolution to the conflict.
- Most such charges currently revolve around the International Court of Justice, and UN pressure to accept compulsory jurisdiction of this
court.
- Charges that the UN is not doing enough to override national sovereignty.
- In general, the UN has shown a reluctance to act upon its resolutions, making it weak and evoking comparisons to the League of Nations.
- Some charge that the UN is powerless should member nations ignore UN resolutions, or also, proceed with actions without UN
support. This was highlighted in 2003 by controversy surrounding the United States-led
invasion of Iraq (which was not conducted in contravention of UN policy, but was, however, conducted despite intense disapproval
by a majority of the vocal membership), and by Iraq's converse direct defiance of UN weapons and humanitarian resolutions.
- The UN gives precedence to government authority over individual liberty, regularly seeming reluctant to challenge member
states' behaviour regarding their own populace.
Some specific complaints are as follows:
- Internal institutional failures:
- Structure governing member countries
- The inclusion on the United Nations Commission on Human Rights of nations, such as Sudan, Cuba and Libya, which demonstrably have abyssmal records on human rights. Libya's chairmanship of this Commission. These
countries however, argue that Western countries, with their history of colonialist aggression and brutality, have no right to
argue about membership of the Commission.
- Failure to act (or succeed) in security issues:
- Criticism that the UN is ruled by "tyranny of the majority" where for example, it is said that Arab states have an unfairly
large influence as seen by the large number of resolutions (over 30% of all resolutions in the history of the UN) which are
directly condemnatory of Israel (although it is worthy of note that many non-Arab and
non-Muslim-majority nations have, for whatever reason, often supported such resolutions). Alternatively, some argue that the UN
is ruled by a "tyranny of the rich", being a puppet at the hands of powerful states. Critics point out to the repeated use of the
veto to protect Israel, and the failure of the UN to enforce its resolutions on powerful countries like Israel or the US while
enforcing them on weaker states like Iraq or Syria.
- Sexual abuse of girls by U.N. peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This abuse is called widespread and ongoing despite many
revelations and probes by the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services.
Reforming the UN
Main article: Reform of the United
Nations
In recent years there have been many calls for "reform" of the United Nations. There is, however, little clarity, let
alone consensus, about what "reform" might mean in practice. Both those who want the UN to play a greater role in world affairs
and those who want its role confined to humanitarian work or otherwise reduced use the term "UN reform" to refer to their ideas.
The range of opinion extends from as far as those who want to eliminate the UN entirely, to those that want to make it into a
full-fledged world government.
An official reform program was initiated by United Nations Secretary-General Kofi
Annan shortly after starting his first term on January 1, 1997. Popular demands include changing the permanent membership of the Security Council; making the bureaucracy more transparent, accountable and
efficient; making the UN more democratic; and imposing an international tariff on arms manufacturers worldwide.
International Years
Main article: United Nations
International Years
The UN declares and coordinates "International Year of the..." in order to focus world attention on important issues. Using
the symbolism of the UN, a specially designed logo for the year, and the infrastructure of the UN system to coordinate events
worldwide, the various years have become catalysts to advancing key issues on a global scale.
Model United Nations
Main article: Model United Nations
The purpose of Model United Nations (MUNs) is have
students to activately participate in a simulated version of the United Nations. Its focus is for students to research political
positions of nations and to gain a better understanding of the world through it. Predominately in the United States, Model United
Nations are usually classes, clubs or both. Typically, in United States high schools, MUNs are clubs, but in a small number of
schools, they are an actual class. Many universities have MUNs as well, and are more commonly classes rather than clubs. Many
MUNs usually host conferences for the surrounding area's MUNs. University-level Model United Nations host one conference per
academic year for many secondary/high school level Model United Nations. Depending the presige of the University, it may attract
many secondary/high school level Model United Nations internationally, country-wide, or providence-wide/state-wide.
There are a number of "Model United Nations" events held
each year, in which participants collectively simulate the workings of the United Nations in its various committees and the
General Assembly for a short period, typically a weekend or a 5-day week. Prominent amongst these are The Hague International Model United Nations (THIMUN) (for secondary school
students from many countries, taking place in The Hague each January), the
National High School Model United
Nations (http://www.nhsmun.org) (NHSMUN), for secondary/high school students
from across the world, held each March at the UN in New York City the American Harvard National Model United
Nations (Boston each February), the North American Model United Nations (various United States cities each April), and the
American Model United Nations (AMUN)
(held annually before Thanksgiving in Chicago, Illinois). Individual schools and colleges also organize similar events for their own
students.
Countries and the United Nations
Related topics
Further reading
- Dore Gold, Tower Of Babble: How The United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos, Random House (November, 2004), hardcover,
304 pages, ISBN 1400054753
Culture and entertainment
External links
- United Nations (http://www.un.org/) - Official site
- Website (http://www.globalpolicy.org) of the Global Policy Forum, an
independent think-tank on UN
- Website (http://www.uno-komitee.de) of the Committee
for a Democratic UN (german and English versions)
- Economist.com background (http://www.economist.com/background/displayBackground.cfm?story_id=3398746)
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