UNO AND ITS ORGANS

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organisation of countries. It was created for many reasons:

• There should be peace and security in the world after the Second World War
• Countries should be friendly to each other
• Countries should help each other solve problems
• Human rights should be respected everywhere in the world.

After the Second World War the allied countries got together to discuss in which ways such an organization could be created. In 1945, 50 countries got together in San Francisco and signed an agreement that created the United Nations. The United States invited the new UN to set up its headquarters in New York. The building was finished in 1952 and has been the permanent seat of the UN until today.

Membership

Membership is open to all peace - loving nations. Today there are about 200 countries in the UN - only very few have not become members.

Switzerland joined the UN in 2002 because the Swiss always wanted to be neutral.

The main parts of the UN

There are 5 main parts in this organisation

• The General Assembly
• The Security Council
• The Economic and Social Council
• The International Court of Justice
• The Secretariat

All countries get together in the General Assembly. It normally meets once a year, but it doesn't have any real power. It discusses problems and recommends ways to solve them. In the General Assembly each country has one vote.

The Security Council is the main body of the UN. It gets together almost every day and it has the most power. Member countries must do what the Security Council decides. There are 15 members in this council – five of them are permanent : The United States, Russia, China, France and Great Britain. These countries have a right to veto anything. The other 10 members change all the time. They stay in the Security Council for 2 years.

The Security Council makes very important decisions and all the countries have to obey them. It tries to keep peace in the world and also tries to solve conflicts that endanger world peace. It also sends peace keepers to countries where there is trouble.

The World Court makes decisions when two countries argue about something. It has independent judges that are elected by the UN.

The Secretary General has a lot of power in the UN. He is the highest official and is elected for five years by the General Assembly. He often travels around the world to settle conflicts between countries.

At present, Ban Ki-moon is Secretary General of the UN. He was elected in 2006 and comes from South Korea . Austria also had a man in charge of the UN. Kurt Waldheim was Secretary General from 1972 to 1981. 

The United Nations also has many other organisations. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) tries to find out if countries have atomic weapons. Its seat is in Vienna. The World Health Organisation is a UN programme to help control diseases all over the world. UNICEF is an organisation to help children in need in poor countries.

The United Nations needs a lot of money to keep up all of these organisations and programmes. It gets most of its money from the world’s rich countries like the United States (about 25 %), Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain and Italy. A lot of the money is used for peacekeeping missions.

In the past few years—after the end of the Cold War—the United Nations have played a more important role in the world. In 1991, the UN voted to take action against Iraq, which invaded Kuwait. But if important countries do not agree in the Security Council, like in the Iraq War of 2003, the United Nations cannot do very much to prevent conflicts.