Overview

The United Nations is an international organization founded in 1945. It is currently made up of

193 Member States. The mission and work of the United Nations are guided by the purposes and
principles contained in its founding Charter.

Due to the powers vested in its Charter and its unique international character, the United Nations
can take action on the issues confronting humanity in the 21st century, such as peace and
security, climate change, sustainable development, human rights, disarmament, terrorism,
humanitarian and health emergencies, gender equality, governance, food production, and more.

The UN also provides a forum for its members to express their views in the General Assembly,
the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and other bodies and committees. By
enabling dialogue between its members, and by hosting negotiations, the Organization has
become a mechanism for governments to find areas of agreement and solve problems together.

UN Overview: http://www.un.org/en/sections/about-un/overview/ April 4, 2018

Main Organs
The main organs of the UN are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and
Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the UN
Secretariat. All were established in 1945 when the UN was founded.
UN Photo/Amanda Voisard

The UN General Assembly Hall during a vote in November 2014 to elect four judges to the International
Court of Justice (ICJ).

General Assembly

The General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the
UN. All 193 Member States of the UN are represented in the General Assembly, making it the
only UN body with universal representation. Each year, in September, the full UN membership
meets in the General Assembly Hall in New York for the annual General Assembly session, and
general debate, which many heads of state attend and address. Decisions on important questions,
such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, require a
two-thirds majority of the General Assembly. Decisions on other questions are by simple
majority. The General Assembly, each year, elects a GA President to serve a one-year term of
office.

Security Council

The Security Council has primary responsibility, under the UN Charter, for the maintenance of
international peace and security. It has 15 Members (5 permanent and 10 non-permanent
members). Each Member has one vote. Under the Charter, all Member States are obligated to
comply with Council decisions. The Security Council takes the lead in determining the existence
of a threat to the peace or act of aggression. It calls upon the parties to a dispute to settle it by
peaceful means and recommends methods of adjustment or terms of settlement. In some cases,
the Security Council can resort to imposing sanctions or even authorize the use of force to
maintain or restore international peace and security. The Security Council has a Presidency,
which rotates, and changes, every month.

 Daily programme of work of the Security Council

 Subsidiary organs of the Security Council

Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council is the principal body for coordination, policy review, policy
dialogue and recommendations on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as
implementation of internationally agreed development goals. It serves as the central mechanism
for activities of the UN system and its specialized agencies in the economic, social and
environmental fields, supervising subsidiary and expert bodies. It has 54 Members, elected by
the General Assembly for overlapping three-year terms. It is the United Nations’ central platform
for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on sustainable development.

Trusteeship Council

The Trusteeship Council was established in 1945 by the UN Charter, under Chapter XIII, to
provide international supervision for 11 Trust Territories that had been placed under the
administration of seven Member States, and ensure that adequate steps were taken to prepare the
Territories for self-government and independence. By 1994, all Trust Territories had attained
self-government or independence. The Trusteeship Council suspended operation on 1 November
1994. By a resolution adopted on 25 May 1994, the Council amended its rules of procedure to
drop the obligation to meet annually and agreed to meet as occasion required -- by its decision or
the decision of its President, or at the request of a majority of its members or the General
Assembly or the Security Council.

International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Its seat is
at the Peace Palace in the Hague (Netherlands). It is the only one of the six principal organs of
the United Nations not located in New York (United States of America). The Court’s role is to
settle, in accordance with international law, legal disputes submitted to it by States and to give
advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs and
specialized agencies.

Secretariat

The Secretariat comprises the Secretary-General and tens of thousands of international UN staff
members who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by the General Assembly
and the Organization's other principal organs. The Secretary-General is chief administrative
officer of the Organization, appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the
Security Council for a five-year, renewable term. UN staff members are recruited internationally
and locally, and work in duty stations and on peacekeeping missions all around the world. But
serving the cause of peace in a violent world is a dangerous occupation. Since the founding of
the United Nations, hundreds of brave men and women have given their lives in its service.

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Funds, Programmes, Specialized Agencies

and Others
The UN system, also known unofficially as the "UN family", is made up of the UN itself and
many affiliated programmes, funds, and specialized agencies, all with their own membership,
leadership, and budget. The programmes and funds are financed through voluntary rather than
assessed contributions. The Specialized Agencies are independent international organizations
funded by both voluntary and assessed contributions.
UNDP: Tom Cheatham

UNDP subsidized school fees and building repairs in Chin State, Myanmar.

Programmes and Funds

UNDP

The United Nations Development Programme works in nearly 170 countries and territories,
helping to eradicate poverty, reduce inequalities and build resilience so countries can sustain
progress. As the UN’s development agency, UNDP plays a critical role in helping countries
achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

UNICEF

The United Nations Children's Fund provides long-term humanitarian and development
assistance to children and mothers.

UNHCR

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – UNHCR protects refugees worldwide
and facilitates their return home or resettlement.

WFP

The World Food Programme aims to eradicate hunger and malnutrition. It is the world’s largest
humanitarian agency. Every year, the programme feeds almost 80 million people in around 75
countries.
UNODC

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime – UNODC helps Member States fight drugs,
crime, and terrorism.

UNFPA

The United Nations Population Fund – UNFPA is the lead UN agency for delivering a world
where every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, and every young person's potential is
fulfilled.

UNCTAD

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development is the United Nations body
responsible for dealing with development issues, particularly international trade – the main
driver of development.

UNEP

The United Nations Environment Programme established in 1972, is the voice for the
environment within the United Nations system. UNEP acts as a catalyst, advocate, educator and
facilitator to promote the wise use and sustainable development of the global environment.

UNRWA

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has contributed to the
welfare and human development of four generations of Palestine refugees. It’s services
encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and
improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance, including in times of armed conflict. It
reports only to the UN General Assembly.

UN Women

UN Women merges and builds on the important work of four previously distinct parts of the UN
system, which focus exclusively on gender equality and women’s empowerment.

UN-Habitat

The mission of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme is to promote socially and
environmentally sustainable human settlements development and the achievement of adequate
shelter for all.

UN Specialized Agencies

The UN specialized agencies are autonomous organizations working with the United Nations.
All were brought into relationship with the UN through negotiated agreements. Some existed
before the First World War. Some were associated with the League of Nations. Others were
created almost simultaneously with the UN. Others were created by the UN to meet emerging
needs.

World Bank

The World Bank focuses on poverty reduction and the improvement of living standards
worldwide by providing low-interest loans, interest-free credit, and grants to developing
countries for education, health, infrastructure, and communications, among other things. The
World Bank works in over 100 countries.

 World Bank Group

 International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)
 International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)
 International Development Association (IDA)
 International Finance Corporation (IFC)
 Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)

IMF

The International Monetary Fund fosters economic growth and employment by providing
temporary financial assistance to countries to help ease balance of payments adjustment and
technical assistance. The IMF currently has $28 billion in outstanding loans to 74 nations.

WHO

The World Health Organization is the directing and coordinating authority on international
health within the United Nations system. The objective of WHO is the attainment by all peoples
of the highest possible level of health. Health, as defined in the WHO Constitution, is a state of
complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity.

UNESCO

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization focuses on everything
from teacher training to helping improve education worldwide to protecting important historical
and cultural sites around the world. UNESCO added 28 new World Heritage Sites this year to
the list of irreplaceable treasures that will be protected for today's travelers and future
generations.

ILO

The International Labor Organization promotes international labor rights by formulating

international standards on the freedom to associate, collective bargaining, the abolition of forced
labor, and equality of opportunity and treatment.
FAO

The Food and Agriculture Organization leads international efforts to fight hunger. It is both a
forum for negotiating agreements between developing and developed countries and a source of
technical knowledge and information to aid development.

IFAD

The International Fund for Agricultural Development, since it was created in 1977, has focused
exclusively on rural poverty reduction, working with poor rural populations in developing
countries to eliminate poverty, hunger and malnutrition; raise their productivity and incomes;
and improve the quality of their lives.

IMO

The International Maritime Organization has created a comprehensive shipping regulatory

framework, addressing safety and environmental concerns, legal matters, technical cooperation,
security, and efficiency.

WMO

The World Meteorological Organization facilitates the free international exchange of

meteorological data and information and the furtherance of its use in aviation, shipping, security,
and agriculture, among other things.

WIPO

The World Intellectual Property Organization protects intellectual property throughout the world
through 23 international treaties.

ICAO

The International Civil Aviation Organization develops standards for global air transport and
assists its 192 Member States in sharing the world’s skies to their socio-economic benefit.

ITU

The International Telecommunication Union is the United Nations specialized agency for
information and communication technologies. It is committed to connecting all the world's
people – wherever they live and whatever their means. Through our work, we protect and
support everyone's fundamental right to communicate
UNIDO

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization is the specialized agency of the United
Nations that promotes industrial development for poverty reduction, inclusive globalization and
environmental sustainability.

UPU

The Universal Postal Union is the primary forum for cooperation between postal sector players.
It helps to ensure a truly universal network of up-to-date products and services.

UNWTO

The World Tourism Organization is the United Nations agency responsible for the promotion of
responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.

Other Entities
UNAIDS

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS is co-sponsored by 10 UN system agencies:

UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, UNDP, UNFPA, UNODC, the ILO, UNESCO, WHO and the World
Bank and has ten goals related to stopping and reversing the spread of HIV/AIDS.

UNISDR

The United Nations Office for Disaster Reduction serves as the focal point in the United Nations
system for the coordination of disaster reduction.

UNOPS

The United Nations Office for Project Services is an operational arm of the United Nations,
supporting the successful implementation of its partners' peacebuilding, humanitarian and
development projects around the world.

Related Organizations
IAEA

The International Atomic Energy Agency, is the world's centre for cooperation in the nuclear
field. The Agency works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote the
safe, secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.

IOM

The International Organization for Migration works to help ensure the orderly and humane
management of migration, to promote international cooperation on migration issues, to assist in
the search for practical solutions to migration problems and to provide humanitarian assistance to
migrants in need, including refugees and internally displaced people.

WTO

The World Trade Organization is a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements, and a
place where member governments try to sort out the trade problems they face with each other.

CTBTO

The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization

promotes the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (which is not yet in force) and the build-
up of the verification regime so that it is operational when the Treaty enters into force.

OPCW

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons is the implementing body of the
Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), which entered into force in 1997. OPCW Member
States work together to achieve a world free of chemical weapons.

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History of the United Nations

1 January 1942 || The name "United Nations" is coined

The name "United Nations", coined by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt was first
used in the Declaration by United Nations of 1 January 1942, during the Second World War,
when representatives of 26 nations pledged their Governments to continue fighting together
against the Axis Powers.

24 October 1945 || The United Nations officially comes into existence

In 1945, representatives of 50 countries met in San Francisco at the United Nations Conference
on International Organization to draw up the United Nations Charter. Those delegates
deliberated on the basis of proposals worked out by the representatives of China, the Soviet
Union, the United Kingdom and the United States at Dumbarton Oaks, United States in August-
October 1944.

The Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries. Poland,
which was not represented at the Conference, signed it later and became one of the original 51
Member States.
The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the Charter had
been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and by
a majority of other signatories. United Nations Day is celebrated on 24 October each year.

http://www.un.org/en/sections/history/history-united-nations/index.html

April 4, 2018

United Nations and the Nobel Peace Prize

The will Alfred Nobel made in 1895 was inspired by belief in the community of man. The Peace
Prize was to be awarded to the person who had done most for "fraternity between nations, for the
abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace
congresses".

UN Photo/John Isaac
Photographic reproduction of the Nobel Peace Medal.

In 70 years, the United Nations, its specialised agencies, related agencies, funds, programmes
and staff were awarded the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize eleven times. One agency, the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) received the famous prize in both 1954 and
1981.

Two Secretaries-General, Kofi Annan and Dag Hammarskjöld, were also honoured for their
work by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. After being awarded the prize jointly with the world
body, Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2001 told UN staff he hoped that winning the prize "will
urge us forward and encourage all of us to tackle our tasks with even greater determination".
"For one hundred years, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has sought to strengthen organized
cooperation between states. The end of the cold war has at last made it possible for the U.N. to
perform more fully the part it was originally intended to play. Today the organization is at the
forefront of efforts to achieve peace and security in the world, and of the international
mobilization aimed at meeting the world's economic, social and environmental
challenges....[The] Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes in its centenary year to proclaim that the
only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations."

The Norwegian Nobel Institute

Oslo, 12 October, 2001

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April 4, 2018

emocracy: Overview

Democracy is a universally recognized ideal and is one of the core values and principles of the
United Nations. It provides an environment for the protection and effective realization of human
rights. These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further
developed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which enshrines a host of
political rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful democracies.

United Nations activities in support of

democracy and governance are carried out through the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP), the United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF), the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations (DPKO), the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR),and the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality
and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), among others. Such activities are inseparable
from the UN’s work in promoting human rights, development, and peace and security, and
include:

 assisting parliaments to enhance the checks and balances that allow democracy to thrive;
  helping to strengthen the impartiality and effectiveness of national human rights institutions
and justice and security systems;
 helping to develop legislation and media capacities to ensure freedom of expression and access
to information;
 assisting to develop policies and legislation to guarantee the right to freedom of association and
of peaceful assembly;
 providing electoral assistance and long-term support for electoral management bodies;
 promoting women’s participation in political and public life.

Since 1991 the United Nations has provided various forms of electoral assistance to more than
100 countries — including advisory services, logistics, training, civic education, computer
applications and short-term observation.

Democracy has emerged as a cross-cutting issue in the outcomes of the major United Nations
conferences and summits since the 1990s and in the internationally agreed development goals
they produced. World leaders pledged in the Millennium Declaration to spare no effort to
promote democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms. The Outcome Document of the post-2015 negotiations, “Transforming
Our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, which was adopted by Heads of
State and Heads of Government on 25-27 September 2015, reaffirms this commitment to a world
in which “democracy, good governance and the rule of law as well as an enabling environment at
national and international levels, are essential for sustainable development”.

The UN General Assembly has reaffirmed that “democracy is a universal value based on the
freely expressed will of people to determine their political, economic, social and cultural systems
and their full participation in all aspects of their lives,” as previously stated in the outcome
document of the World Summit in September 2005. At that summit governments renewed their
commitment to support democracy and welcomed the establishment of a Democracy Fund at the
United Nations. The large majority of UNDEF funds go to local civil society organizations for
projects that strengthen the voice of civil society, promote human rights, and encourage the
participation of all groups in democratic processes.

The UN supports women's political participation, including efforts to increase the share of
women elected into office and to build women's capacity as effective legislators once elected. In
July 2010, as part of a resolution on system-wide reform, the United Nations General Assembly
created UN Women, mandated to coordinate the gender mainstreaming work of the UN System.
In doing so, UN Member States took an historic step in accelerating the Organization’s goals on
gender equality and the empowerment of women.

The International Day of Democracy

On 8 November 2007, the General Assembly proclaimed 15 September as the International Day
of Democracy, inviting Member States, the United Nations system and other regional,
intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations to commemorate the Day. The
International Day of Democracy provides an opportunity to review the state of democracy in the
world. Democracy is as much a process as a goal, and only with the full participation of and
support by the international community, national governing bodies, civil society and individuals,
can the ideal of democracy be made into a reality to be enjoyed by everyone, everywhere.

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Democracy and the United Nations

When the founders of the United Nations drafted the Charter 70 years ago, they did not include
the word democracy. This was hardly surprising. In 1945, still more than today, many of the
UN's Member States did not espouse democracy as a system. Others laid claim to it but did not
practise it.

And yet, in the seven decades since the Charter was signed, the UN as an institution has done
more to support and strengthen democracy around the world than any other global organization -
- from fostering good governance to monitoring elections, from supporting civil society to
strengthening democratic institutions and accountability, from ensuring self-determination in
decolonized countries to assisting the drafting of new constitutions in nations post-conflict.

This brings home the fact that democracy is one of the universal and indivisible core values and
principles of the United Nations. It is based on the freely expressed will of people and closely
linked to the rule of law and exercise of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Democracy, and democratic governance in particular, means that people’s human rights and
fundamental freedoms are respected, promoted and fulfilled, allowing them to live with dignity.

People have a say in decisions that affect their lives and can hold decision-makers to account,
based on inclusive and fair rules, institutions and practices that govern social interactions.
Women are equal partners with men in private and public spheres of life and decision-making,
and all people are free from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, class, gender or any other
attribute.

Democratic governance feeds into economic and social policies that are responsive to people’s
needs and aspirations, that aim at eradicating poverty and expanding the choices that people have
in their lives, and that respect the needs of future generations. In essence, therefore, democratic
governance is the process of creating and sustaining an environment for inclusive and responsive
political processes and settlements.

It is also important to note that the United Nations does not advocate for a specific model of
government, but promotes democratic governance as a set of values and principles that should be
followed for greater participation, equality, security and human development.

In 2007, the Secretary-General’s Policy Committee, the highest decision-making body within the
UN Secretariat, requested the development of an Organization-wide strategy that further defines
the UN’s approach to supporting democracy, anchored in the three pillars of the UN’s work,
namely, peace and security, development, and human rights. The Secretary-General tasked the
Democracy Working Group of the Executive Committee on Peace and Security — established in
May 2007 — to ensure regular follow-up on the issue of democracy and, more specifically, on
strategy development. Against this background, the Group supported the development of the
Secretary-General’s Guidance Note on Democracy, published in 2009.

Democracy in international law

Although the United Nations Charter includes no mention of the word “democracy”, the opening
words of the Charter, “We the Peoples”, reflect the fundamental principle of democracy, that the
will of the people is the source of legitimacy of sovereign states and therefore of the United
Nations as a whole.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly in 1948, clearly
projected the concept of democracy by stating “the will of the people shall be the basis of the
authority of government.” The Declaration spells out the rights that are essential for effective
political participation. Since its adoption, the Declaration has inspired constitution-making
around the world and has contributed greatly to the global acceptance of democracy as a
universal value and principle.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) lays the legal basis for the
principles of democracy under international law, particularly:

 freedom of expression (Article 19); the right of peaceful assembly (Article 21);
 the right to freedom of association with others (Article 22);
 the right and opportunity to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely
chosen representatives (Article 25);
  the right to vote and to be elected at genuine periodic elections which shall be by universal and
equal suffrage and shall be held by secret ballot, guaranteeing the free expression of the will of
the electors (Article 25).

The Covenant is binding on those States that have ratified it. As of July 2015, the number of
parties to the Covenant was 168, which constitutes approximately 85 per cent of the United
Nations membership.

The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women stipulates
that its 189 States parties (as of July 2015) shall take all appropriate measures that ensure to
women, on equal terms with men, the right to vote and stand for elections, and participate in
public life and decision-making (article 7), including at the international level (article 8).

Supporting democracy around the world

United Nations activities in support of democracy and governance are implemented through the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Democracy Fund
(UNDEF), the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), the Department of Political
Affairs (DPA), the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), and the
United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women)
among others. Such activities are inseparable from the UN’s work in promoting human rights,
development, and peace and security, and include:

 assisting parliaments and decentralized local governance structures to enhance the checks and
balances that allow democracy to thrive;
 promoting human rights, the rule of law and access to justice by helping to strengthen
impartiality and effectiveness of national human rights machinery institutions and judicial justice
systems;
 ensuring freedom of expression and access to information by strengthening legislation and
media capacities;
 electoral assistance and long-term support for electoral management bodies; and
 promoting women’s participation in political and public life.
Approximately $US 1.5 billion each year is provided through UNDP to support democratic
processes around the world, making the United Nations one of the largest providers of technical
cooperation for democracy and governance globally.

The political work of the United Nations requires that it promote democratic outcomes; the
development agencies seek to bolster national institutions like parliaments, electoral
commissions and legal systems that form the bedrock of any democracy; and the human rights
efforts support freedom of expression and association, the right to peaceful assembly,
participation, and the rule of law, all of which are critical components of democracy.

The UN General Assembly and democracy

Since 1988, the General Assembly has adopted at least one resolution annually dealing with
some aspect of democracy. Democracy has emerged as a cross-cutting issue in the outcomes of
the major United Nations conferences and summits since the 1990s and in the internationally
agreed development goals they produced. Member States at the World Summit in September
2005 reaffirmed that “democracy is a universal value based on the freely expressed will of
people to determine their political, economic, social and cultural systems and their full
participation in all aspects of their lives.”

The Summit Outcome Document also stressed that “democracy, development and respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing,” and
pointed out that “while democracies share common features, there is no single model of
democracy.” Member States resolved to promote increased representation of women in
Government decision-making bodies, including to ensure their equal opportunity to participate
fully in the political process.
The World leaders pledged in the Millennium Declaration to spare no effort to promote
democracy and strengthen the rule of law, as well as respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms. They resolved to strive for the full protection and promotion in all countries of civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights for all and to strengthen the capacity of all
countries to implement the principles and practices of democracy and respect for human rights.

The Outcome Document of the post-2015 negotiations, “Transforming Our World: the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development” adopted by Heads of State and Heads of Government on
25-27 September 2015, reaffirms this commitment to a world in which “democracy, good
governance and the rule of law as well as an enabling environment at national and international
levels, are essential for sustainable development”.

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Democracy and Human Rights

The human rights normative framework

The values of freedom, respect for human rights and the principle of holding periodic and
genuine elections by universal suffrage are essential elements of democracy. In turn, democracy
provides the natural environment for the protection and effective realization of human rights.
These values are embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and further developed
in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which enshrines a host of political
rights and civil liberties underpinning meaningful democracies.

The link between

democracy and human rights is captured inarticle 21(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, which states:
“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this shall be expressed
in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be
held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”

The rights enshrined in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and
subsequent human rights instruments covering the rights of certain groups (e.g.indigenous
peoples, women, minorities, people with disabilities, migrant workers and members of their
families) are equally essential for democracy as they ensure inclusivity for all groups, including
equality and equity in respect of access to civil and political rights.

For several years, the UN General Assembly and the former Commission on Human
Rights endeavored to draw on international human rights instruments to promote a common
understanding of the principles, norms, standards and values that are the basis of
democracy, with a view to guiding Member States in developing domestic democratic traditions
and institutions; and in meeting their commitments to human rights, democracy and
development.

This led to the articulation of several landmark resolutions of the former Commission on Human
Rights.

In 2000, the Commission recommended a series of important legislative, institutional and

practical measures to consolidate democracy (resolution 2000/47); and in 2002, the
Commission declared the following as essential elements of democracy:

 Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms

 Freedom of association
 Freedom of expression and opinion
 Access to power and its exercise in accordance with the rule of law
 The holding of periodic free and fair elections by universal suffrage and by secret ballot as the
expression of the will of the people
 A pluralistic system of political parties and organizations
 The separation of powers
 The independence of the judiciary
 Transparency and accountability in public administration
 Free, independent and pluralistic media

Since its establishment in 2006, the Human Rights Council (successor to the Commission) has
adopted a number of resolutions highlighting the interdependent and mutually reinforcing
relationship between democracy and human rights. Recent examples include resolutions 19/36
and 28/14 on “Human rights, democracy and the rule of law”.

Addressing democracy deficits

Democracy deficits, weak institutions and poor governance are among the main challenges to the
effective realization of human rights. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
(OHCHR) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) seek to address these
challenges through their advisory services and programmes, which focus on strengthening the
legal framework for human rights protection and promotion (institutional and legal reform);
capacity building for stronger national human rights systems; implementation of the Universal
Periodic Review recommendations, promoting human rights-based approaches, including
empowering vulnerable and disadvantaged segments of the society to claim their rights;
advocacy, awareness raising and human rights education.

In transitional democracies and countries emerging from conflicts, OHCHR collaborates with
national governments and actors to build a strong and independent judiciary, a representative,
efficient and accountable parliament, an independent and effective national human rights
institution, and a vibrant civil society. In fragile contexts UNDP particularly focuses on human
rights through its Rule of Law, Justice, Security and Human Rights programming, for example
with National Human Rights Institutions in more than 80 countries; including through the Global
Focal Point arrangement on Justice, Police and Corrections and the partnership between UNDP,
DPKO, OHCHR, UNODC, UN Women and others.

Promoting democratic governance

Democratic governance, as supported by the United Nations emphasizes the role of individuals
and peoples — all of them, without any exclusion — in shaping their human growth and the
human development of societies. But individuals can only make such contributions when their
individual potential is unleashed through the enjoyment of human rights.

In 2011, UNDP helped more than 130 countries and devoted US$1.5 billion in resources to
democratic governance, making UNDP the world's largest provider of democratic governance
assistance. UNDP supports one in three parliaments in the developing world and an election
every two weeks. In 2014, UNDP programmes strengthened electoral processes around the world
and helped register 18 million new voters. UNDP also works to foster partnerships and share
ways to promote participation, accountability and effectiveness at all levels, aiming to build
effective and capable states that are accountable and transparent, inclusive and responsive —
from elections to participation of women and the poor.

OHCHR promotes democratic governance by providing sustained support to democratic

institutions, including national actors and institutions involved in the administration of justice;
enhancing the capacity of parliamentarians to engage in human rights protection, supporting civil
society, facilitating constitution-making, and conducting human rights monitoring in the context
of electoral processes.

Supporting transitional democracies

Popular uprisings across the world were led by youth, women, and men from all social strata and
are opening greater space for civic engagement in decision making. The calls for
transformational change are a popular cry for choice, participation, transparency and respect for
people’s legitimate quest for democratic space. These events have reaffirmed the pivotal
importance of democratic governance as a system premised on inclusion, participation, non-
discrimination and accountability.
In transitional democracies and countries emerging from conflict, OHCHR collaborates with
national governments and other actors to confront the past in order to rebuild public confidence
and restore peace and the rule of law. OHCHR has actively supported transitional justice
programmes in more than 20 countries around the world over the past decade. Its support
includes ensuring that human rights and transitional justice considerations are reflected in peace
agreements; engaging in the design and implementation of inclusive national consultations on
transitional justice mechanisms; supporting the establishment of truth-seeking processes, judicial
accountability mechanisms, and reparations programmes; and enhancing institutional reform.

Guiding national and regional efforts

In March 2012, the Human Rights Council adopted a resolution titled “Human rights, democracy
and the rule of law,” which reaffirmed that democracy, development and respect for all human
rights and fundamental freedoms were interdependent and mutually reinforcing. The Council
called upon States to make continuous efforts to strengthen the rule of law and promote
democracy through a wide range of measures. Further to this resolution, OHCHR, in
consultation with States, national human rights institutions, civil society, relevant
intergovernmental bodies and international organizations, published a study on challenges,
lessons learned and best practices in securing democracy and the rule of law from a human rights
perspective. Based on the study, in June 2013 OHCHR organized a panel discussion on these
issues, with the participation of international experts.

In March 2015, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 28/14, which established a forum
on human rights, democracy and the rule of law, to provide a platform for promoting dialogue
and cooperation on issues pertaining to these areas.

OHCHR also works to underline the close relationship between human rights and democracy
within the United Nations system. In collaboration with the UN Department of Political Affairs
and the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA),
OHCHR organized a ‘Round Table on Democracy and Human Rights’ in New York in 2011.
The round table discussed democracy movements and their characteristics in a number of States,
including those involved in the Arab Spring. It underlined the importance of working with
regional and sub-regional organizations when dealing with unconstitutional changes of
Government, and when promoting democratic movements and democracies more generally.

OHCHR also seeks to partner with intergovernmental democracy-promoting organizations such

as l’Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and regional intergovernmental
organizations. In addition, the Office provides dedicated support to the UN Democracy Fund,
advising the decision making process on programme funding criteria and on project proposals.

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Democracy and Elections

The spread of democracy around the world is one of the most significant achievements of our
times. Elections sit at the heart of this, making possible the act of self-determination envisaged in
the Charter of the United Nations. The Organization’s history is interwoven with elections
extending back to shortly after its founding, when, in the late 1940s, it observed elections on the
Korean Peninsula. During the subsequent era of trusteeship and decolonization, it supervised and
observed plebiscites, referenda and elections worldwide. Today, the United Nations continues to
be a trusted impartial actor providing electoral assistance to approximately 60 countries each
year, either at the request of Member States or based on a Security Council or General Assembly
mandate.

Electoral assistance is
based on the principle established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the will of
the people, as expressed through periodic and genuine elections, shall be the basis of government
authority. Electoral assistance also recognizes the principles of state sovereignty and national
ownership of elections, and that there is no single model of democracy.

The main goal of United Nations electoral assistance is to support Member States in holding
periodic, inclusive and transparent elections that are credible and popularly perceived as such
and establishing nationally sustainable electoral processes.

The provision of electoral assistance by the United Nations is a team effort involving a number
of programmes, funds, agencies and departments under the mandate provided by the General
Assembly.

The Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs is designated by the Secretary-General as the

UN Focal Point for Electoral Assistance Activities, with a leadership role in ensuring system-
wide coherence and consistency and in strengthening the institutional memory and the
development, dissemination and issuance of United Nations electoral assistance policies.
The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Mali provided electoral support to the authorities
following a tumultuous year that included a military coup d'état, fighting between the
Government and rebels, and the seizure of its northern territory by radical Islamists.

The Electoral Assistance Division, within the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), supports
the United Nations Focal Point in ensuring system-wide coherence and consistency in the
provision of United Nations electoral assistance. This includes undertaking electoral needs
assessments, recommending parameters for all United Nations electoral assistance, advising on
the design of projects, developing electoral policy, maintaining institutional memory, and
providing technical guidance and support in the implementation of electoral projects.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is the UN system’s main provider of
technical electoral assistance, which is delivered as part of its mandate to lead democratic
governance assistance at the country level.

In peacekeeping or post-conflict environments, electoral assistance is generally provided through

components of field missions under the aegis of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations
(DPKO) or the DPA. Military and police components of peacekeeping missions support national
law enforcement agencies in providing security for electoral processes.

Other UN actors involved in providing electoral assistance include the Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Volunteers, UN Women, the United Nations
Office for Project Services, UNESCO, the Peacebuilding Fund, and the United Nations
Democracy Fund.

Over the last 20 years, the United Nations has provided electoral assistance to more than 110
Member States and/or territories that have requested support. In the forthcoming report 2015
biennial report of the Secretary-General to the General Assembly on the UN’s work in support of
democratic elections, 68 countries are documented as having received UN support. UNDP
provides electoral assistance to develop sustainable electoral management capacities, to foster
inclusive participation in elections, particularly of women and youth and other underrepresented
groups, and to coordinate donor support to electoral processes. This includes seven countries
where special political missions are deployed, and eight where peacekeeping missions are
deployed. Where more than one UN actor is involved in providing electoral assistance (for
example, DPKO and UNDP), support should be provided in an integrated manner.

United Nations electoral assistance has been a crucial and successful component in
peacekeeping, peacebuilding, and in establishing and deepening democratic governance. As
democracy has spread, so has the role of elections as the means to establish legitimate
government. The United Nations has been engaged in elections in all regions of the world, with
assistance provided recently in the Afghanistan, Mali, Somalia, Jordan, Nepal, Bangladesh and
Iraq, to name just a few. In Tunisia for example, the UN supported civil society in the October
2011 National Constituent Assembly elections and continues to provide technical assistance to
the national authorities. In Libya, an integrated UN team supported the Libyan authorities in
organizing and conducting the General National Congress elections on 7 July 2012. In 2013, the
United Nations provided technical and logistical support to Malian authorities in the conduct of
Presidential elections. In addition, the United Nations is currently in the the process of
supporting electoral reform in Afghanistan.

The United Nations also has established relations with regional and intergovernmental
organizations involved in electoral assistance, including the African Union, the European Union,
the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the Organization of American
States, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, League of Arab States (LAS)
and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), and the Southern African Development
Community, as well as with sub-regional organizations like Economic Community Of West
African States (ECOWAS). Other partners are the many international non-governmental
organizations working in the field of electoral assistance. These include institutions such as the
Carter Center, the Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa, and the
International Foundation for Electoral Systems. These relationships provide opportunities for
collaboration on electoral support activities as well as for sharing lessons and experiences.

It is recognized that addressing the capacity of an electoral management body in isolation will
not necessarily produce credible elections. There also needs to be a focus on the overall political
environment in which the elections take place. The United Nations therefore also makes efforts
to build capacity outside the electoral authorities. This involves working with voters, the media,
political parties and civil society, as well as other actors and institutions of democratic
governance such as parliament and the judiciary.

Further recognizing that even a technically good election may still ignite underlying grievances
and tensions, the United Nations is placing greater attention on taking a political approach to
preventing and responding to election-related violence. This is the basis for regular training for
field and headquarters based staff. Some examples of successful political engagement include the
mediation and dialogue activities of the Special Adviser for Yemen, who works closely with the
UN Resident Coordinator and the UNDP Country Office in moving the political
process forward; the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), which is in close consultation
with ECOWAS, engaged political actors in an effort to lessen tensions before, during and after
the elections; and the SRSG for West Africa’s engagement in Guinea, who, with close support
from DPA, facilitated dialogue among political actors thereby ensuring a resumption of the
stalled electoral process.

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Democracy and Civil Society: The United Nations Democracy Fund

Globally, the role of civil society has never been more important than this year, 2015, as the
world prepares to implement a new development agenda, agreed by all the world’s Governments.
However, for civil society activists and organizations in a range of countries covering every
continent, space is shrinking — or even closing. Governments have adopted restrictions that
limit the ability of NGOs to work or to receive funding.

As the Secretary-General has said, the hallmark of successful and stable democracies is the
presence of a strong and freely operating civil society -- in which Government and civil society
work together for common goals for a better future, and at the same time, civil society helps keep
Government accountable.

The United Nations Democracy Fund (UNDEF) supports projects that strengthen the voice of
civil society, promote human rights, and encourage the participation of all groups in democratic
processes. It is the only UN entity that has the word “democracy” in its name; the only UN body
with the primary purpose of supporting democracy through empowering civil society; and one of
the youngest entities in the UN system.

Since Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan created UNDEF as a UN General Trust Fund in 2005, it
has supported more than 600 projects in over 120 countries, with a total disbursement of more
than 150 million dollars. These have ranged from supporting civil society efforts for
accountability and transparency to building capacity for strengthening good governance and the
rule of law. The large majority of UNDEF funds go to local civil society organizations in
countries in both the transition and consolidation phases of democratisation. In this way, UNDEF
plays a new, distinct and unique role, complementing and enhancing the UN's traditional work
with Governments to strengthen democratic governance around the world. It targets the demand
side of democracy, rather than the supply side.

UNDEF projects are in seven main areas:

 Community Activism
 Rule of Law and Human Rights
 Tools for Knowledge
 Women's Empowerment
 Youth Engagement
 Media and Freedom of Information
 Strengthening Civil Society Capacity for Interaction with Government

UNDEF’s project selection in the Ninth Round of Funding places a deliberate emphasis on youth
engagement, with almost 50 per cent of selected projects operating in this field. This reflects the
fact that today, one person out of five is between the ages of 15 and 24. Young people have
increasing powers to network, connecting on issues that matter – from injustice, discrimination
and climate change to human rights and the need for human solidarity. The emphasis also
reflects that 2015 was a turning point for the United Nations, as the international community
agreed on new sustainable development goals and a new universal and meaningful climate
agreement – commitments that those who are young today will have to live with and carry
forward.

In 2014, UNDEF received over 2,300 project proposals. Grants average around USD195,000 and
applications are subject to a highly rigorous and competitive selection process. The Fund
depends entirely on voluntary contributions from Member States. So far, it has been supported
by over 40 Governments, who have contributed a cumulative amount of more than 160 million
dollars. The biggest donors are the United States and India.

UNDEF is committed to transparency and knowledge sharing. External evaluations of completed

projects are available on the UNDEF website.
The following are some examples of UNDEF projects around the world:

Democracy in Action

A School of Democratic Procedures for Self-Governance

Bodies in All Regions of Ukraine

In Ukraine, an UNDEF-funded project works to increase the transparency and accountability of

local self-governance by introducing parliamentary procedures in the daily work of selected local
Councils in all regions of the country, including the East. Under the project, representatives of 24
local authorities, one for each region of Ukraine, attend a School of Democratic Rules and
Procedures.

Participants work for the adoption of amendments to the regulations of the relevant local
authorities to introduce parliamentary procedures and democratic rules - enabling Councils to
broadcast their sessions on the Internet. By bringing together representatives from all the regions
of Ukraine, the School of Democratic Rules and Procedures also advances the concept of holding
organized inclusive and peaceful political debate. The project is implemented by West
Ukrainian Resource Centre.
 Empowering Indigenous Communities in Bolivia through
Basic Legal Identity Documents

In Bolivia, UNDEF funds a project in the La Paz and Oruro departments, to assist in legally and
politically empowering indigenous communities. It is doing so by providing them with basic
legal identity documents, prerequisites for democratic participation which many of them have
lacked in the past; strengthening their knowledge and capacity to participate in democratic
processes and exercise their rights; and improving access to basic legal documents and rights for
all, through evidence-based advocacy aimed at institutional change. Implemented by Fundacion
Microjusticia Bolivia (MJB), the project is also setting up a network of rural facilitators to act as
focal points for establishing outlets for legal advice, and run legal campaigns on how to obtain
the necessary documentation. Also importantly, the project encourages debate between
traditional leaders and government officials by organising networking meetings and a forum.

Upholding the Rights of Communities and Miners amid

Exploitation of Mineral Resources in the Democratic Republic of Congo

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, an UNDEF-funded project works to uphold economic,

social and cultural rights of local communities and traditional miners in relation to the
exploitation of mineral resources. The project conducts advocacy for legal reform; dissemination
and explanation of legal texts; awareness-raising on rights and obligations among community
leaders, judiciary, mine administration officials; support for rights violation victims; organizing
of traditional mine diggers; and monitoring of human rights related to the exploitation of natural
resources. The project is implemented by the NGO Action pour la Promotion et la Défense des
Droits des Personnes Défavorisées.

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Women and Democracy

Democracy requires that citizens’ interests be heard, deliberated and legislated on. Women are
half of the world’s population, and as such their voice should be heard in the democratic process.
Democracy needs women in order to be truly democratic, and women need democracy if they are
to change the systems and laws that preclude them, and preclude them, and preclude societies as
a whole, from attaining equality.

It is through
democratic representation that women’s interests can be represented and their voices heard.
Article 7 in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women
(CEDAW) reiterates the importance of women’s representation in the political life of their
countries:

“…ensure to women, on equal terms with men, the right:

(a) To vote in all elections and public referenda and to be eligible for election to all publicly
elected bodies;
(b) To participate in the formulation of government policy and the implementation thereof and to
hold public office and perform all public functions at all levels of government”

The role of women in democratic processes is further emphasized in the 2011 General Assembly
resolution on Women’s Political Participation (A/RES/66/130), which reaffirms “that the active
participation of women, on equal terms with men, at all levels of decision-making is essential to
the achievement of equality, sustainable development, peace and democracy”.
Despite these normative advances, and as universal as these goals are, they nevertheless remain
elusive for many women. Progress has been too slow in increasing numbers of women in
representative. In 2015, just 22 per cent of national parliamentarians were women, a slow
increase from 11.3 per cent in 1995. As of January 2015, 10 women served as Head of State and
14 served as Head of Government. Just 17 per cent of government ministers were women, and
many of these hold social policy portfolios such as education and the family. Women are also
poorly represented in local decision-making bodies, whether as mayors or local council
members.

Women are still under-represented in elected positions and most countries are far from reaching
the ’gender balance’ proposed by the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action. Political institutions –
from political parties to electoral commissions - often lack the capacity to ensure that women’s
interests are articulated and addressed in public policy. Accountability institutions are not
consistent in ensuring that power-holders answer to women for failures to protect women’s rights
or respond to their needs.

In post-conflict settings the lack of access for women to democratic institutions and democratic
process is most evident. Security Council resolution 1325 calls on Member States to increase the
representation of women at all decision making levels. In response, the United Nations
Departments of Peacekeeping Operations and Field Support intervene to facilitate women’s
participation in political processes and women’s inclusion in governance structures in the
countries where peacekeeping operations are deployed.

Four Key Practices for Women’s Effective Political Participation

1. Make both local and national elections free and fair for women.

Promote temporary special measures such as quotas, sanctions on non-complying political

parties, waivers of nomination fees, access to public media, and access to public resources, and
to increase women’s participation as both elected and appointed decision-makers in public
institutions. Ensure voter registration processes enable women to exercise their democratic right.
Consider implementing measures to address the factors (violence against women, gender-biased
media reporting, non-transparent political party practices, lack of campaign financing)
preventing women from participating in politics by working with Electoral Management Bodies
and political parties.

2. Support women’s civil society organizations to advance women’s interests.

Provide assistance to develop collective policy agendas, for instance, through Women’s Charters
or by holding National Conventions of Women. Women share priorities that cut across any
differences they may have – these shared priorities may be about their right to hold office or their
access to improved health care and child care. It is important for women to coordinate, create
coalitions, work together and ensure common messages during times of change. Provide capacity
building and skills development training to promote advocacy and communication skills, as well
as internal organizational capacities of women’s groups and movements.
3. Build accountability for women’s rights in public institutions.

Ensure that constitutional revision processes consider the impact of the design of political,
judicial and other public institutions on women’s participation and the exercise of their social,
political and economic rights. Constitutional revisions should ensure harmonization with
international standards on women’s rights. Promote accountability mechanisms and governance
reforms that address women’s needs such as gender responsive service delivery, access to
justice, budgeting and access to information. Ensure that accountability processes are in place,
through which public authorities answer for their performance on national commitments on
gender equality and women’s rights.

4. Support women political leaders to expand their influence.

Support skills and capacity development for both candidates and elected leaders. This support
involves both training in terms of skills (parliamentary debate and language, advocacy) as well
as content skills on gender mainstreaming, international gender equality commitments and
strategies that can be of use. Support also entails advocating for mechanisms such as women’s
parliamentary caucuses or women’s networks within civil service institutions, as well as creating
governmental mechanisms that have the mandate, capacities and position in government to be an
effective policy advocate for women’s interests. Consider training men in the principles and
practice of gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment.

What the UN is Doing – Recent Successes

Afghanistan: in 2014 the UN Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, engaged in extensive efforts to

sensitize the Afghan public on the importance of women in politics. As a result the Government
took concrete steps to equip women’s polling stations with female security and women
observers. The presence of women was a direct indicator of the increased level of women’s
confidence in casting ballots.

Ecuador: The programme provided technical support to the Parliamentary Group for Women's
Rights to establish dialogue mechanisms among CSOs, women members of political parties, and
the National Assembly to ensure harmonization of domestic legislation with the 2008
Constitution in compliance with Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW). UN Women played a convening role for the signing of a
Memorandum of Understanding between the National Assembly and the United Nations system
to support gender and human rights mainstreaming within the legal reform.

Haiti: the United Nations Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH), UN Women and UNDP, with the
support USAID, assisted with the establishment of an office for gender equality in the parliament
and consultations culminating in a Plan of Action on promoting women’s participation in the
forthcoming elections.

Liberia: the UN mission in Liberia (UNMIL) supported the Women NGO Secretariat of Liberia
on a project “levelling the playing field for women’s participation in Liberia Governance’. The
project aimed at promoting gender-responsive and inclusive governance in Liberia by identifying
the obstacles and challenges to women’s full participation. In 2015, UN Women also conducted
an in-country mission to support national stakeholders (Constitutional Review Committee,
Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, CSOs and the Women’s Joint Constitutional
Review Task Force) on the constitutional review process. The mission results included the
submission of gender equality constitutional provisions related to the rights of women and
children; parity in representation in national and local assemblies; development of an agreed road
map with partners; and strengthened capacities of media representatives on gender-responsive
media coverage.

Malawi: Following the programme’s electoral support in 2014, a network of eminent women
was established by senior women citizens, retired politicians, professionals and faith leaders, to
support women’s political participation in Malawi. The network helped promote conflict
prevention and advocate through the UN Women “HeforShe” campaign to hold political leaders
accountable to the commitments on gender equality included in their respective parties’
manifestos. The network provides advice and mentorship to newly elected women and
candidates in preparation for the 2019 elections.

Morocco: UN Women continued supporting the implementation of the gender equality

provisions of the 2011 Constitution, through capacity-development for gender-responsive legal
reform and monitoring mechanisms; and technical support to the Group of Parliamentarians for
Equality. UN Women played a convening role and provided local expertise to support the review
and harmonization with CEDAW of draft laws being debated in the Parliament (i.e., Law on
Municipal and Regional Elections and the Fight against All Forms of Discrimination).

Paraguay: UN Women, in coordination with the Centre of Documentation and Studies and the
NGO Decidamos, convened a National Dialogue from June to October 2014 that promoted
inclusive political institutions and the establishment of a task force on democratic parity with
representation of women from political parties, women’s organizations and the Municipal
Women’s Networks. The task force drafted a proposed law on democratic parity. UN Women is
bringing this political dialogue to the municipal level and will support training for women
candidates prior to municipal elections.

Tanzania: UN Women supported a women’s coalition (comprising of 50 CSOs), with

representation from women from different party affiliations countrywide. This resulted in
increased support for gender equality demands in the constitution review process. From 13-17
April 2015, over 400 women assembled in Dodoma, the seat of the Constituent Assembly, to
demand the adoption of the 12 gender issues achieved in the second draft constitution. In
achieving 50/50 representation, the Women’s Caucus in the Constituent Assembly, has been
commended as the most organized coalition.

In United Nations peacekeeping: There has been significant, and in most cases increased,
participation of women as voters and as candidates in elections as a result of the efforts of UN
peacekeeping missions to integrate a gender dimension into electoral processes and to ensure the
safety of female voters and candidates.
As part of the events to commemorate the 10th Anniversary of Resolution 1325 on Women,
Peace and Security (2010), The Department of Peacekeeping Operations, UN Women, the
Department of Political Affairs and UNDP convened Open Days on women, peace and security
in multiple countries. The Open Days gave women from the DRC, Nepal, Afghanistan, Liberia,
Guinea Bissau, Kosovo, and Somalia among others access to senior management of UN missions
and government. The women collectively voiced their concerns on challenges to women’s
political, social and economic participation and presented their views on the impact of peace
building and reconstruction on their lives. One of the results from the Open Days was the global
call for increased political empowerment for women and engagement at all levels of decision-
making.

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Democracy, Youth, and the United Nations

For seven decades, the UN’s work for democratic values and principles has been carried out by
career diplomats and drafters, political experts and peacekeepers. Today, the UN is banking on a
different constituency to advance its mission on nearly every front: young people.

In our time, young people hold the key to almost all the challenges facing the UN: from fighting
extremism to resolving frozen conflicts and preventing new ones; from giving effect to
sustainable development goals to implementing a new universal and meaningful climate
agreement; from advancing and defending human rights to ensuring inclusive and participatory
governance.

This youth generation is the largest the world has ever known. More than half the global
population is under 25 years old. They have opportunities and skills for communicating, acting,
networking and influencing that would have been unimaginable to the founders of the UN seven
decades ago. The challenges they face are also unprecedented -- from climate change to
unemployment and multiple forms of inequalities and exclusion, contributing to the acute
migration crisis we are witnessing in several parts of the world. Never before has the transition
from youth to adulthood been so burdened by challenges, yet so blessed by opportunities.

It is often observed that young people are increasingly sceptical of the conventional model of
democracy. But at the same time, they can and do connect and give voice on issues that matter --
using new media to fight injustice, discrimination, human rights abuses; reviving student
activism to give voice to the disempowered; taking individual and collective action for what they
believe in -- from sustainable consumer habits to participatory greening of cities, from online
petition activism to social entrepreneurship.

Young people not only have the tools to achieve change – they are also the masters of those
tools, far more so than their elders. And they have an eloquent voice that resonates deeply with
their own generation – from Malala Yousafzai on the universal right to education to Emma
Watson on mobilizing men and boys for gender equality.

That is why on the International Day of Democracy in September 2014, UN Secretary-General

Ban Ki-moon issued his message directly to those who will be taking the lead beyond 2015, and
who by nature are at a turning point in their own lives. He called on members of the largest
young generation in history to confront challenges and consider what they can do to resolve
them; to take control of their destiny and translate their dreams into a better future for all; to
contribute to building stronger and better democratic societies; to work together, to use their
creative thinking, to become architects of a future that leaves no one behind.

To give life to the Secretary-General's vision, the United Nations family is acting on a range of
levels:

The Secretary-General himself has made working with and for young people as one of his top
priorities, deepening the youth focus of existing programmes on employment, entrepreneurship,
political inclusion, citizenship and protection of rights, and education, including on reproductive
health. He has appointed the first Secretary-General's Envoy on Youth, mandated with the task
of bringing the voices of young people to the United Nations family.

The UN General Assembly in March 2015 adopted “Education for Democracy”,

a resolution encouraging all UN entities to use education – including school curricula -- to
strengthen efforts to promote peace, human rights, democracy, respect for religious and cultural
diversity, and justice. The resolution also strongly encourages Member States to integrate
education for democracy, along with civics and human rights, into their education standards.

Also in 2015, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution creating a Forum on human
rights, democracy and the rule of law, and making the first edition of the Forum in 2016
"Widening the Democratic Space: the Role of Youth in Public Decision-Making".
And the UN Commission for Social Development passed a draft resolution encouraging Member
States to develop comprehensive policies and action plans focused on the best interests of youth,
particularly the poor and marginalized, and to address all aspects of youth development.

Meanwhile the UN Democracy Fund focused 50 per cent of its new projects in 2015 on young
people -- ranging from participation of youth for peaceful collaboration in conflict zones to
young people organizing to fight corruption, from building local youth councils to media
campaigns for greater youth participation in elections. Securing space for young people to
engage is especially important today, a time when space is closing for civil society in a range of
countries as an alarming number of Governments have passed restrictions into law.

And as of 2014, the UN Development Programme has adopted its first Youth Strategy, engaging
young people as a positive force for transformational change. The first organization-wide
strategy that explicitly states UNDP’s commitment to youth, it covers three years and envisages
three outcomes:

 Increased economic empowerment of youth;

 Enhanced youth civic engagement and participation in decision-making and political processes
and institutions;
 Strengthened youth engagement in resilience building;„

To that end, the strategy is guided by a four-pronged approach: capacity development, advocacy
and mainstreaming, thought leadership, and national policy.

These efforts by the UN family draw on a shared lesson: Generation after generation, experience
has taught us that democracy is strongest where people of all walks and all ages join together in
common causes they believe in, drawing on their passion rather than their self-interest, building
democratic foundations that go way beyond Government, deepening democratic practices that go
way beyond elections.

The UN is committed to acting on that, and ensuring that young people have their democratic
say. In the words of the UN Secretary General's Envoy on Youth, Ahmad Alhendawi: "As a
young person, you don't need to carry UN badge to work for the UN. You just need to carry its
values in your heart."

http://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/democracy/index.html

April 4, 2018

United Nations
international organization

Written By:

 Jacques Fomerand
 Cecelia M. Lynch
 Karen Mingst

https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations
See Article History
Alternative Title: UN

United Nations (UN), international organization established on October 24, 1945. The United
Nations (UN) was the second multipurpose international organization established in the 20th
century that was worldwide in scope and membership. Its predecessor, the League of Nations,
was created by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 and disbanded in 1946. Headquartered in New
York City, the UN also has regional offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi. Its official
languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. For a list of UN member
countries and secretaries-general, see below.

According to its Charter, the UN aims:

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,…to reaffirm faith in fundamental
human rights,…to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising
from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social
progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

In addition to maintaining peace and security, other important objectives include developing
friendly relations among countries based on respect for the principles of equal rights and self-
determination of peoples; achieving worldwide cooperation to solve international economic,
social, cultural, and humanitarian problems; respecting and promoting human rights; and serving
as a centre where countries can coordinate their actions and activities toward these various ends.

The UN formed a continuum with the League of Nations in general purpose, structure, and
functions; many of the UN’s principal organs and related agencies were adopted from similar
structures established earlier in the century. In some respects, however, the UN constituted a
very different organization, especially with regard to its objective of maintaining international
peace and security and its commitment to economic and social development.

Changes in the nature of international relations resulted in modifications in the responsibilities of

the UN and its decision-making apparatus. Cold War tensions between the United States and the
Soviet Union deeply affected the UN’s security functions during its first 45 years. Extensive
post-World War II decolonization in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East increased the volume and
nature of political, economic, and social issues that confronted the organization. The Cold War’s
end in 1991 brought renewed attention and appeals to the UN. Amid an increasingly volatile
geopolitical climate, there were new challenges to established practices and functions, especially
in the areas of conflict resolution and humanitarian assistance. At the beginning of the 21st
century, the UN and its programs and affiliated agencies struggled to address humanitarian crises
and civil wars, unprecedented refugee flows, the devastation caused by the spread of AIDS,
global financial disruptions, international terrorism, and the disparities in wealth between the
world’s richest and poorest peoples.

History and development

Despite the problems encountered by the League of Nations in arbitrating conflict and ensuring
international peace and security prior to World War II, the major Allied powers agreed during
the war to establish a new global organization to help manage international affairs. This
agreement was first articulated when U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill signed the Atlantic Charter in August 1941. The name United
Nations was originally used to denote the countries allied against Germany, Italy, and Japan. On
January 1, 1942, 26 countries signed the Declaration by United Nations, which set forth the war
aims of the Allied powers.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union took the lead in designing the new
organization and determining its decision-making structure and functions. Initially, the “Big
Three” states and their respective leaders (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Soviet premier Joseph
Stalin) were hindered by disagreements on issues that foreshadowed the Cold War. The Soviet
Union demanded individual membership and voting rights for its constituent republics, and
Britain wanted assurances that its colonies would not be placed under UN control. There also
was disagreement over the voting system to be adopted in the Security Council, an issue that
became famous as the “veto problem.”

The first major step toward the formation of the United Nations was taken August 21–October 7,
1944, at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, a meeting of the diplomatic experts of the Big Three
powers plus China (a group often designated the “Big Four”) held at Dumbarton Oaks, an estate
in Washington, D.C. Although the four countries agreed on the general purpose, structure, and
function of a new world organization, the conference ended amid continuing disagreement over
membership and voting. At the Yalta Conference, a meeting of the Big Three in a Crimean resort
city in February 1945, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin laid the basis for charter provisions
delimiting the authority of the Security Council. Moreover, they reached a tentative accord on
the number of Soviet republics to be granted independent memberships in the UN. Finally, the
three leaders agreed that the new organization would include a trusteeship system to succeed the
League of Nations mandate system.

The Dumbarton Oaks proposals, with modifications from the Yalta Conference, formed the basis
of negotiations at the United Nations Conference on International Organization (UNCIO), which
convened in San Francisco on April 25, 1945, and produced the final Charter of the United
Nations. The San Francisco conference was attended by representatives of 50 countries from all
geographic areas of the world: 9 from Europe, 21 from the Americas, 7 from the Middle East, 2
from East Asia, and 3 from Africa, as well as 1 each from the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist
Republic and the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic (in addition to the Soviet Union itself)
and 5 from British Commonwealth countries. Poland, which was not present at the conference,
was permitted to become an original member of the UN. Security Council veto power (among
the permanent members) was affirmed, though any member of the General Assembly was able to
raise issues for discussion. Other political issues resolved by compromise were the role of the
organization in the promotion of economic and social welfare; the status of colonial areas and the
distribution of trusteeships; the status of regional and defense arrangements; and Great Power
dominance versus the equality of states. The UN Charter was unanimously adopted and signed
on June 26 and promulgated on October 24, 1945.

Organization and administration

Principles and membership

The purposes, principles, and organization of the United Nations are outlined in the Charter. The
essential principles underlying the purposes and functions of the organization are listed in Article
2 and include the following: the UN is based on the sovereign equality of its members; disputes
are to be settled by peaceful means; members are to refrain from the threat or use of force in
contravention of the purposes of the UN; each member must assist the organization in any
enforcement actions it takes under the Charter; and states that are not members of the
organization are required to act in accordance with these principles insofar as it is necessary to
maintain international peace and security. Article 2 also stipulates a basic long-standing norm
that the organization shall not intervene in matters considered within the domestic jurisdiction of
any state. Although this was a major limitation on UN action, over time the line between
international and domestic jurisdiction has become blurred.

New members are admitted to the UN on the recommendation of the Security Council and by a
two-thirds vote of the General Assembly. Often, however, the admittance of new members has
engendered controversy. Given Cold War divisions between East and West, the requirement that
the Security Council’s five permanent members (sometimes known collectively as the P-5)—
China, France, the Soviet Union (whose seat and membership were assumed by Russia in 1991),
the United Kingdom, and the United States—concur on the admission of new members at times
posed serious obstacles. By 1950 only 9 of 31 applicants had been admitted to the organization.
In 1955 the 10th Assembly proposed a package deal that, after modification by the Security
Council, resulted in the admission of 16 new states (4 eastern European communist states and 12
noncommunist countries). The most contentious application for membership was that of the
communist People’s Republic of China, which was placed before the General Assembly and
blocked by the United States at every session from 1950 to 1971. Finally, in 1971, in an effort to
improve its relationship with mainland China, the United States refrained from blocking the
Assembly’s vote to admit the People’s Republic and to expel the Republic of China (Taiwan);
there were 76 votes in favour of expulsion, 35 votes opposed, and 17 abstentions. As a result, the
Republic of China’s membership and permanent Security Council seat were given to the
People’s Republic.

Controversy also arose over the issue of “divided” states, including the Federal Republic of
Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), North and
South Korea, and North and South Vietnam. The two German states were admitted as members
in 1973; these two seats were reduced to one after the country’s reunification in October 1990.
Vietnam was admitted in 1977, after the defeat of South Vietnam and the reunification of the
country in 1975. The two Koreas were admitted separately in 1991.
Following worldwide decolonization from 1955 to 1960, 40 new members were admitted, and by
the end of the 1970s there were about 150 members of the UN. Another significant increase
occurred after 1989–90, when many former Soviet republics gained their independence. By the
early 21st century the UN comprised nearly 190 member states.

Principal organs

The United Nations has six principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the
Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and
the Secretariat.

General Assembly

The only body in which all UN members are represented, the General Assembly exercises
deliberative, supervisory, financial, and elective functions relating to any matter within the scope
of the UN Charter. Its primary role, however, is to discuss issues and make recommendations,
though it has no power to enforce its resolutions or to compel state action. Other functions
include admitting new members; selecting members of the Economic and Social Council, the
nonpermanent members of the Security Council, and the Trusteeship Council; supervising the
activities of the other UN organs, from which the Assembly receives reports; and participating in
the election of judges to the International Court of Justice and the selection of the secretary-
general. Decisions usually are reached by a simple majority vote. On important questions,
however—such as the admission of new members, budgetary matters, and peace and security
issues—a two-thirds majority is required.

The Assembly convenes annually and in special sessions, electing a new president each year
from among five regional groups of states. At the beginning of each regular session, the
Assembly also holds a general debate, in which all members may participate and raise any issue
of international concern. Most work, however, is delegated to six main committees: (1)
Disarmament and International Security, (2) Economic and Financial, (3) Social, Humanitarian,
and Cultural, (4) Special Political and Decolonization, (5) Administrative and Budgetary, and (6)
Legal.

The General Assembly has debated issues that other organs of the UN have either overlooked or
avoided, including decolonization, the independence of Namibia, apartheid in South Africa,
terrorism, and the AIDS epidemic. The number of resolutions passed by the Assembly each year
has climbed to more than 350, and many resolutions are adopted without opposition.
Nevertheless, there have been sharp disagreements among members on several issues, such as
those relating to the Cold War, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and human rights. The General
Assembly has drawn public attention to major issues, thereby forcing member governments to
develop positions on them, and it has helped to organize ad hoc bodies and conferences to deal
with important global problems.

The large size of the Assembly and the diversity of the issues it discusses contributed to the
emergence of regionally based voting blocs in the 1960s. During the Cold War the Soviet Union
and the countries of eastern Europe formed one of the most cohesive blocs, and another bloc
comprised the United States and its Western allies. The admission of new countries of the
Southern Hemisphere in the 1960s and ’70s and the dissipation of Cold War tensions after 1989
contributed to the formation of blocs based on “North-South” economic issues—i.e., issues of
disagreement between the more prosperous, industrialized countries of the Northern Hemisphere
and the poorer, less industrialized developing countries of the Southern Hemisphere. Other issues
have been incorporated into the North-South divide, including Northern economic and political
domination, economic development, the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and support for Israel.

Security Council

The UN Charter assigns to the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of
international peace and security. The Security Council originally consisted of 11 members—five
permanent and six nonpermanent—elected by the General Assembly for two-year terms. From
the beginning, nonpermanent members of the Security Council were elected to give
representation to certain regions or groups of states. As membership increased, however, this
practice ran into difficulty. An amendment to the UN Charter in 1965 increased the council’s
membership to 15, including the original five permanent members plus 10 nonpermanent
members. Among the permanent members, the People’s Republic of China replaced the Republic
of China (Taiwan) in 1971, and the Russian Federation succeeded the Soviet Union in 1991.
After the unification of Germany, debate over the council’s composition again arose, and
Germany, India, and Japan each applied for permanent council seats.

The nonpermanent members are chosen to achieve equitable regional representation, five
members coming from Africa or Asia, one from eastern Europe, two from Latin America, and
two from western Europe or other areas. Five of the 10 nonpermanent members are elected each
year by the General Assembly for two-year terms, and five retire each year. The presidency is
held by each member in rotation for a period of one month.

Each Security Council member is entitled to one vote. On all “procedural” matters—the
definition of which is sometimes in dispute—decisions by the council are made by an affirmative
vote of any nine of its members. Substantive matters, such as the investigation of a dispute or the
application of sanctions, also require nine affirmative votes, including those of the five
permanent members holding veto power. In practice, however, a permanent member may abstain
without impairing the validity of the decision. A vote on whether a matter is procedural or
substantive is itself a substantive question. Because the Security Council is required to function
continuously, each member is represented at all times at the UN’s headquarters in New York
City.

Any country—even if it is not a member of the UN—may bring a dispute to which it is a party to
the attention of the Security Council. When there is a complaint, the council first explores the
possibility of a peaceful resolution. International peacekeeping forces may be authorized to keep
warring parties apart pending further negotiations. If the council finds that there is a real threat to
the peace, a breach of the peace, or an act of aggression (as defined by Article 39 of the UN
Charter), it may call upon UN members to apply diplomatic or economic sanctions. If these
methods prove inadequate, the UN Charter allows the Security Council to take military action
against the offending country.
During the Cold War, continual disagreement between the United States and the Soviet Union
coupled with the veto power of the Security Council’s permanent members made the Security
Council an ineffective institution. Since the late 1980s, however, the council’s power and
prestige have grown. Between 1987 and 2000 it authorized more peacekeeping operations than at
any previous time. The use of the veto has declined dramatically, though disagreements among
permanent members of the Security Council—most notably in 2003 over the use of military
force against Iraq—have occasionally undermined the council’s effectiveness. To achieve
consensus, comparatively informal meetings are held in private among the council’s permanent
members, a practice that has been criticized by nonpermanent members of the Security Council.

In addition to several standing and ad hoc committees, the work of the council is facilitated by
the Military Staff Committee, sanctions committees for each of the countries under sanctions,
peacekeeping forces committees, and an International Tribunals Committee.

Economic and Social Council

Designed to be the UN’s main venue for the discussion of international economic and social
issues, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) directs and coordinates the economic,
social, humanitarian, and cultural activities of the UN and its specialized agencies. Established
by the UN Charter, ECOSOC is empowered to recommend international action on economic and
social issues; promote universal respect for human rights; and work for global cooperation on
health, education, and cultural and related areas. ECOSOC conducts studies; formulates
resolutions, recommendations, and conventions for consideration by the General Assembly; and
coordinates the activities of various UN programs and specialized agencies. Most of ECOSOC’s
work is performed in functional commissions on topics such as human rights, narcotics,
population, social development, statistics, the status of women, and science and technology; the
council also oversees regional commissions for Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Western Asia,
Latin America, and Africa.

The UN Charter authorizes ECOSOC to grant consultative status to nongovernmental

organizations (NGOs). Three categories of consultative status are recognized: General Category
NGOs (formerly category I) include organizations with multiple goals and activities; Special
Category NGOs (formerly category II) specialize in certain areas of ECOSOC activities; and
Roster NGOs have only an occasional interest in the UN’s activities. Consultative status enables
NGOs to attend ECOSOC meetings, issue reports, and occasionally testify at meetings. Since the
mid-1990s, measures have been adopted to increase the scope of NGO participation in
ECOSOC, in the ad hoc global conferences, and in other UN activities. By the early 21st century,
ECOSOC had granted consultative status to more than 2,500 NGOs.

Originally, ECOSOC consisted of representatives from 18 countries, but the Charter was
amended in 1965 and in 1974 to increase the number of members to 54. Members are elected for
three-year terms by the General Assembly. Four of the five permanent members of the Security
Council—the United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union (Russia), and France—have been
reelected continually because they provide funding for most of ECOSOC’s budget, which is the
largest of any UN subsidiary body. Decisions are taken by simple majority vote.
Trusteeship Council

The Trusteeship Council was designed to supervise the government of trust territories and to lead
them to self-government or independence. The trusteeship system, like the mandate system under
the League of Nations, was established on the premise that colonial territories taken from
countries defeated in war should not be annexed by the victorious powers but should be
administered by a trust country under international supervision until their future status was
determined. Unlike the mandate system, the trusteeship system invited petitions from trust
territories on their independence and required periodic international missions to the territories. In
1945 only 12 League of Nations mandates remained: Nauru, New Guinea, Ruanda-Urundi,
Togoland and Cameroon (French administered), Togoland and Cameroon (British administered),
the Pacific Islands (Carolines, Marshalls, and Marianas), Western Samoa, South West Africa,
Tanganyika, and Palestine. All these mandates became trust territories except South West Africa
(now Namibia), which South Africa refused to enter into the trusteeship system.

The Trusteeship Council, which met once each year, consisted of states administering trust
territories, permanent members of the Security Council that did not administer trust territories,
and other UN members elected by the General Assembly. Each member had one vote, and
decisions were taken by a simple majority of those present. With the independence of Palau, the
last remaining trust territory, in 1994, the council terminated its operations. No longer required to
meet annually, the council may meet on the decision of its president or on a request by a majority
of its members, by the General Assembly, or by the Security Council. Since 1994 new roles for
the council have been proposed, including administering the global commons (e.g., the seabed
and outer space) and serving as a forum for minority and indigenous peoples.

International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice, commonly known as the World Court, is the principal judicial
organ of the United Nations, though the court’s origins predate the League of Nations. The idea
for the creation of an international court to arbitrate international disputes arose during an
international conference held at The Hague in 1899. This institution was subsumed under the
League of Nations in 1919 as the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) and adopted its
present name with the founding of the UN in 1945.

The court’s decisions are binding, and its broad jurisdiction encompasses “all cases which the
parties refer to it and all matters specially provided for in the Charter of the United Nations or in
treaties and conventions in force.” Most importantly, states may not be parties to a dispute
without their consent, though they may accept the compulsory jurisdiction of the court in
specified categories of disputes. The court may give advisory opinions at the request of the
General Assembly or the Security Council or at the request of other organs and specialized
agencies authorized by the General Assembly. Although the court has successfully arbitrated
some cases (e.g., the border dispute between Honduras and El Salvador in 1992), governments
have been reluctant to submit sensitive issues, thereby limiting the court’s ability to resolve
threats to international peace and security. At times countries also have refused to acknowledge
the jurisdiction or the findings of the court. For example, when Nicaragua sued the United States
in the court in 1984 for mining its harbours, the court found in favour of Nicaragua, but the
United States refused to accept the court’s decision.

The 15 judges of the court are elected by the General Assembly and the Security Council voting
independently. No two judges may be nationals of the same state, and the judges are to represent
a cross section of the major legal systems of the world. Judges serve nine-year terms and are
eligible for reelection. The seat of the World Court is The Hague.

Secretariat

The secretary-general, the principal administrative officer of the United Nations, is elected for a
five-year renewable term by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and by the
recommendation of the Security Council and the approval of its permanent members.
Secretaries-general usually have come from small, neutral countries. The secretary-general
serves as the chief administrative officer at all meetings and carries out any functions that those
organs entrust to the Secretariat; he also oversees the preparation of the UN’s budget. The
secretary-general has important political functions, being charged with bringing before the
organization any matter that threatens international peace and security. Both the chief
spokesperson for the UN and the UN’s most visible and authoritative figure in world affairs, the
secretary-general often serves as a high-level negotiator. Attesting to the importance of the post,
two secretaries-general have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace: Dag Hammarskjöld in
1961 and Kofi Annan, corecipient with the UN, in 2001.

The Secretariat influences the work of the United Nations to a much greater degree than
indicated in the UN Charter. It is responsible for preparing numerous reports, studies, and
investigations, in addition to the major tasks of translating, interpreting, providing services for
large numbers of meetings, and other work. Under the Charter the staff is to be recruited mainly
on the basis of merit, though there has been a conscious effort to recruit individuals from
different geographic regions. Some members of the Secretariat are engaged on permanent
contracts, but others serve on temporary assignment from their national governments. In both
cases they must take an oath of loyalty to the United Nations and are not permitted to receive
instructions from member governments. The influence of the Secretariat can be attributed to the
fact that the some 9,000 people on its staff are permanent experts and international civil servants
rather than political appointees of member states.

The Secretariat is based in New York, Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi (Kenya), and other locales. It has
been criticized frequently for poor administrative practices—though it has made persistent
efforts to increase the efficiency of its operations—as well as for a lack of neutrality.

Subsidiary organs

The United Nations network also includes subsidiary organs created by the General Assembly
and autonomous specialized agencies. The subsidiary organs report to the General Assembly or
ECOSOC or both. Some of these organs are funded directly by the UN; others are financed by
the voluntary contributions of governments or private citizens. In addition, ECOSOC has
consultative relationships with NGOs operating in economic, social, cultural, educational, health,
and related fields. NGOs have played an increasingly important role in the work of the UN’s
specialized agencies, especially in the areas of health, peacekeeping, refugee issues, and human
rights.

Specialized agencies

The specialized agencies report annually to ECOSOC and often cooperate with each other and
with various UN organs. However, they also have their own principles, goals, and rules, which at
times may conflict with those of other UN organs and agencies. The specialized agencies are
autonomous insofar as they control their own budgets and have their own boards of directors,
who appoint agency heads independently of the General Assembly or secretary-general. Major
specialized agencies and related organs of the UN include the International Labour Organisation
(ILO), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the World Health
Organization (WHO). Two of the most powerful specialized agencies, which also are the most
independent with respect to UN decision making, are the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund (IMF). The United Nations, along with its specialized agencies, is often referred
to collectively as the United Nations system.

Cecelia M. Lynch Karen Mingst The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Global conferences

Global conferences have a long history in multilateral diplomacy, extending back to the period
after World War I, when conferences on disarmament and economic affairs were convened by
the League of Nations. With the UN’s establishment after World War II, the number and
frequency of global conferences increased dramatically. The trickle of narrowly focused,
functional meetings from the early 1950s became a torrent in the 1990s with a series of widely
publicized gatherings attended by high-level representatives and several thousands of other
participants.

Virtually all matters of international concern have been debated by UN global conferences,
including the proliferation of nuclear weapons, small-arms trafficking, racism, overpopulation,
hunger, crime, access to safe drinking water, the environment, the role of women, and human
rights. The format and frequency of the conferences have varied considerably over time. The
increasing number of meetings has led to complaints of “conference fatigue” by some countries.

Global conferences have served a number of significant functions. Considered “town meetings of
the world,” they provide an arena for discussion and for the exchange of information. The
conferences take stock of existing knowledge and help to expand it through the policy analyses
that they trigger. They also serve as incubators of ideas, raise elite consciousness, and may also
identify emerging issues. For example, the dramatic acceleration in the growth of the world’s
population in the second half of the 20th century was a challenge first identified by conferences
organized by the UN in the 1950s and ’60s. Global conferences have nurtured public support for
solutions to global issues. Thus, NGOs have played a key role in many of the UN global
conferences. At some conferences, the NGOs have organized parallel conferences to discuss the
major issues; at others, they have participated alongside government representatives, serving on
national delegations and presenting position papers.

Global conferences have faced a number of criticisms. Some observers claim that they are
inefficient and too large and unwieldy to set international agendas. Others argue that they have
been captured by different constituencies, of the North or the South, depending on the issue. Still
others contend that such conferences have become too politicized, with the result that unrelated
issues are sometimes linked to serve political purposes. For example, the global conferences on
racism in 1978 and 2001, according to these critics, were unduly politicized by declarations
asserting a link between racism and Zionism.

Jacques Fomerand Karen Mingst

Administration
Finances

The secretary-general must submit a biennial budget to the General Assembly for its approval.
The Charter stipulates that the expenses of the organization shall be borne by members as
apportioned by the General Assembly. The Committee on Contributions prepares a scale of
assessments for all members, based on the general economic level and capacity of each state,
which is also submitted to the General Assembly for approval. The United States is the largest
contributor, though the proportion of its contributions has declined continually, from some two-
fifths at the UN’s founding to one-fourth in 1975 and to about one-fifth in 2000. Other members
make larger per capita contributions. The per capita contribution of San Marino, for example, is
roughly four times that of the United States.

The U.S. contribution became a controversial issue during the 1990s, when the country refused
to pay its obligations in full and objected to the level of funding it was required to provide. In
1999 the U.S. Congress passed a UN reform bill, and after intense negotiations UN members
agreed to reduce the U.S. share of the budget and to increase contributions from other states to
make up the shortfall.

When the cost of the special programs, specialized agencies, and peacekeeping operations is
added to the regular budget, the total annual cost of the United Nations system increases
substantially. (Special programs are financed by voluntary contributions from UN members, and
specialized agencies and peacekeeping operations have their own budgets.) Partly because of a
rapid increase in the number of appeals to the UN for peacekeeping and other assistance after the
end of the Cold War and partly because of the failure of some member states to make timely
payments to the organization, the UN has suffered continual and severe financial crises.

Privileges and immunities

A general Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, approved by the
General Assembly in February 1946 and accepted by most of the members, asserts that the UN
possesses juridical personality. The convention also provides for such matters as immunity from
legal process of the property and officials of the UN. An agreement between the UN and the
United States, signed in June 1947, defines the privileges and immunities of the UN headquarters
in New York City.

Headquarters

The General Assembly decided during the second part of its first session in London to locate its
permanent headquarters in New York. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donated land for a building site
in Manhattan. Temporary headquarters were established at Lake Success on Long Island, New
York. The permanent Secretariat building was completed and occupied in 1951–52. The building
providing accommodations for the General Assembly and the councils was completed and
occupied in 1952.

The UN flag, adopted in 1947, consists of the official emblem of the organization (a circular
world map, as seen from the North Pole, surrounded by a wreath of olive branches) in white
centred on a light blue background. The Assembly designated October 24 as United Nations
Day.

Functions
Maintenance of international peace and security

The main function of the United Nations is to preserve international peace and security. Chapter
6 of the Charter provides for the pacific settlement of disputes, through the intervention of the
Security Council, by means such as negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and judicial decisions.
The Security Council may investigate any dispute or situation to determine whether it is likely to
endanger international peace and security. At any stage of the dispute, the council may
recommend appropriate procedures or methods of adjustment, and, if the parties fail to settle the
dispute by peaceful means, the council may recommend terms of settlement.

The goal of collective security, whereby aggression against one member is met with resistance
by all, underlies chapter 7 of the Charter, which grants the Security Council the power to order
coercive measures—ranging from diplomatic, economic, and military sanctions to the use of
armed force—in cases where attempts at a peaceful settlement have failed. Such measures were
seldom applied during the Cold War, however, because tensions between the United States and
the Soviet Union prevented the Security Council from agreeing on the instigators of aggression.
Instead, actions to maintain peace and security often took the form of preventive diplomacy and
peacekeeping. In the post-Cold War period, appeals to the UN for peacekeeping and related
activities increased dramatically, and new threats to international peace and security were
confronted, including AIDS and international terrorism.

Notwithstanding the primary role of the Security Council, the UN Charter provides for the
participation of the General Assembly and nonmember states in security issues. Any state,
whether it is a member of the UN or not, may bring any dispute or situation that endangers
international peace and security to the attention of the Security Council or the General Assembly.
The Charter authorizes the General Assembly to “discuss any questions relating to the
maintenance of international peace and security” and to “make recommendations with regard to
any such questions to the state or states concerned or to the Security Council or to both.” This
authorization is restricted by the provision that, “while the Security Council is exercising in
respect of any dispute or situation the functions assigned to it in the present Charter, the General
Assembly shall not make any recommendation with regard to that dispute or situation unless the
Security Council so requests.” By the “Uniting for Peace” resolution of November 1950,
however, the General Assembly granted to itself the power to deal with threats to the peace if the
Security Council fails to act after a veto by a permanent member. Although these provisions
grant the General Assembly a broad secondary role, the Security Council can make decisions
that bind all members, whereas the General Assembly can make only recommendations.

Peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace building

International armed forces were first used in 1948 to observe cease-fires in Kashmir and
Palestine. Although not specifically mentioned in the UN Charter, the use of such forces as a
buffer between warring parties pending troop withdrawals and negotiations—a practice known
as peacekeeping—was formalized in 1956 during the Suez Crisis between Egypt, Israel, France,
and the United Kingdom. Peacekeeping missions have taken many forms, though they have in
common the fact that they are designed to be peaceful, that they involve military troops from
several countries, and that the troops serve under the authority of the UN Security Council. In
1988 the UN Peacekeeping Forces were awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.

During the Cold War, so-called first-generation, or “classic,” peacekeeping was used in conflicts
in the Middle East and Africa and in conflicts stemming from decolonization in Asia. Between
1948 and 1988 the UN undertook 13 peacekeeping missions involving generally lightly armed
troops from neutral countries other than the permanent members of the Security Council—most
often Canada, Sweden, Norway, Finland, India, Ireland, and Italy. Troops in these missions, the
so-called “Blue Helmets,” were allowed to use force only in self-defense. The missions were
given and enjoyed the consent of the parties to the conflict and the support of the Security
Council and the troop-contributing countries.

With the end of the Cold War, the challenges of peacekeeping became more complex. In order to
respond to situations in which internal order had broken down and the civilian population was
suffering, “second-generation” peacekeeping was developed to achieve multiple political and
social objectives. Unlike first-generation peacekeeping, second-generation peacekeeping often
involves civilian experts and relief specialists as well as soldiers. Another difference between
second-generation and first-generation peacekeeping is that soldiers in some second-generation
missions are authorized to employ force for reasons other than self-defense. Because the goals of
second-generation peacekeeping can be variable and difficult to define, however, much
controversy has accompanied the use of troops in such missions.

In the 1990s, second-generation peacekeeping missions were undertaken in Cambodia (1991–

93), the former Yugoslavia (1992–95), Somalia (1992–95), and elsewhere and included troops
from the permanent members of the Security Council as well as from the developed and
developing world (e.g., Australia, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Fiji, India). In the former Yugoslav
province of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Security Council created “safe areas” to protect the
predominantly Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) population from Serbian attacks, and UN troops were
authorized to defend the areas with force. In each of these cases, the UN reacted to threats to
peace and security within states, sometimes taking sides in domestic disputes and thus
jeopardizing its own neutrality. Between 1988 and 2000 more than 30 peacekeeping efforts were
authorized, and at their peak in 1993 more than 80,000 peacekeeping troops representing 77
countries were deployed on missions throughout the world. In the first years of the 21st century,
annual UN expenditures on peacekeeping operations exceeded $2 billion.

In addition to traditional peacekeeping and preventive diplomacy, in the post-Cold War era the
functions of UN forces were expanded considerably to include peacemaking and peace building.
(Former UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali described these additional functions in his
reports An Agenda for Peace [1992] and Supplement to an Agenda for Peace [1995].) For
example, since 1990 UN forces have supervised elections in many parts of the world, including
Nicaragua, Eritrea, and Cambodia; encouraged peace negotiations in El Salvador, Angola, and
Western Sahara; and distributed food in Somalia. The presence of UN troops in Yugoslavia
during the violent and protracted disintegration of that country renewed discussion about the role
of UN troops in refugee resettlement. In 1992 the UN created the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations (DPKO), which provides administrative and technical support for political and
humanitarian missions and coordinates all mine-clearing activities conducted under UN auspices.

The UN’s peacekeeping, peacemaking, and peace-building activities have suffered from serious
logistical and financial difficulties. As more missions are undertaken, the costs and controversies
associated with them have multiplied dramatically. Although the UN reimburses countries for
the use of equipment, these payments have been limited because of the failure of many member
states to pay their UN dues.

Sanctions and military action

By subscribing to the Charter, all members undertake to place at the disposal of the Security
Council armed forces and facilities for military sanctions against aggressors or disturbers of the
peace. During the Cold War, however, no agreements to give this measure effect were
concluded. Following the end of the Cold War, the possibility of creating permanent UN forces
was revived.

During the Cold War the provisions of chapter 7 of the UN Charter were invoked only twice
with the support of all five permanent Security Council members—against Southern Rhodesia in
1966 and against South Africa in 1977. After fighting broke out between North and South Korea
in June 1950, the United States obtained a Security Council resolution authorizing the use of
force to support its ally, South Korea, and turn back North Korean forces. Because the Soviet
Union was at the time boycotting the Security Council over its refusal to seat the People’s
Republic of China, there was no veto of the U.S. measure. As a result, a U.S.-led multinational
force fought under the UN banner until a cease-fire was reached on July 27, 1953.

The Security Council again voted to use UN armed forces to repel an aggressor following the
August 1990 invasion of Kuwait by Iraq. After condemning the aggression and imposing
economic sanctions on Iraq, the council authorized member states to use “all necessary means”
to restore “peace and security” to Kuwait. The resulting Persian Gulf War lasted six weeks, until
Iraq agreed to comply with UN resolutions and withdraw from Kuwait. The UN continued to
monitor Iraq’s compliance with its resolutions, which included the demand that Iraq eliminate its
weapons of mass destruction. In accordance with this resolution, the Security Council established
a UN Special Mission (UNSCOM) to inspect and verify Iraq’s implementation of the cease-fire
terms. The United States, however, continued to bomb Iraqi weapons installations from time to
time, citing Iraqi violations of “no-fly” zones in the northern and southern regions of the country,
the targeting of U.S. military aircraft by Iraqi radar, and the obstruction of inspection efforts
undertaken by UNSCOM.

The preponderant role of the United States in initiating and commanding UN actions in Korea in
1950 and the Persian Gulf in 1990–91 prompted debate over whether the requirements and spirit
of collective security could ever be achieved apart from the interests of the most powerful
countries and without U.S. control. The continued U.S. bombing of Iraq subsequent to the Gulf
War created further controversy about whether the raids were justified under previous UN
Security Council resolutions and, more generally, about whether the United States was entitled to
undertake military actions in the name of collective security without the explicit approval and
cooperation of the UN. Meanwhile some military personnel and members of the U.S. Congress
opposed the practice of allowing U.S. troops to serve under UN command, arguing that it
amounted to an infringement of national sovereignty. Still others in the United States and
western Europe urged a closer integration of United States and allied command structures in UN
military operations.

In order to assess the UN’s expanded role in ensuring international peace and security through
dispute settlement, peacekeeping, peace building, and enforcement action, a comprehensive
review of UN Peace Operations was undertaken. The resulting Brahimi Report (formally the
Report of the Panel on United Nations Peace Operations), issued in 2000, outlined the need for
strengthening the UN’s capacity to undertake a wide variety of missions. Among the many
recommendations of the report was that the UN maintain brigade-size forces of 5,000 troops that
would be ready to deploy in 30 to 90 days and that UN headquarters be staffed with trained
military professionals able to use advanced information technologies and to plan operations with
a UN team including political, development, and human rights experts.

Arms control and disarmament

The UN’s founders hoped that the maintenance of international peace and security would lead to
the control and eventual reduction of weapons. Therefore the Charter empowers the General
Assembly to consider principles for arms control and disarmament and to make
recommendations to member states and the Security Council. The Charter also gives the Security
Council the responsibility to formulate plans for arms control and disarmament. Although the
goal of arms control and disarmament has proved elusive, the UN has facilitated the negotiation
of several multilateral arms control treaties.

Because of the enormous destructive power realized with the development and use of the atomic
bomb during World War II, the General Assembly in 1946 created the Atomic Energy
Commission to assist in the urgent consideration of the control of atomic energy and in the
reduction of atomic weapons. The United States promoted the Baruch Plan, which proposed the
elimination of existing stockpiles of atomic bombs only after a system of international control
was established and prohibited veto power in the Security Council on the commission’s
decisions. The Soviet Union, proposing the Gromyko Plan, wanted to ensure the destruction of
stockpiles before agreeing to an international supervisory scheme and wanted to retain Security
Council veto power over the commission. The conflicting positions of the two superpowers
prevented agreement on the international control of atomic weapons and energy.

In 1947 the Security Council organized the Commission for Conventional Armaments to deal
with armaments other than weapons of mass destruction, but progress on this issue also was
blocked by disagreement between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. As a result, in 1952
the General Assembly voted to replace both of these commissions with a new Disarmament
Commission. Consisting of the members of the Security Council and Canada, this commission
was directed to prepare proposals that would regulate, limit, and balance reduction of all armed
forces and armaments; eliminate all weapons of mass destruction; and ensure international
control and use of atomic energy for peaceful purposes only. After five years of vigorous effort
and little progress, in 1957 the International Atomic Energy Agency was established to promote
the peaceful uses of atomic energy.

In 1961 the General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the use of nuclear or thermonuclear
weapons to be contrary to international law, to the UN Charter, and to the laws of humanity. Two
years later, on August 5, 1963, the Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty was signed by the Soviet Union, the
United Kingdom, and the United States. The treaty—to which more than 150 states later
adhered—prohibited nuclear tests or explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space, and
underwater. In 1966 the General Assembly unanimously approved a treaty prohibiting the
placement of weapons of mass destruction in orbit, on the Moon, or on other celestial bodies and
recognizing the use of outer space exclusively for peaceful purposes.

In June 1968 the Assembly approved the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
which banned the spread of nuclear weapons from nuclear to nonnuclear powers; enjoined
signatory nonnuclear powers, in exchange for technical assistance in developing nuclear power
for “peaceful purposes,” not to develop or deploy nuclear weapons; and committed the nuclear
powers to engage in measures of disarmament. The treaty represented a significant commitment
on the part of more than 140 (now 185) signatory powers to control nuclear weapons
proliferation; nevertheless, for many years the treaty, which went into effect in 1970, was not
ratified by significant nuclear powers (including China and France) and many “near-nuclear”
states (including Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Israel, Pakistan, and South Africa). Some of these
states signed the treaty in the early 1990s: South Africa signed in 1991, followed by France and
China in 1992.

The UN has been active in attempting to eliminate other weapons of mass destruction of a
variety of types and in a variety of contexts. In 1970 the General Assembly approved a treaty
banning the placement of weapons of mass destruction on the seabed. A convention prohibiting
the manufacture, stockpiling, and use of biological weapons was approved by the Assembly in
1971 and took effect in 1975, though many states have never acceded to it. In 1991 the UN
General Assembly passed a resolution on the registration of conventional arms that required
states to submit information on major international arms transfers. During the first several years
of the registry, fewer than half of the UN’s members submitted the required information; by
2000 about three-fifths of governments filed annual reports. In 1993 the Chemical Weapons
Convention, which prohibited the development, production, stockpiling, and use of chemical
weapons and called for the destruction of existing stockpiles within 10 years, was opened for
signature. In 1996 the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which prohibited the testing of
nuclear weapons, was signed—though it has not yet entered into force—and two years later a
treaty banning the production and export of antipersonnel land mines (Convention on the
Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on
Their Destruction) was concluded. Despite international pressure, the United States refused to
sign both the test ban and the land mine agreements.

Many negotiations on disarmament have been held in Geneva. Negotiations have been conducted
by the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament (1960); the Eighteen-Nation Committee on
Disarmament (1962–68); the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament (1969–78); and the
Disarmament Commission (1979– ), which now has more than 65 countries as members. Three
special sessions of the General Assembly have been organized on disarmament, and, though the
General Assembly sessions have produced little in the way of substantive agreements, they have
served to focus public attention on the issue. In other forums, significant progress has been made
on limiting specific types of armaments, such as bacteriologic, chemical, nuclear, and toxic
weapons.

Karen Mingst

Economic welfare and cooperation

The General Assembly, ECOSOC, the Secretariat, and many of the subsidiary organs and
specialized agencies are responsible for promoting economic welfare and cooperation in areas
such as postwar reconstruction, technical assistance, and trade and development.

Economic reconstruction

The devastation of large areas of the world and the disruption of economic relations during
World War II resulted in the establishment (before the UN was founded) of the United Nations
Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) in 1943. The UNRRA was succeeded by the
International Refugee Organization, which operated from 1947 to 1951. To assist in dealing with
regional problems, in 1947 ECOSOC established the Economic Commission for Europe and the
Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East. Similar commissions were established for
Latin America in 1948 and for Africa in 1958. The major work of economic reconstruction,
however, was delegated to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World
Bank), one of the major financial institutions created in 1944 at the UN Monetary and Financial
Conference (commonly known as the Bretton Woods Conference). Although the World Bank is
formally autonomous from the UN, it reports to ECOSOC as one of the UN’s specialized
agencies. The World Bank works closely with donor countries, UN programs, and other
specialized agencies.
Financing economic development

The World Bank is also primarily responsible for financing economic development. In 1956 the
International Finance Corporation was created as an arm of the World Bank specifically to
stimulate private investment flows. The corporation has the authority to make direct loans to
private enterprises without government guarantees and is allowed to make loans for other than
fixed returns. In 1960 the International Development Association (IDA) was established to make
loans to less-developed countries on terms that were more flexible than bank loans.

The UN itself has played a more limited role in financing economic development. The General
Assembly provides direction and supervision for economic activities, and ECOSOC coordinates
different agencies and programs. UN development efforts have consisted of two primary
activities. First, several regional commissions (for Europe, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America,
and Africa) promote regional approaches to development and undertake studies and development
initiatives for regional economic projects. Second, UN-sponsored technical assistance programs,
funded from 1965 through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), provide
systematic assistance in fields essential to technical, economic, and social development of less-
developed countries. Resident representatives of the UNDP in recipient countries assess local
needs and priorities and administer UN development programs.

Trade and development

After the massive decolonization of the 1950s and early 1960s, less-developed countries became
much more numerous, organized, and powerful in the General Assembly, and they began to
create organs to address the problems of development and diversification in developing
economies. Because the international trading system and the General Agreements on Tariffs and
Trade dealt primarily with the promotion of trade between advanced industrialized countries, in
1964 the General Assembly established the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) to address issues of concern to developing countries. Toward that end,
UNCTAD and the Group of 77 less-developed countries that promoted its establishment tried to
codify principles of international trade and arrange agreements to stabilize commodity prices.

UNCTAD discussions resulted in agreements on a Generalized System of Preferences, providing

for lower tariff rates for some exports of poorer countries, and on the creation of a Common
Fund to help finance buffer stocks for commodity agreements. UNCTAD also has discussed
questions related to shipping, insurance, commodities, the transfer of technology, and the means
for assisting the exports of developing countries.

The less-developed countries attempted a more concerted and wide-ranging effort to redistribute
wealth and economic opportunities through demands for a New International Economic Order,
made in 1974 by the Group of 77 (which had become a permanent group representing the
interests of less-developed states in the UN and eventually came to include more than 120
states). Encouraged by the successful demonstration of economic power by the oil-producing
countries during the embargo of 1973–74, developing states demanded greater opportunities for
development finance, an increase in the percentage of gross national product allocated by the
advanced industrialized states to foreign aid, and greater participation in the specialized agencies
created to deal with monetary and development issues, including the World Bank and the IMF.
These demands resulted in limited modification of aid flows and of the practices of specialized
agencies and produced much greater debate and publicity surrounding development issues.
Following the East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, UNCTAD and other UN agencies
took part in discussions aimed at creating a new international financial architecture designed to
control short-term capital flows.

Social welfare and cooperation

The United Nations is concerned with issues of human rights, including the rights of women and
children, refugee resettlement, and narcotics control. Some of its greatest successes have been in
the area of improving the health and welfare of the world’s population. In the 1990s, despite
severe strains on the resources of UN development programs and agencies resulting from
massive refugee movements and humanitarian crises, the UN increased its emphasis on social
development.

Refugees

After World War II the International Refugee Organization successfully resettled, repatriated,
transported, and maintained more than one million European and Asian refugees. It was
abolished in 1952 and replaced by a new international refugee structure. In 1951 ECOSOC drew
up, and the General Assembly approved, a Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. The
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was then appointed and directed to
act under this convention, and ECOSOC appointed an Advisory Commission to assist the high
commissioner.

The work of the UNHCR has become increasingly important since the late 1980s, involving
major relief operations in Africa, Asia (particularly Southeast and Central Asia), Central
America, western and central Europe, and the Balkans. At the end of the 1990s approximately 20
million people had been forced to migrate or had fled oppression, violence, and starvation. The
UNHCR works in more than 120 countries and cooperates with more than 450 NGOs to provide
relief and to aid in resettlement. For its services on behalf of refugees, the Office of the UNHCR
was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1954 and 1981.

A separate organization, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in
the Near East (UNRWA), administers aid to refugees in the Middle East.

Human rights

Unlike the League of Nations, the United Nations incorporated the principle of respect for
human rights into its Charter, affirming respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms
for all without regard to race, sex, language, or religion. According to the Charter, the General
Assembly is charged with initiating studies and making recommendations, and ECOSOC is
responsible for establishing commissions to fulfill this purpose. Consequently, the Commission
on Human Rights, originally chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, was created in 1946 to develop
conventions on a wide range of issues, including an international bill of rights, civil liberties, the
status of women (for which there is now a separate commission), freedom of information, the
protection of minorities, the prevention of discrimination on the grounds of race, sex, language,
or religion, and any other human rights concerns. The commission prepared the nonbinding
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948.

After the declaration, the commission began drafting two covenants, one on civil and political
rights and another on economic and cultural rights. Differences in economic and social
philosophies hampered efforts to reach agreement, but the General Assembly eventually adopted
the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1966. The covenants, which entered into force in 1976,
are known collectively, along with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as the
international bill of rights. Although all countries have stated support for the 1948 declaration,
not all observe or have ratified the two covenants. In general, Western countries have favoured
civil and political rights (rights to life, liberty, freedom from slavery and arbitrary arrest, freedom
of opinion and peaceful assembly, and the right to vote), and developing countries have stressed
economic and cultural rights such as the rights to employment, shelter, education, and an
adequate standard of living.

The Commission on Human Rights and its subcommission meet annually in Geneva to consider
a wide range of human rights issues. Human rights violations are investigated by a Human
Rights Committee set up according to the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. The commission and subcommission also carry out special responsibilities
delegated by the General Assembly or by ECOSOC. The commission and subcommission have
strengthened human rights norms and expanded the range of recognized rights, in part by
drafting additional conventions on matters such as women’s rights, racial discrimination, torture,
labour laws, apartheid, and the rights of indigenous peoples.

In particular, the UN has acted to strengthen recognition of the rights of women and children. It
established a special Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against
Women, which was approved in 1979 and has been ratified by some 170 countries, and the 1989
Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been ratified by more than 190 countries. In
1995 the Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, developed a Platform for Action
to recognize women’s rights and improve women’s livelihood worldwide, and follow-up
meetings monitored progress toward meeting these goals. UNIFEM, the United Nations
Development Fund for Women, has worked since 1995 to implement the Beijing Platform for
Action.

The UN, through special rapporteurs and working groups, monitors compliance with human
rights standards. In 1993 the General Assembly established the post of United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), which is the focal point within the UN Secretariat
for human rights activity.

Control of narcotics

The Commission on Narcotic Drugs was authorized by the General Assembly in 1946 to assume
the functions of the League of Nations Advisory Committee on Traffic in Opium and Other
Dangerous Drugs. In addition to reestablishing the pre-World War II system of narcotics control,
which had been disrupted by the war, the United Nations addressed new problems resulting from
the development of synthetic drugs. Efforts were made to simplify the system of control by
drafting one convention incorporating all the agreements in force. The UN established the Office
for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP) in 1997 to address problems relating to drugs,
crime, and international terrorism.

Health and welfare issues

The UN, through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and specialized agencies such
as the World Health Organization (WHO), works toward improving health and welfare
conditions around the world. UNICEF, originally called the UN International Children’s
Emergency Fund, was established by the General Assembly in December 1946 to provide for the
needs of children in areas devastated by World War II. UNICEF was made a permanent UN
organization in 1953. Financed largely by the contributions of member states, it has helped feed
children in more than 100 countries, provided clothing and other necessities, and sought to
eradicate diseases such as tuberculosis, whooping cough, and diphtheria. UNICEF promotes low-
cost preventive health care measures for children, including the breast-feeding of infants and the
use of oral rehydration therapy to treat diarrhea, the major cause of death in children. UNICEF
has key monitoring responsibilities under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

WHO is the primary UN agency responsible for health activities. Among its major initiatives
have been immunization campaigns to protect populations in the developing world, regulation of
the pharmaceutical industry to control the quality of drugs and to ensure the availability of
lower-cost generics, and efforts to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. The UN has responded to
the AIDS epidemic through the establishment of UNAIDS, a concerted program of cosponsoring
agencies, including UNICEF, WHO, UNDP, UNESCO, and the World Bank. UNAIDS is the
leading advocate of global action on AIDS, supporting programs to prevent transmission of the
disease, providing care for those infected, working to reduce the vulnerability of specific
populations, and alleviating the economic and social impact of the disease. In 2001 UNAIDS
coordinated a General Assembly special session on the disease.

The environment

In response to growing worldwide concern with environmental issues, the General Assembly
organized the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which was held in
Stockholm in 1972 and led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme
(UNEP) in the same year. UNEP has attempted to find solutions to various environmental
problems, including pollution in the Mediterranean Sea; the threat to aquatic resources posed by
human economic activity; deforestation, desertification, and drought; the depletion of the Earth’s
ozone layer by human-produced chemicals; and global warming. Much disagreement has arisen
regarding the scientific bases of environmental concerns and the question of how to combine the
goals of environmental protection and development. Although both developed and developing
countries recognize the need to preserve natural resources, developing countries often charge that
the environment has been despoiled primarily by the advanced industrialized states, whose
belated environmental consciousness now hampers development for other countries. In other
instances, developed countries have objected to the imposition of environmental standards,
fearing that such regulations will hamper economic growth and erode their standard of living.

UNEP succeeded in establishing, through the General Assembly, a World Commission on

Environment and Development and in 1988 outlined an environmental program to set priorities
for the 1990–95 period. International conferences, such as the United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (the “Earth Summit”), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, have
continued to focus attention on environmental issues. The Earth Summit, which was far larger
than any previous intergovernmental global conference, incorporated input from numerous
NGOs. It produced a Convention on Biological Diversity; a Framework Convention on Climate
Change, or Global Warming Convention; the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development
(the Rio Declaration); a Statement of Principles on Forests; and a plan for the sustainable
development of the Earth’s resources into the 21st century (Agenda 21). The Global Warming
Convention was amended in 1997 by the Kyoto Protocol and in 2015 by the Paris Agreement on
climate change, both of which aimed to limit global average temperature increases through
reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Dependent areas

The United Nations has expressed concern for people living in non-self-governing territories.
Most importantly, the UN has affirmed and facilitated the transition to independence of former
colonies. The anticolonial movement in the UN reached a high point in 1960, when the General
Assembly adopted a resolution sponsored by more than 40 African and Asian states. This
resolution, called the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and
Peoples, condemned “the subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and
exploitation” and declared that “immediate steps shall be taken…to transfer all powers” to the
peoples in the colonies “without any conditions or reservations, in accordance with their freely
expressed will and desire…in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and
freedom.” After the decolonization period of the 1950s and ’60s, new states exerted increasing
power and influence, especially in the General Assembly. With the admission of the new states
of Africa and Asia to the United Nations in the 1960s and ’70s and the end of the Cold War in
1991, politics within the General Assembly and the Security Council changed as countries
formed regional voting blocs to express their preferences and principles.

UN efforts to gain independence for Namibia from South Africa, carried out from the 1940s to
the ’80s, represent perhaps the most enduring and concerted attempt by the organization to
promote freedom for a former colony. In 1966 the General Assembly took action to end the
League of Nations mandate for South West Africa, providing for a United Nations Council for
South West Africa in 1967 to take over administrative responsibilities in the territory and to
prepare it for independence by 1968. South Africa refused to acknowledge the council, and the
General Assembly, secretary-general, and Security Council continued to exert pressure through
the 1970s. In 1978 the General Assembly adopted a program of action toward Namibian
independence, and the Security Council developed a plan for free elections. In 1988, with
Namibian independence and the departure of Cuban troops from neighbouring Angola implicitly
linked, South Africa finally agreed to withdraw from Namibia. In the following year a UN
force—United Nations Temporary Auxiliary Group (UNTAG)—supervised elections and
assisted in repatriating refugees. Namibia gained formal independent status in 1990.

Development of international law

The United Nations, like the League of Nations, has played a major role in defining, codifying,
and expanding the realm of international law. The International Law Commission, established by
the General Assembly in 1947, is the primary institution responsible for these activities. The
Legal Committee of the General Assembly receives the commission’s reports and debates its
recommendations; it may then either convene an international conference to draw up formal
conventions based on the draft or merely recommend the draft to states. The International Court
of Justice reinforces legal norms through its judgments. The commission and the committee have
influenced international law in several important domains, including the laws of war, the law of
the sea, human rights, and international terrorism.

The work of the UN on developing and codifying laws of war was built on the previous
accomplishments of the Hague Conventions (1899–1907), the League of Nations, and the
Kellog-Briand Pact (1928). The organization’s first concern after World War II was the
punishment of suspected Nazi war criminals. The General Assembly directed the International
Law Commission to formulate the principles of international law recognized at the Nürnberg
trials, in which German war criminals were prosecuted, and to prepare a draft code of offenses
against the peace and security of mankind. In 1950 the commission submitted its formulation of
the Nürnberg principles, which covered crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against
humanity. In the following year the commission presented to the General Assembly its draft
articles, which enumerated crimes against international law, including any act or threat of
aggression, annexation of territory, and genocide. Although the General Assembly did not adopt
these reports, the commission’s work in formulating the Nürnberg principles influenced the
development of human rights law.

The UN also took up the problem of defining aggression, a task attempted unsuccessfully by the
League of Nations. Both the International Law Commission and the General Assembly
undertook prolonged efforts that eventually resulted in agreement in 1974. The definition of
aggression, which passed without dissent, included launching military attacks, sending armed
mercenaries against another state, and allowing one’s territory to be used for perpetrating an act
of aggression against another state. In 1987 the General Assembly adopted a series of resolutions
to strengthen legal norms in favour of the peaceful resolution of disputes and against the use of
force.

The UN has made considerable progress in developing and codifying the law of the sea as well.
The International Law Commission took up the law of the sea as one of its earliest concerns, and
in 1958 and 1960, respectively, the General Assembly convened the First and the Second United
Nations Conferences on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The initial conference approved
conventions on the continental shelf, fishing, the high seas, and territorial waters and contiguous
zones, all of which were ratified by the mid-1960s. During the 1970s it came to be accepted that
the deep seabed is the “common heritage of mankind” and should be administered by an
international authority. In 1973 the General Assembly called UNCLOS III to discuss the
conflicting positions on this issue as well as on issues relating to navigation, pollution, and the
breadth of territorial waters. The resulting Law of the Sea Treaty (1982) has been ratified by
some 140 countries. The original treaty was not signed by the United States, which objected to
the treaty’s restrictions on seabed mining. The United States signed a revised treaty after a
compromise was reached in 1994, though the agreement has yet to be ratified by the U.S. Senate.

The UN has worked to advance the law of treaties and the laws regulating relations between
states. In 1989 the General Assembly passed a resolution declaring 1990–99 the UN Decade of
International Law, to be dedicated to promoting acceptance and respect for the principles and
institutions of international law. In 1992 the General Assembly directed the International Law
Commission to prepare a draft statute for an International Criminal Court. The Rome Statute of
the International Criminal Court (ICC) was adopted in July 1998 and later signed by more than
120 countries. The ICC, which is to be located at The Hague upon the ratification of the statute
by at least 60 signatory countries, has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, crimes of
genocide, war crimes, and crimes of aggression, pending an acceptable definition of that term.
Under the terms of the convention, no person age 18 years or older is immune from prosecution,
including presidents or heads of state.

Since 1963 the United Nations has been active in developing a legal framework for combating
international terrorism. The General Assembly and specialized agencies such as the International
Civil Aviation Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency established
conventions on issues such as offenses committed on aircraft, acts jeopardizing the safety of civil
aviation, the unlawful taking of hostages, and the theft or illegal transfer of nuclear weapons
technology. In 2001, in the wake of devastating terrorist attacks that killed thousands in the
United States, the General Assembly’s Ad Hoc Committee on Terrorism continued work on a
comprehensive convention for the suppression of terrorism.

Assessment

The United Nations is the only global international organization that serves multiple functions in
international relations. The UN was designed to ensure international peace and security, and its
founders realized that peace and security could not be achieved without attention to issues of
rights—including political, legal, economic, social, environmental, and individual. Yet the UN
has faced difficulties in achieving its goals, because its organizational structure still reflects the
power relationships of the immediate post-1945 world, despite the fact that the world has
changed dramatically—particularly with respect to the post-Cold War relationship between the
United States and Russia and the dramatic increase in the number of independent states. The UN
is a reflection of the realities of international politics, and the world’s political and economic
divisions are revealed in the voting arrangements of the Security Council, the blocs and
cleavages of the General Assembly, the different viewpoints within the Secretariat, the divisions
present at global conferences, and the financial and budgetary processes.

Despite its intensively political nature, the UN has transformed itself and some aspects of
international politics. Decolonization was successfully accomplished, and the many newly
independent states joined the international community and have helped to shape a new
international agenda. The UN has utilized Charter provisions to develop innovative methods to
address peace and security issues. The organization has tried new approaches to economic
development, encouraging the establishment of specialized organizations to meet specific needs.
It has organized global conferences on urgent international issues, thereby placing new issues on
the international agenda and allowing greater participation by NGOs and individuals.

Notwithstanding its accomplishments, the United Nations still operates under the basic provision
of respect for national sovereignty and noninterference in the domestic affairs of states. The
norm of national sovereignty, however, runs into persistent conflict with the constant demand by
many in the international community that the UN take a more active role in combating
aggression and alleviating international problems. For example, the United States appealed to the
issue of national sovereignty to justify its opposition to the Convention on the Rights of the Child
and the International Criminal Court. Thus it is likely that the UN will continue to be seen by its
critics as either too timid or too omnipotent as it is asked to resolve the most pressing problems
faced by the world’s most vulnerable citizens.

Cecelia M. Lynch Karen Mingst The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

United Nations members

The table provides a list of UN member countries.

United Nations membership

1
The seat held by the U.S.S.R. was assumed by Russia in 1991.
2
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was a member from 1945 until its dissolution following the
establishment and admission of the new member states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia
(1992), Macedonia (1993), and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (2000), the last reconstituted as
Serbia and Montenegro in 2003. In 2006 Serbia and Montenegro split into separate countries.
3
North Yemen (capital at San‘a’) merged in 1990 with South Yemen (capital at Aden). Upon unification,
there was one membership.
4
Tanganyika merged in 1964 with Zanzibar. The country’s name after the merger became Tanzania,
with a single UN membership.
5
East Germany and West Germany were admitted as separate members in 1973. Upon unification of
the two countries in 1990, there was one membership.
6
Czechoslovakia, a member from 1945, split into two countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, in
1993.

Argentina, Australia, Belarus (Belorussia), Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador,
Ethiopia, France, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia,
1945
Luxembourg, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay,
Peru, Philippines, Poland, Russia (U.S.S.R.)1, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Turkey, Ukraine,
United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Yugoslavia2

1946 Afghanistan, Iceland, Sweden, Thailand

 United Nations membership

1947 Pakistan, Yemen3

1948 Myanmar (Burma)

1949 Israel

1950 Indonesia

Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Finland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Laos, Libya, Nepal,
1955
Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sri Lanka (Ceylon)

1956 Japan, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia

1957 Ghana, Malaysia

1958 Guinea

Benin (Dahomey), Burkina Faso (Upper Volta), Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo
1960 (capital at Brazzaville), Congo (Zaire; capital at Kinshasa), Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cyprus,
Gabon, Madagascar, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, Togo

1961 Mauritania, Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Tanzania4

1962 Algeria, Burundi, Jamaica, Rwanda, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda

1963 Kenya, Kuwait

1964 Malawi, Malta, Zambia

1965 The Gambia, Maldives, Singapore

1966 Barbados, Botswana, Guyana, Lesotho

1968 Equatorial Guinea, Mauritius, Swaziland

1970 Fiji

1971 Bahrain, Bhutan, Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates

1973 The Bahamas, Germany5

1974 Bangladesh, Grenada, Guinea-Bissau

1975 Cape Verde, Comoros, Mozambique, Papua New Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Suriname

1976 Angola, Samoa, Seychelles

 United Nations membership

1977 Djibouti, Vietnam

1978 Dominica, Solomon Islands

1979 Saint Lucia

1980 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Zimbabwe

1981 Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Vanuatu

1983 Saint Kitts and Nevis

1984 Brunei

1990 Liechtenstein, Namibia

1991 Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, North Korea, South Korea

Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova,
1992
San Marino, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

1993 Andorra, Czech Republic6, Eritrea, Macedonia, Monaco, Slovakia6

1994 Palau

1999 Kiribati, Nauru, Tonga

2000 Tuvalu

2002 East Timor, Switzerland

2006 Montenegro2

2011 South Sudan

United Nations secretaries-gen

The UN: a huge, flawed political

machine...but indispensable nonetheless
By Richard Attias

On the eve of the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the
biggest of all international organizations faces more criticism than ever for its sluggishness,
inefficiency, bordering on irrelevance in today’s world. The innate complexities of our
globalized and multipolar world, however, make the UN more indispensable as a platform
for global dialogue than ever before.

“That thing they call the UN”, was how the former French president Charles de Gaulle described
the United Nations as far back as 1960. The UN’s image has hardly improved since over the
years and the commentats of UN watchers are regularly fringed with irony as they refer to the
bureaucratic “deadlocks” that inherently characterized the discussions in an institution which is
composed of 193 member, each acting in their own self-interest, and each with their own set of
priorities.

Although this “UN bashing” may occasionally be justified it is, on the whole, exaggerated. What
would international relations be like without the UN? Where would leaders from the entire world
find a neutral place to meet and hold discussions, including (and especially) when tensions are
running high, or even after war has broken out?

The days when the chancelleries of London, Paris and Berlin decided the future of the world are
over; gone the days of the red telephone and the balance of power between the Americans and
the Soviets. International relations are now multipolar and more unpredictable than ever. Every
regional problem today has implications for a multitude of global players, with interests that
often run contradictory, and where more often than note, the UN is the only platform that can
push them towards dialog.

Rather than perpetuating chronic pessimism about the United Nation’s failures, it would be
prudent to spend a little time remembering where and how the UN has played a significant role
in mitigating conflict and improving international cooperation, while also suggesting areas for
improvement. Baby steps towards peace, democracy, relief, and development are taken every
day by the men and women of the UN agencies. These stories unfortunately don’t make the
headlines.

Who knows, for example, that before every successful democratic election in a developing
country (as was recently the case in Kenya and Mali), teams from the United Nations have paved
the way for the electoral process, bringing the candidates together to determine the rules that
apply to everyone, forming independent and legitimate electoral commissions and sending in
observers on polling day.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), even if they will unfortunately not be realized on
time, have also created substantial momentum to effect concrete improvement on the most
important development key indicators (education, health, youth employment...). This initiative
would not have been possible without the impetus and the support of the United Nations.

Do we really need to be reminded of the incredible work of the UN’s emergency intervention
teams, the only ones in the world who possess the capacity to respond to natural disasters or
conflict-induced human emergencies in just a few hours or days? Without the UN, how would
the international community cope with these situations? Would it wash its hands of them?

The United Nations organization should be seen as a whole. The media talk most often, and
legitimately so, about the deadlock situations. But these very deadlocks show how necessary it is
for all of the countries in the world to come together and compare their points of view. In a
troubled world filled with uncertainty, the UN can and should represent global leadership
through dialogue.

These last few years have shown an absence of true leadership across sectors. Why not reflect
upon transforming this “huge machine” into a wonderful “tool” for world stability, social
development and conflict resolution? This is not an utopian vision, but an opportunity for those
who govern us to demonstrate their political will and determination to collaborate in the global
common interest and to demonstrate true global leadership.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-attias/the-un--a-huge-machine-th_b_3976885.html

United Nations Peacekeeping Flaws and

Abuses: The U.S. Must Demand Reform
August 3, 2016 41 min read Download Report

Brett Schaefer

Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs

Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at Heritage's Margaret
Thatcher Center for Freedom.

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As a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council and the largest contributor to the
U.N. peacekeeping budget, the United States has extraordinary authority over the approval and
parameters of those operations, and a responsibility to ensure that the missions are effective, and
that peacekeepers uphold the highest standards of conduct. The unprecedented pace, scope, and
ambition of U.N. peacekeeping operations over the past decade have revealed serious flaws,
limitations, and weaknesses that need to be addressed. The most disturbing problem has been the
frequency of sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. personnel and peacekeepers and the apparent
inability or unwillingness of the U.N. to prevent such misconduct and hold those responsible to
account.

U.N. peacekeeping operations can be useful if conducted with an awareness of their limitations
and weaknesses. Even then, they are not always the best option and require careful scrutiny to
ensure that they are achieving their objectives. Moreover, well-documented problems of
mismanagement, corruption, and misconduct cry out for fundamental reform to improve
accountability and transparency. Addressing these matters is critical since there is little
indication that the demand for U.N. peacekeeping will decline in the foreseeable future. This
requires the U.S. to use its diplomatic and financial leverage to press for changes to address
serious problems with U.N. peacekeeping operations.

The U.N. and International Peace and Security

Within the U.N. system, the 1945 U.N. Charter places the principal responsibility for
maintaining international peace and security on the Security Council. The charter gives the
Security Council extensive powers to investigate disputes in order to determine whether they
endanger international peace and security; to call on participants in a dispute to settle the conflict
through peaceful negotiation; to impose economic, travel, and diplomatic sanctions; and,
ultimately, to authorize the use of military force.

For better or worse, this robust vision of the U.N. as a key vehicle for maintaining international
peace and security did not materialize after the U.N. was established. The entire premise of
collective security through the U.N. depends on agreement and cooperation in the Security
Council, especially among the veto-wielding permanent members. This theoretical agreement
has rarely materialized in reality, and collective action by the permanent members proved to be
an unrealistic option for addressing many conflicts during the Cold War. Even in the rare
instances when the Security Council agreed on resolutions to address emerging conflicts, the
resulting actions fell far short of the charter’s lofty rhetoric.[1]

Instead, when the permanent members could agree, the U.N. began approving modest
operations—later called peacekeeping operations—involving unarmed or lightly armed military
observers voluntarily provided by the member states to fulfill limited missions, such as
maintaining cease-fires and supporting efforts to resolve conflicts, with little expectation that
they would be required to use force. The earliest operations—the U.N. Truce Supervision
Organization (UNTSO) established in 1948 and the U.N. Military Observer Group in India and
Pakistan (UNMOGIP) established in 1949—involved relatively small contingents and modest
costs funded through the U.N. regular budget.

The first two major U.N. peacekeeping operations—the United Nations Emergency Force
(UNEF) established in 1956 to monitor the cease-fire between Israel and Egypt and the United
Nations Operation in the Congo (ONUC) established in 1960 to oversee the withdrawal of
Belgian forces, maintain order, and preserve the territorial integrity and independence of the
Congo—were also funded through the regular budget through special, or ad hoc, accounts.
However, political tensions led many member states, including permanent Security Council
members France and the Soviet Union, to withhold their share of the expenses of these missions,
precipitating the U.N.’s first major financial crisis.[2] In addition, ONUC proved to be far more
complicated and challenging than originally anticipated. As summarized in a 2005 RAND report:

UN achievements in the Congo came at considerable cost in men lost, money spent, and controversy
raised. For many people, the United Nations’ apparent complicity in the apprehension and later
execution of Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba overshadowed its considerable accomplishments. As a
result of these costs and controversies, neither the United Nations’ leadership nor its member nations
were eager to repeat the experience. For the next 25 years the United Nations restricted its military
interventions to interpositional peacekeeping, policing ceasefires, and patrolling disengagement zones
in circumstances where all parties invited its presence and armed force was to be used by UN troops
only in self-defense.[3]

Differing interests among the permanent members of the Security Council, potential financial
costs, and hard-earned lessons about the complications of peacekeeping led to great caution in
establishing peacekeeping operations during the Cold War. The United Nations established only
18 peacekeeping operations between 1945 and 1990, despite a multitude of conflicts that
threatened international peace and security to varying degrees. The bulk of these operations were
fact-finding missions, observer missions, and other roles in assisting peace processes in which
the parties had agreed to cease hostilities.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.N. Security Council has been far more active and has
established more than 50 peacekeeping operations since 1990.[4]

In the early 1990s, humanitarian crises, such as those in the Balkans, Somalia, and Cambodia,
also led to a dramatic increase in the size of U.N. peace operations missions and a renewed
willingness to deploy U.N. peacekeepers to address more difficult situations. Ineffectiveness and
defeats in Somalia and the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to intervene and prevent the 1994
genocide in Rwanda and to stop the 1995 massacre in Srebrenica, Bosnia, rekindled skepticism
about robust U.N. peacekeeping and led to a short-lived decline in the breadth and frequency of
U.N. peacekeeping in the mid and late 1990s.

However, with a number of troubling situations, many of them in Africa, receiving increasing
attention from the media, the Security Council has found itself under pressure to respond and “do
something” even when the circumstances do not match those where U.N. peacekeeping
operations have had the most success. The Security Council has responded by establishing
additional peacekeeping operations with unprecedented pace, scope, and ambition. As
summarized in the 2015 U.N.-commissioned High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations
Peace Operations:

Today, many contemporary United Nations missions are struggling in more complex political contexts
and difficult operating environments. A decade ago, many peace operations were deployed following
the end of hostilities and the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement. Today, a growing number of
missions operate in remote and austere environments where no political agreement exists, or where
efforts to establish or re-establish one have faltered. They face ongoing hostilities and parties who are
unwilling to negotiate or otherwise undermine the presence of a mission by condoning or inflicting
restrictions on its ability to operate….

Expectations have only grown, particularly with respect to the capacity of United Nations missions to
protect civilians across vast areas of operations. Although United Nations peace operations have at
times responded with conviction to prevent such threats from materializing or worsening, and to
provide safety to civilians, at other times they have failed to show sufficient resolve and action in the
face of threats to civilians.

In addition to the political, operational and security challenges confronting its missions, the cases of
sexual exploitation and abuse committed by some United Nations personnel, despite new conduct and
discipline systems and a zero-tolerance policy, continue to cause great harm to victims as well as to the
enterprise of United Nations peace operations and the United Nations itself.[5]
At the end of April 2016, 121,780 personnel (including 103,510 uniformed personnel, 16,471
civilian personnel, and 1,799 volunteers) were involved in 16 U.N. peacekeeping operations
overseen by the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations.[6] These activities have grown
increasingly expensive over the past 30 years, with the current annual peacekeeping budget
estimated at $8.28 billion.[7]

As illustrated in Map 1, the U.N. has spent over $108.8 billion on 70 past and current
peacekeeping operations dating back to 1948. Historically, the U.S. taxpayer has paid between a
quarter and a third of these expenses.[8]

A look back over the past seven decades provides insight into where peacekeeping efforts have
been focused and how resources have been allocated. Of the 70 past and current operations, 33
were located in Africa, and their total cost represents over 65 percent of the $108.8 billion spent
on U.N. peacekeeping since 1948. Currently, nine of the 16 active peacekeeping operations are
located in Africa. Those missions also tend to be the largest and most expensive of the current
operations, with African missions comprising 85 percent of the amounts directly budgeted for
peacekeeping operations for the current U.N. peacekeeping budget period of July 1, 2015, to
June 30, 2016.

Focusing only on the duration of a particular operation, which is what the U.N. does in its
summaries of peacekeeping operations, can conceal the actual extent and cost of the U.N.
peacekeeping presence. For instance, in some cases, different titles have been given to
peacekeeping operations in the same countries concurrently or sequentially (in which case they
are often of similar size, organization, and mandates to the preceding operation). Examples of
these practices, illustrated in Figure 1, include five sequential peacekeeping operations in Haiti
from the early 1990s through today with only a short hiatus from 2000 to 2004, four sequential
missions in Angola from 1989 to 1999, two operations back to back in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo from 1999 to today, and three concurrent operations in Sudan and South Sudan.
This current practice of counting back-to-back missions as multiple missions, not as a single
continuing engagement, can give a false impression of progress in which operations “end” but
are replaced seamlessly by “new” operations often with the same contingents and similar
mandates. This Backgrounder breaks down peacekeeping presence and costs by region or
country to illustrate the budgetary and time commitments of U.N. peacekeeping in particular
countries and regions.
High Costs for the U.S.

According to U.N. data, the U.N. system nearly tripled its revenues from 2003 to 2013, from
$17.527 billion to $44.632 billion.[9] About a fifth of this expense goes to U.N. peacekeeping.
The U.N. peacekeeping budget funds most of the peacekeeping missions established by the
Security Council.[10]

Unlike the regular budget, which is a biennial (two-year) budget, the peacekeeping budget is an
annual budget that goes from July to June. The approved peacekeeping budget from July 2015 to
June 2016 was $8.28 billion, although the initial approved budget can be adjusted as missions are
reduced, expanded, adjusted, closed, or newly established.[11]

There are 193 member states in the United Nations. Article 17 of the U.N. Charter states that the
“expenses of the Organization shall be borne by the Members as apportioned by the General
Assembly.” Since the U.N.’s establishment, these expenses have been apportioned “broadly
according to capacity to pay” and allocated among the U.N. member states in a scale of
assessment that assigns each U.N. member state a certain percentage of the expenses that it is
expected to provide.[12]

Under the formula used by the U.N. to determine the scale of assessments, wealthier nations,
based principally on their share of global gross national income, are asked to pay larger shares of
the budget than are poorer nations. This was done in recognition of fiscal reality. The founders of
the U.N. did not want U.N. membership to cause severe financial hardship. However, as
evidenced from their actions in establishing a minimum assessment of 0.04 percent in 1946, they
did not believe that membership should be costless or insignificant either, even though the
original member states included very poor countries, such as Haiti.

Over the past 70 years, however, the capacity to pay principle has been used to steadily reduce
the share of the expenses of the U.N. borne by poor and developing countries through various
discounts for debt, low per capita income, and other modifications. The primary result of these
adjustments is to shift the costs of the organization from the bulk of the membership to a relative
handful of high-income nations, including the U.S.

The United States has been the U.N.’s largest financial supporter ever since the organization’s
founding in 1945. The U.S. is currently assessed 22 percent of the U.N. regular budget, and
28.5738 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget.[13] The lowest assessment for the regular
budget currently sits at 0.001 percent. Under the current scale of assessments, 32 countries pay
this assessment, which equates to an annual payment of approximately $27,000 for the regular
budget. America’s regular budget assessment is 22 percent, which equates to an annual payment
of about $594 million.

The peacekeeping assessment is based on a country’s regular budget assessment, but the vast
majority of the U.N. membership receives discounts ranging from 7.5 percent to 90 percent,
which are then added proportionately to the assessments of the permanent members of the
Security Council.[14] For the peacekeeping budget, the minimum assessment is 0.0001 percent.
As presented in Table 1, for the peacekeeping budget, the U.S. is assessed more than 185 other
U.N. member states combined, and 280,000 times more than the least-assessed countries. These
differences are even starker in dollar terms:

 Under the current peacekeeping scale of assessment adopted this past December and
applicable for three calendar years from 2016 to 2018, the 18 countries paying the minimum
peacekeeping assessment of 0.0001 percent in 2016 each will be assessed approximately $8,276
based on the approved peacekeeping budget ending June 30, 2016.[15]
 Nearly 80 countries will be assessed less than $100,000 for peacekeeping.
 By contrast, the U.S. is assessed 28.5738 percent of the peacekeeping budget, which works out
to $2.365 billion based on the approved peacekeeping budget.

The discrepancy between the financial burden shouldered by the U.S. versus most member states
has been growing. Fifteen years ago, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke testified to the Senate that
he had secured a deal to lower the U.S. peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent as required under
U.S. law and as a condition for payment of U.S. arrears under the Helms–Biden agreement.[16]
By 2009, the U.S. share had fallen to 25.9624 percent.[17]

Under the three scales of assessment approved under the Obama Administration—the U.N.
adopts a new scale of assessments every three years—the U.S. share of the peacekeeping budget
has increased each time[18] and has risen to 28.5738 percent under the current scale for 2016–
2018.[19] This increase may seem small, but it costs American taxpayers hundreds of millions of
dollars each year. Specifically, if the U.S. were assessed at 25 percent, American taxpayers
would be assessed nearly $300 million less for U.N. peacekeeping this year. All told, American
taxpayers were billed more than $1.2 billion more for U.N. peacekeeping from 2010 through
2015 than would have been the case if the U.S. assessment were 25 percent.

Serious Flaws, Concerns, and Problems

As noted above, the more recent operations have often involved mandates that go beyond
traditional peacekeeping in scope, purpose, and responsibilities. These missions have often
focused on quelling civil wars, reflecting a change in the nature of conflict from interstate
conflict between nations to intrastate conflict within nations. Increasing demands have revealed
ongoing, serious flaws and problems.

Deficient Oversight. Over the years, numerous reports, audits, and investigations have revealed
mismanagement, fraud, and procurement corruption in U.N. peacekeeping. For instance, in a
2007 U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) report, an examination of $1.4 billion of
peacekeeping contracts turned up “significant” corruption schemes that tainted $619 million
(over 40 percent) of the contracts.[20] An audit of the U.N. mission in Sudan revealed tens of
millions of dollars lost to mismanagement and waste and exposed substantial indications of fraud
and corruption.[21] According to then-head of OIOS Inga-Britt Ahlenius in 2008, “We can say
that we found mismanagement and fraud and corruption to an extent we didn’t really
expect.”[22]
Although recent reports are scarce, indications of mismanagement and corruption have reached
the public. Among these is a leaked internal memorandum from 2015 on widespread fraud on
meal and hotel invoices by U.N. peacekeepers in the United Nations Mission for the Referendum
in Western Sahara (MINURSO).[23] A 2016 news story reports that U.N. peacekeepers in the
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are under investigation for illegally reselling
food.[24] Other news stories concern possible corruption in U.N. air charters in favor of Russian
contractors,[25] allegations of selling U.N. peacekeeping jobs in Haiti and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo,[26] and assertions by independent watchdogs, such as Transparency
International, that the U.N. has failed to prioritize fighting corruption in peacekeeping
operations.[27]

The relative scarcity of corruption and mismanagement in peacekeeping should not necessarily
be interpreted as an indication of progress. On the contrary, the most likely cause is OIOS
disinterest in pursuing investigations or failure to publicly release such reports. According to
former OIOS investigator Peter Gallo:

OIOS was established by the General Assembly, specifically to be independent. The UN is manifestly
unable to police itself, because it is clear that the independence that OIOS once had has been
compromised. OIOS has repeatedly been found to be factional, it is riddled with corruption and self
interest and is effectively controlled by the same senior management that it is supposed to investigate
for wrongdoing.

Beholden to senior management for political patronage and other favours, OIOS management has been
able to select which reports should be investigated and which should be referred to another department
(and conveniently lost or buried). Potentially embarrassing cases have been closed in the face of
evidence of fraud, sexual abuse or other misconduct. There is is [sic] a toxic working environment; some
investigators have been harassed, experienced retaliation and encouraged to resign while serious
misconduct complaints against some others have been ignored.[28]

As detailed in his testimony, Gallo believes that U.N. actions and practices impede efforts to
address sexual exploitation and abuse.

One of the methods by which the number of Sexual Exploitation & Abuse cases in the missions has been
kept artificially low involves these reports being filtered by the local Conduct & Discipline Team.

The Conduct & Discipline function in the U.N. has no investigative authority. Their role is basically to act
as a postbox and pass these reports on to OIOS for investigation. Their function is prevention; raising
awareness of such ‘soft’ issues as codes of conduct. As such, Conduct & Discipline Teams have an
incentive to minimise the number of misconduct reports that are deemed ‘credible’.

What often happens in practice is that these ‘assessment’ [sic] simply identify witnesses, who can then
be discredited, bribed or intimidated. If the matter is subsequently investigated, by the time
investigators arrive; material witnesses have often been paid off, retracted their allegations or otherwise
disappeared.[29]

Worse, Gallo details how the U.N. knew about abuses by French peacekeepers in the Central
African Republic, but failed to take action that could have resulted in timely investigation and
deterred subsequent abuse. The failings of OIOS and the U.N. Conduct and Discipline Unit are
serious and indicate that the issue should remain a primary focus of reform for the U.S.

Unintended Consequences. Ten months after the 2010 earthquake, Haiti was ravaged by
cholera for the first time in over a century. Over 9,000 Haitians have died, and more than
800,000 more have been sickened from cholera. Infections first occurred in the vicinity of an
outpost of U.N. peacekeepers from Nepal, where cholera was widespread, and quickly spread
across Haiti. A U.N. investigation concluded that the cholera cases involved a single strain of the
disease, indicating a single source, and that the strain was closely related to strains
contemporaneously circulating in South Asia. Subsequent studies and reports, including one by
the scientists that originally conducted the U.N. investigation, confirmed these conclusions and
identified the Nepalese peacekeepers as almost certainly the source of the cholera outbreak.[30]
Because of the broad immunities and privileges enjoyed by the U.N., efforts to sue the
organization have been unsuccessful to date.

The U.N. has repeatedly refused to admit responsibility.[31] However, a leaked internal U.N.
report indicates that negligence and sanitation problems continued well after the initial cholera
outbreak. According to a summary of the report, “a month after the cholera outbreak, more than
one in 10 of the UN camps were still disposing of sewage—known as ‘black water’—‘directly
into local environment.’ In addition, more than seven in 10 of the camps disposed of their ‘grey
water’—that is water from showers and kitchens—into the ‘local environment.’”[32]

According to the leaked report, these sanitation failures could have been fixed for $3.15 million.
The current estimate of the cost to eradicate cholera from Haiti is more than $2 billion. There is
no evidence that any U.N. official has faced any consequences for the failures in Haiti. As noted
by former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Field Support Anthony Banbury, “In the past six
years, I am not aware of a single international field staff member’s being fired, or even
sanctioned, for poor performance.”[33]

Stasis and Ineffectiveness. The unfortunate reality is that after billions of dollars in international
assistance and decades of U.N. peacekeeping efforts, many long-standing peacekeeping
operations have not demonstrably facilitated the resolution of the conflicts or situations that they
were originally deployed to address or remain in place for transparently political reasons.
Specifically:

 The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization has been operational since 1948. UNTSO
was established to “monitor ceasefires, supervise armistice agreements, prevent isolated
incidents from escalating and assist other United Nations peacekeeping operations in the
region.”[34] UNTSO did not prevent war in 1956, 1967, or 1973. Nor has it paved the way
toward normalized relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors. On the contrary, the
political situation remains as tense as it was seven decades ago.
 The United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan has been operational since
1949. UNMOGIP is tasked with supervising the cease-fire between India and Pakistan in the
State of Jammu and Kashmir and reports to the Secretary-General. Hostilities resumed in 1971
and resulted in another cease-fire and the signing of the Simla Agreement (also known as the
Line of Control agreement) in 1972.[35] India believes that UNMOGIP’s mandate should have
ended with the signing of the Line of Control agreement and restricts the activities of U.N.
 observers on the Indian side of the borders.[36] Despite the dispute between India and Pakistan
over UNMOGIP, and virtually no change in the situation since 1972, the mission continues.
 The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has been operational since 1964.
The purpose of the mission is to “prevent a recurrence of fighting” and “contribute to the
maintenance and restoration of law and order and a return to normal conditions.”[37]
Hostilities in 1974 resulted in a new cease-fire and UNFICYP was charged with monitoring that
agreement and patrolling a buffer zone between opposing forces. Despite ongoing efforts by the
U.N., little progress has been made toward a permanent settlement of the dispute.
 The United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) has been operational since 1974.
UNDOF is charged with monitoring the cease-fire between Syria and Israel and the
disengagement of their forces. Assaults on and kidnapping of UNDOF troops led some troop-
contributing countries to remove their troops, and the U.N. to withdraw UNDOF peacekeepers
to camps and outposts in Israel. The U.N. announced earlier this year that it intends to return
UNDOF forces to outposts in Syria, but their freedom of movement will likely be constrained by
the ongoing conflict and instability in Syria.[38] There has been no progress toward a
comprehensive settlement between Syria and Israel.
 The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has been operational since 1978. The
mission was established to confirm withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon and to restore the
authority of the Lebanese government to the border area. Later, the mandate was expanded to
monitoring the cessation of hostilities, supporting Lebanese armed forces in deploying to the
south of Lebanon, and “taking steps towards the establishment between the Blue Line and the
Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons, other than those of the
Government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL deployed in this area.”[39] The 2006 and 2008 conflicts
between Israel and Lebanon were in part a result of the UNIFIL’s failure to enforce its
disarmament mandate. Experts estimate that, since 2006, “Hezbollah has massively expanded
the size and range of its rocket and missile inventory.”[40] Prospects for renewed conflict are far
higher than resolution of the sources of conflict.
 The United Nations Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara has been operational since
1991. MINURSO was mandated to monitor the cease-fire, support related objectives, such as
the exchange of prisoners, and pave the way toward a referendum.[41] Twenty-five years after
MINURSO was established, the political settlement remains distant and may be in retreat
following statements by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon referring to the Moroccan presence in
Western Sahara as an “occupation,” which led Morocco to expel dozens of MINURSO staff.[42]
 The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo has been operational since 1999.
In the words of the U.S. mission to the United Nations, “UNMIK’s mandate has largely been
accomplished. The only reason we continue to meet with this regularity has nothing to do with
the security situation in Kosovo—it has to do with politics. So let’s be clear: now is the time to
seriously reduce the United Nations mission’s footprint. We have some very talented staff in
UNMIK whose skills are desperately needed in other missions. There is no need for all of them
to remain in Kosovo.”[43] Indeed, UNMIK should be sharply downsized and terminated in the
near term to apply resources to more critical matters.

In sum, the circumstances surrounding most of these situations remain virtually identical to what
they were when these peacekeeping operations were established or they drag on after they should
have been ended for political reasons. There is an argument to be made that stasis is a positive
outcome: After all, most of the situations are not deteriorating. But after two, three, four, five, or
six decades of stasis, it is beyond time to re-examine these missions to determine if they can
resolve their respective situations. Peacekeeping should not be a permanent operation, but a
temporary endeavor focused on addressing critical problems, bolstering domestic capacity (not
substituting for it), and exiting as soon as practical to allow finite resources to be shifted to more
urgent or emerging crises.

Quagmire. The nature of the largest peacekeeping operations, such as those in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo and Sudan, arguably goes against the strengths of U.N. peacekeeping. As
summarized by one academic:

UN peacekeeping operations are ill-suited to operations requiring the use of offensive force: they lack
the personnel, the equipment, and the effective leadership required. Moreover, the tradition that
peacekeeping operations may only operate with the consent and cooperation of the government of the
host state means that it is extremely difficult for a militarized peacekeeping force to be even-handed in
its resort to force: if it were to use force against the host state—even if the government of the host state
was acting contrary to the interests of its civilian population—it would lose that government’s good will
and its continued operation in the state would be extremely difficult.[44]

Nonetheless, the U.N. Security Council often overrides experience and caution and approves
missions even though that may violate the central lesson learned in the 1990s: “[T]he United
Nations does not wage war.”[45] But the mere presence of a U.N. operation does not guarantee
success. On the contrary, it can lead to quagmire. As noted by Banbury:

Peacekeeping forces often lumber along for years without clear goals or exit plans, crowding out
governments, diverting attention from deeper socioeconomic problems and costing billions of dollars.
My first peacekeeping mission was in Cambodia in 1992. We left after less than two years. Now it’s a
rare exception when a mission lasts fewer than 10.

Look at Haiti: There has been no armed conflict for more than a decade, and yet a United Nations force
of more than 4,500 remains. Meanwhile, we are failing at what should be our most important task:
assisting in the creation of stable, democratic institutions. Elections have been postponed amid
allegations of fraud, and the interim prime minister has said that “the country is facing serious social and
economic difficulties.” The military deployment makes no contribution at all to solving these problems.

Our most grievous blunder is in Mali. In early 2013, the United Nations decided to send 10,000 soldiers
and police officers to Mali in response to a terrorist takeover of parts of the north. Inexplicably, we sent
a force that was unprepared for counterterrorism and explicitly told not to engage in it. More than 80
percent of the force’s resources are spent on logistics and self-protection. Already 56 people in the
United Nations contingent have been killed, and more are certain to die. The United Nations in Mali is
day by day marching deeper into its first quagmire.[46]

Worse than becoming bogged down in a quagmire, peacekeeping can link the U.N. to the
fortunes of abusive regimes. As noted by Richard Gowan:

Some of the largest and highest-profile UN missions, including those in South Sudan and Darfur, are
trapped in quagmires of endemic violence and dysfunctional politics. UN contingents are often under-
equipped and under-motivated, reducing their tactical impact. Yet the UN’s greatest strategic weakness
in these cases is that it has become entangled in fractious and arguably unethical relationships with
national leaders who, driven by greed or fear, have little real interest in stable, open and inclusive
political systems….

At what point do efforts to maintain relations with abusive leaders and regimes become morally and
politically unsustainable? Does such collaboration contribute to protecting civilians over the long term,
or does it simply allow abusive rulers to fortify their positions?...

While it may be hard to imagine pulling peacekeepers out of countries where civilians remain at risk,
there have to be moral limits to the sort of regimes that peacekeepers are asked to fight and die for. The
longer the UN continues to prop up leaders and governments that treat the organization with contempt,
the more that contempt will be deserved.[47]

Indeed, the presence of the largest U.N. peacekeeping operation, the United Nations
Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), and
its partnership with the government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo becomes
increasingly complicated as President Joseph Kabila punishes journalists, political opponents,
and civil society in a bid to retain power despite constitutional provisions that restrict him to two
terms.[48]

Failing to Protect Civilians. U.N. peacekeeping debacles in the 1990s led to a re-evaluation of
U.N. peacekeeping. However, as troubling situations have arisen in recent years, many of them
in Africa, the Security Council has found itself under pressure to respond even when the
circumstances may not be ripe for a political solution, or even where conflict is ongoing and
there is no peace to keep. Approving an operation in these instances, however, does not
magically make U.N. peacekeepers more capable of acting with force to prevent violence, or
more willing to do so.

As noted by the High-Level Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations, “More than
98 per cent of military and police personnel deployed in United Nations peacekeeping missions
today have a mandate to protect civilians, as part of integrated mission-wide efforts.”[49] But the
panel also notes that “growth in concepts, standards, advocacy and specialized personnel has yet
to transform reality on the ground, where it matters.”[ 50] That is an understatement. A 2014
study of eight of the nine U.N. peacekeeping operations with a mandate to protect civilians found
that of 570 reported instances of violence, peacekeepers “did not report responding to 406 (80
per cent) of incidents where civilians were attacked.”[51]

This also assumes that those reports are accurate or complete. Whistleblower Aicha Elbasri, who
served as spokesperson for the African Union–United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID)
between August 2012 and April 2013, provided leaked documentation to Foreign Policy
magazine that showed, in a series of articles, that the mission was deliberately underreporting
and concealing attacks by Sudanese forces on civilians and U.N. peacekeepers.[52]

Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. By far the most horrible of the problems facing U.N.
peacekeeping is the frequency of sexual exploitation and abuse committed by troops and civilian
personnel participating in those operations. This is not a new problem. There have been
numerous reports of U.N. personnel committing serious crimes and sexual misconduct, from
rape to the forced prostitution of women, young girls, and young boys. In recent years, U.N.
personnel have been accused of sexual exploitation and abuse in Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia,
Congo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Sierra Leone,
and Sudan. The U.S. and other member states successfully pressured the U.N. to adopt stricter
requirements for peacekeeping troops and their contributing countries, and Secretaries-General
Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon have repeatedly announced their commitment to a “zero-tolerance
policy” on sexual exploitation and abuse and have commissioned and conducted numerous
reports on the matter.[53]

Conduct and Discipline Teams charged with strengthening accountability and upholding the
highest standards of conduct in peacekeeping missions are now present in nearly all U.N.
peacekeeping and political missions, and troops are required to undergo briefing and training on
behavior and conduct.[54] Statistics on the United Nations Conduct and Discipline Unit website
have chronicled a decline in allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse over the past
decade.[55]

Recent leaked reports, however, belie these statistics and indicate that the problem is as bad as, if
not worse than, it has ever been. A U.N.-commissioned experts’ report from November 2013,
which was never released, was leaked last year.[56] The report directly challenges U.N. claims
on sexual exploitation and abuse:

 “The UN does not know how serious the problem of SEA [sexual exploitation and abuse] is
because the official numbers mask what appears to be significant amounts of underreporting of
SEA” due to poor record keeping, fear of retribution, a culture of silence, and a sense of futility
due to “the rarity of remedial outcomes including rarity of victim assistance.”
 “Overall, there was noted a culture of enforcement avoidance, with managers feeling powerless
to enforce anti-SEA rules, a culture of silence around reporting and discussing cases, and a
culture of extreme caution with respect to the rights of the accused, and little accorded to the
rights of the victim.”
 “This impunity has been debilitating for the many UN personnel who believe in, adhere to, and
try to promote the zero tolerance policy, and creates unremediated harm to its victims.”

Last year, another report, based on an investigation by UNICEF and the U.N. Office of the High
Commissioner on Human Rights into allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct involving
young boys in the Central African Republic between December 2013 and June 2014, was leaked.
The confidential investigation reportedly provided strong evidence of repeated rape and sexual
abuse by French, Chadian, and Equatorial Guinean peacekeepers present in the country before
the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in the Central African
Republic (MINUSCA) was stood up.[57] The reluctance of the U.N. to pursue the matter is
deeply troubling. As stated by Paula Donovan, co-director of the advocacy group AIDS-Free
World, who received the leaked report:

The regular sex abuse by peacekeeping personnel uncovered here and the United Nations’ appalling
disregard for victims are stomach-turning, but the awful truth is that this isn’t uncommon. The UN’s
instinctive response to sexual violence in its ranks—ignore, deny, cover up, dissemble—must be
subjected to a truly independent commission of inquiry with total access, top to bottom, and full
subpoena power.[58]
This conclusion was echoed by a U.N.-established independent review that concluded:

These repeated failures [by the U.N. and its senior officials] to respond to the Allegations are, in the
Panel’s view, indicative of a broader problem of fragmentation of responsibility within the Organization,
in which UN staff too often assumed that some other UN agency would take responsibility to address
the violations. The end result was a gross institutional failure to respond to the Allegations in a
meaningful way.[59]

The review proposed a number of reforms in training, procedures for reporting and investigating
sexual exploitation and abuse, and securing commitments by troop-contributing countries to try
to minimize repetition of this problem.

The Secretary-General endorsed the measures recommended by the review in a February report
that also, for the first time, provided details on sexual exploitation and abuse by peacekeeping
missions, specifically named the nationality of those accused, and provided the current status of
investigations. This transparency is a vast improvement. Similarly, the steps announced in the
report should help in preventing sexual exploitation and abuse and addressing them in a timely
manner if they occur.

As illustrated by the numerous announcements of reforms and zero tolerance in the past,
however, the U.N.’s problem has never been an inability to announce its commitment to
stopping sexual exploitation and abuse; it has been a deplorable inability to follow through. With
this in mind, it is worth noting that a great many of the reforms involve requesting member
states, particularly troop-contributing countries, to commit to and implement various measures,
such as stronger investigatory procedures.[60] This formulation is echoed in Security Council
Resolution 2272 on measures to address sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers,
which similarly urges, welcomes, and encourages efforts by member states to take steps
recommended by the Secretary-General.[61] Whether these reforms will be implemented or
delayed indefinitely in bureaucratic deliberations and efforts to achieve consensus support in the
General Assembly is yet to be determined.

There have been some positive signs, including the decision to send home troop contingents
from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi, and to confine troops from Burundi
and Gabon to barracks after they were found to be involved in sexual exploitation and abuse.[62]
But new allegations of serious sexual exploitation and abuse by U.N. peacekeepers clearly
indicate that much remains to be done.[63] Indeed, the U.N. recently confirmed receiving 44 new
sexual-abuse allegations involving more than 40 minors in 2016—nearly half the total number of
sexual-abuse allegations reported in 2015.[64]

Many Changes Necessary

The high and sustained pace, scope, and ambition of U.N. peacekeeping operations have
revealed numerous serious flaws, concerns, and problems that must be addressed. Even longtime
employees and strong supporters of the U.N. have realized that the current organization falls
short. As noted by former U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Field Support Anthony Banbury:
If you locked a team of evil geniuses in a laboratory, they could not design a bureaucracy so
maddeningly complex, requiring so much effort but in the end incapable of delivering the intended
result. The system is a black hole into which disappear countless tax dollars and human aspirations,
never to be seen again.[65]

To address the myriad problems identified above, the U.S. should:

 Carefully re-evaluate long-running U.N. peacekeeping missions. The U.S. should re-
evaluate long-standing U.N. operations to determine whether each U.N. mission is
contributing to resolving the situation or retarding that process. If an operation is not
demonstrably facilitating resolution of the situation, the U.S. should use its power in the
Security Council to wind it down or refocus it on discrete, manageable goals designed to
bolster domestic capacity in order to assume responsibility for peace and security.
Alternatively, if some concerned countries want to continue U.N. peacekeeping
operations that have not resolved the conflicts despite being in place for extended
periods, they should be asked to assume all or a substantial portion of the financial
burden of the continued operations.[ ]This is already the case to a limited extent with
UNFICYP, where the governments of Cyprus and Greece provide voluntary
contributions to cover nearly 45 percent of the total net costs.[66] Other historical
examples include Kuwait paying for two-thirds of the costs of the United Nations Iraq–
Kuwait Observation Mission (UNIKOM); the governments of Indonesia and the
Netherlands paying the full costs of the United Nations Security Force in West New
Guinea (UNSF); and the governments of Saudi Arabia and Egypt paying the full costs of
the United Nations Yemen Observation Mission (UNYOM).[67] Long-standing missions
are generally relatively small and among the least costly, but such a re-evaluation would
help to reduce the enormous peacekeeping budget and send a welcome message of
accountability and assessment.[68]
 Be more judicious in authorizing U.N. peacekeeping operations. A U.N.
peacekeeping operation may not be the best option for addressing every situation,
particularly where there is no peace to keep. The U.N.-commissioned High-Level
Independent Panel on United Nations Peace Operations similarly cautioned: “A number
of peace operations today are deployed in an environment where there is little or no peace
to keep. In many settings today, the strain on their operational capabilities and support
systems is showing, and political support is often stretched thin. There is a clear sense of
a widening gap between what is being asked of United Nations peace operations today
and what they are able to deliver.”[69] Among other recommendations, the panel called
for tailoring the mandates of individual operations for the specific situation, rather than
using default templates, and closing the gap between what is asked of missions in terms
of civilian protection and what they can actually provide. The pressure to “do something”
must not trump sensible consideration of whether a U.N. presence will improve or
destabilize the situation or align the U.N. with a morally repugnant government. Such
consideration includes clearly establishing—and sticking to—the objectives of the
operations, ensuring that they are achievable, carefully planning the requirements for
achieving them, securing pledges for providing what is needed to achieve them before
authorizing the operation, and being willing to acknowledge when the U.N. operation is
failing and then adjusting or pulling out as appropriate.
 Press the U.N. to clarify the steps and circumstances required for the organization
to waive immunities for employees in order to facilitate claims and efforts to punish
serious misconduct. The U.N. and its affiliated organizations are engaged in a multitude
of activities that could result in casualties, property damage, or other negative
consequences. Elimination of U.N. immunities would likely lead to a reduction in U.N.
field activities, which could lead to even more suffering. Although the U.N. has a mixed
record, the U.S. has an interest in preserving the organization’s ability to respond to
crises where it is unwilling or unable to respond directly. But this interest must not
supersede the need of victims of sexual abuse, criminality, or neglect to hold those
responsible for their suffering to account. U.N. privileges and immunities are important,
but they must not create an unreasonable barrier to accountability.
 Hold troop-contributing countries accountable. The standard memorandum of
understanding between the U.N. and troop contributors appropriately grants troop-
contributing countries jurisdiction over troops and police who participate in U.N.
peacekeeping operations. Until recently, little was done if these countries failed to
investigate or punish those who are guilty of such crimes. In fact, the U.N. would
generally decline to identify the nationality of those who were accused of crimes or sent
home. The most recent actions by the U.N. have improved matters by identifying the
nationalities of the accused, repatriating units with patterns of misbehavior, and
indicating that compensation can be withheld.[70] However, more must be done to
prevent, rather than merely react to, these problems. As noted by Banbury:

When we took over peacekeeping responsibilities from the African Union [in the Central African
Republic] in 2014, we had the choice of which troops to accept. Without appropriate debate,
and for cynical political reasons, a decision was made to include soldiers from the Democratic
Republic of Congo and from the Republic of Congo, despite reports of serious human rights
violations by these soldiers. Since then, troops from these countries have engaged in a
persistent pattern of rape and abuse of the people—often young girls—the United Nations was
sent there to protect.

Last year, peacekeepers from the Republic of Congo arrested a group of civilians, with no legal
basis whatsoever, and beat them so badly that one died in custody and the other shortly after in
a hospital. In response there was hardly a murmur, and certainly no outrage, from the
responsible officials in New York.

As the abuse cases piled up, impassioned pleas were made to send the troops home. These
were ignored, and more cases of child rape came to light. Last month, we finally kicked out the
Democratic Republic of Congo soldiers, but the ones from the Republic of Congo remain.[71]

The Secretary-General has requested troop-contributing countries to implement measures

to track the processes by which they investigate, try, and punish their personnel in cases
of misconduct. The Security Council endorsed this report, but failed to mandate that all
troop-contributing countries comply. These measures should be a prerequisite for
participating in U.N. peacekeeping. States that fail to fulfill their commitments to
discipline their troops should be barred from providing troops for peace operations or
receive substantially reduced peacekeeper reimbursements—not the negligible
 withholding of the monthly compensation of the peacekeepers who are directly accused.
Likewise, if compensation is deemed appropriate for criminal acts committed by
peacekeepers or damages resulting from negligence by the troop-contributing
government, extracting penalties from peacekeeping payments to the troop-contributing
country should be the first option.[72]

 Press the U.N. to automatically establish standing claims commissions in

peacekeeping missions. The U.N. currently gives the appearance of avenues of redress
for damages caused by U.N. action or inaction via claims in a standing claims
commission, which are included as an option for redress in U.N. peacekeeping status of
forces agreements with host nations. However, the failure of the U.N. to establish such
commissions indicates that the system is not operating as it should. A key reason for this
is likely that a government in a country where the U.N. has a peacekeeping operation is
almost always highly dependent on the U.N. for security, resources, and political support.
As a result, the government will be reluctant to anger the U.N. by requesting the
establishment of a standing claims commission. To avoid this complication, a standing
claims commission should automatically be established when a mission stands up,
although it would be prudent to tightly define the claims eligible for consideration to
avoid frivolous petitions. If the damages do not occur in the performance of legitimate
peacekeeping activities or are the result of negligence, and compensation is deemed
appropriate, the person or the troop-contributing country should be responsible for that
compensation.[73]
 Seek to review and adjust the U.N. scale of assessment to distribute the costs of the
peacekeeping budget more equitably. To address the even greater disparity in the
peacekeeping assessment, the U.S. should seek to increase the peacekeeping floor to
0.001 percent, which was the case prior to 1998. This would have the effect of increasing
the minimum assessment from roughly $8,276 per year to about $82,755 per year, which
is well within the capacity of any sovereign nation to pay. In addition, considering that
the peacekeeping assessment is based on the regular budget, where many countries
already receive significant discounts, the extent of additional peacekeeping discounts
should be trimmed, as should the number of eligible countries, which currently include
wealthy or developed nations, such as Brunei, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and the
United Arab Emirates. Finally, the U.S. should also seek a change in the methodology to
reflect the prestige of membership on the Security Council by proposing (1) a new
minimum peacekeeping assessment of 0.5 percent for non-permanent members of the
Security Council; (2) a new minimum peacekeeping assessment of 5 percent for
permanent members of the Security Council; and (3) barring the permanent members
from using the debt adjustment, low-income adjustment, or other regular budget scale of
assessment discounts for the purposes of calculating their peacekeeping assessment.
 Enforce the 25 percent cap on America’s peacekeeping assessment. The U.S. should
resume pressure on the U.N. to fulfill its commitment to lower the U.S. peacekeeping
assessment to 25 percent by withholding the difference between the U.S. peacekeeping
assessment and the 25 percent cap, until the U.N. implements a maximum peacekeeping
assessment of 25 percent.
 Establish a dedicated unit for international organizations in the Office of Inspector
General for the Department of State. The U.S. remains dependent on the internal U.N.
 oversight mechanisms, many of which lack independence, have inadequate resources, or
are incompetent, corrupt, or biased. The value of having a separate U.S. inspector general
unit that can investigate the activities funded in substantial part by U.S. taxpayers is
illustrated by reports of the U.S. Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan
Reconstruction (SIGAR), which has identified numerous management and oversight
failings of U.N. Development Programme projects in Afghanistan.[74]
 Press to make the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) truly independent,
or establish an independent unit, such as the defunct Procurement Task Force
(PTF) to provide independent oversight. The OIOS is not a truly independent inspector
general like the inspectors general in the U.S. government, and it has been subject to
politicization. According to a 2014 Associated Press report on a senior OIOS official
impeding an investigation and retaliating against two OIOS whistleblowers, a “review of
the reports submitted by OIOS to the General Assembly through mid-2013 shows that the
U.N.’s oversight functions still have not completed any major corruption cases since the
[PTF] was disbanded.”[75] The PTF was established after the oil-for-food scandal and
was very successful in unearthing numerous instances of fraud and mismanagement. In
the end, however, the PTF did its job too well. As punishment for its pursuit of cases
against Singaporean and Russian nationals, those countries led a successful effort to
eliminate the PTF in December 2008.[76] The U.N. needs independent oversight, and
Congress should work with the Administration to address this problem.
 Demand that the U.N. enforce whistle-blower-protection standards. Weak U.N.
internal oversight is exacerbated by the hostility toward U.N. whistle-blowers. Whistle-
blowers serve a particularly valuable function in the U.N. system because of the broad
protections and immunities the organizations and their employees possess. In essence,
whistle-blowers should serve as a safety valve by alerting the organization to
wrongdoing. Unfortunately, whistle-blowers are themselves too often punished for
coming forward. The Government Accountability Project (GAP), which advocates for
whistle-blowers, has compiled numerous instances illustrating “the consistent failure of
the United Nations and its funds, programs and agencies to protect whistleblowers from
retaliation.”[77] Congress has expressed great concern over the failure of the U.N. to
implement measures to protect whistle-blowers. The Consolidated and Further
Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015 required the U.S. to withhold 15 percent of U.S.
contributions unless the Secretary of State certifies that the organization has implemented
specified whistle-blower protections, including the option for external arbitration. This
whistle-blower language was also included in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of
2016. Despite ample evidence of sub-standard observance of whistle-blower protections
and evidence of retaliation in several U.N. organizations, the U.S. has applied this law
only to the World Intellectual Property Organization.[78] An honest assessment would
apply this withholding far more widely among U.N. organizations.

Conclusion

U.N. peacekeeping operations can be useful and successful if entered into with an awareness of
their limitations and weaknesses, but they can also fail or serve as an excuse to refuse to resolve
an ongoing dispute. Moreover, pressures to address various troubling situations have led the
Security Council to establish peacekeeping operations where there is no peace to keep, that by
default support governments that do not respect human rights and are themselves contributing to
instability or suffering, or have objectives that exceed what peacekeepers and troop-contributing
countries are willing to provide.

The unprecedented scope of U.N. peacekeeping operations of the past decade has revealed
serious flaws and weaknesses. The United States should not hesitate to encourage and demand
reforms to address these flaws. The cost of failing to reform the U.N. is high not just for the
U.N., which risks being sidelined if it cannot be relied upon to address key issues, but also for
America, which pays the largest share of the U.N. peacekeeping budget and could be forced to
expend yet greater resources and effort to resolve problems that U.N. peacekeeping fails to
resolve.

An Administration focused on advancing its policy priorities in the United Nations can block
many counterproductive initiatives put forth at the U.N. Rallying support for positive change is
much more difficult. Such efforts require the assistance of other member states or the use of
leverage to impose reforms on an unwilling organization. Congress has played an active role in
U.N. reform since the very beginning of the organization and can be a very effective ally in
executive branch efforts to pressure the organization to adopt targeted reforms.[79] Fortunately,
some of the recommendations in this Backgrounder are addressed in the respective State
Department authorization bills that have passed the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Administration and Congress should work closely to
advance and expand on these reforms. This effort should include financial carrots and sticks that
have been effective in the past in spurring reform, including the establishment of the OIOS in
1994 and the adoption of a maximum assessment for the regular budget.[80] The U.S. should use
the available tools to gain support from other member states and use its financial leverage to spur
reform.

—Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Senior Research Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs
in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute
for National Security and Foreign Policy, at The Heritage Foundation.

https://www.heritage.org/report/united-nations-peacekeeping-flaws-and-abuses-the-us-must-demand-
reform

Vetoed! What's wrong with the UN security

council – and how it could do better
Watch United Nations power brokers – including the Russian, UK and US representatives to the
UN – discuss its failings and how to fix them
The security council is the UN's most powerful body, the only one with the authority to issue
legally binding resolutions that can be backed up by sanctions, blue-helmeted peacekeepers or
by force of arms. Which countries are members?

There are five permanent members who were the the second world war's principal victors, all of
whom are now nuclear-armed states. There are also 10 temporary members at any one time,
elected by the general assembly for two-year terms.

For a resolution to be passed, nine of the 15 council members must vote for it, but permanent members
have a veto ... .. that veto power and the global inequality it represents, is at the heart of the struggle
over the council and its future.

Seventy years on, hardly anyone claims the security council is representative. There are no African or
Latin American states among the permanent members. Nor is India, despite its vast population and
increasingly powerful economy. It still produces large numbers of resolutions and manages 16
peacekeeping missions, but on Syria, the most lethal and destabilising conflict in the world today, it is
paralysed by disagreement and vetoes. So is it becoming obsolete?

One possible remedy is to expand the security council and its permanent membership. The existing
members have mixed feelings. The UK and France say they are in favour; the US and Russia are more
tepid, warning a big council could be less effective. And China is dead against it. And there are also
jealous regional rivals who don't want to see their neighbours succeed. But big candidate countries such
as Brazil, India, Germany, Japan and South Africa say there is no realistic alternative.

Another possible remedy involves reining in the use of the veto. In recent times, east-west antagonism
has brought back paralysis when it comes to major crises. Over the past 10 years, Russia has used its
veto on 10 occasions, largely to avoid scrutiny over its actions in Ukraine – or to protect allies, such as
the Syrian regime, from UN pressure. China has used its veto six times but never on its own – always in
tandem with Russia. The US has issued vetoes three times since 2005, each time to defend Israel from
censure.

The French proposal

France and others argue an immediate fix would be for permanent members to waive their veto
rights in cases of mass atrocities, but Russia is adamant in its opposition.

So what happens if nothing changes?

Some say the security council can carry on with its current flaws, perhaps making small changes
when it comes to the transparency of its decisions. After all, the council still seems to matter to
much of the world. But the critics argue that without fundamental reforms, it is doomed as an
institution, and then we will all be in trouble.
Philosophical and moral criticisms
Moral relativism

In 2004, former ambassador to the UN Dore Gold published a book called Tower of Babble:
How the United Nations Has Fueled Global Chaos. The book criticized what it called the
organization's moral relativism in the face of (and occasional support of)[1] genocide and
terrorism that occurred between the moral clarity of its founding period and the present day.
While the UN during its founding period was limited to those countries that declared war on at
least one of the Axis powers of World War II, and thus were capable of taking a stand against
war, the modern United Nations has, according to Gold, become diluted to the point where only
75 of the 184 member states during the time of the book's publication "were free democracies,
according to Freedom House."[2] He further claimed that this had the effect of tipping the scales
of the UN so that the organization as a whole was more amenable to the requirements of
dictatorships.[2]

The UN General Assembly decided to hold a moment of silence in honor of North Korean
dictator Kim Jong-il following his death in 2011. Western diplomats criticized the decision. "An
official at the Czech Republic's UN mission said the Czechs did not request a similar moment of
silence for Václav Havel, the playwright-turned-dissident who died" a day after Kim.[3]

Allegations of globalism

There have been controversy and criticism of the UN organization and its activities since at least
the 1950s. In the United States, an early opponent of the UN was the John Birch Society, which
began a "get US out of the UN" campaign in 1959, charging that the UN's aim was to establish a
"One World Government."

Charles de Gaulle of France criticized the UN, famously calling it le machin ("the
thingamabob"), and was not convinced that a global security alliance would help in maintaining
world peace, preferring to the UN direct defense treaties between countries.[4]

Debates surrounding population control and abortion

The United Nations Population Fund has been accused by different groups[who?] of providing
support for government programs which have promoted forced-abortions and coercive
sterilizations. Controversies regarding these allegations have resulted in a sometimes shaky
relationship between the organization and the United States government, with three presidential
administrations, that of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush withholding
funding from the UNFPA.

The UNFPA provided aid to Peru's population control program in the mid-to-late '90s, when it
was discovered the Peruvian program had been engaged in carrying out coercive sterilizations.
The UNFPA was not found directly involved in the scandal, but continued to fund and work with
the population control program after the abuses had become public.[5] The issue played a role in
the Bush administration's decision in 2002 to cut off funding for the organization.[6]
Administrative criticisms
Role of elite countries

There has been criticism that the five permanent members of the United Nations Security
Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States), who are all nuclear
powers, have created an exclusive nuclear club whose powers are unchecked. Unlike the General
Assembly, the United Nations Security Council does not have true international representation.
This has led to accusations that the UNSC only addresses the strategic interests and political
motives of the permanent members, especially in humanitarian interventions: for example,
protecting the oil-rich Kuwaitis in 1991 but poorly protecting resource-poor Rwandans in
1997.[7]

Membership in the UN Security Council

Any country may be elected to serve a temporary term on the Security Council, but critics have
suggested that this is inadequate. Rather, they argue, the number of permanent members should
be expanded to include non-nuclear powers, which would democratize the organization.[8] Still
other countries have advocated abolishing the concept of permanency altogether; under the
government of Paul Martin, Canada advocated this approach.[9]

Veto power

Another criticism of the Security Council involves the veto power of the five permanent
members. As it stands, a veto from any of the permanent members can halt any possible action
the Council may take. One country's objection, rather than the opinions of a majority of
countries, may cripple any possible UN armed or diplomatic response to a crisis. For instance,
John J. Mearsheimer claimed that "since 1982, the US has vetoed 32 Security Council
resolutions critical of Israel, more than the total number of vetoes cast by all the other Security
Council members."[10] Since candidates for the Security Council are proposed by regional blocs,
the Arab League and its allies are usually included but Israel, which joined the UN in 1949, has
never been elected to the Security Council. The Council has repeatedly condemned Israel. On the
other hand, critics contend that, while Israel has the United States to rely on to veto any pertinent
legislation against it, the Palestinians lack any such power. Apart from the US, several
resolutions have been vetoed by Russia, notably attempts to impose sanctions on Syria during the
Syrian Civil War and to condemn Russia's own annexation of Crimea in 2014. In the case of the
latter, Russia's lone veto overruled the thirteen other votes in favor of the condemnation.[11] As
part of the Soviet Union, Russia also vetoed a UN resolution condemning the USSR's shooting
down of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 in 1983. The veto has been singled out as a threat to human
rights, with Amnesty International claiming that the five permanent members had used their veto
to "promote their political self interest or geopolitical interest above the interest of protecting
civilians." As of 2014, Amnesty International has suggested that a solution would involve the
five permanent members surrendering their veto on issues of genocide.[12] Some see the fact that
veto power is exclusive to the permanent five as being anachronistic and unjust, given that the
United Nations is meant to equally represent all its member states. Journalist Kourosh Ziabari
has stated that the veto is "a discriminatory and biased privilege given to five countries to dictate
their own will to some 200 countries as they wish."[13] and has called it "the most unfair and
inequitable law of the world which enables a powerful and authoritative minority to determine
the fate of an indispensable and subjugated majority".[13] Aside from criticism directed towards
its biased nature, others have pointed out that the veto makes it difficult for the Security Council
to solve issues. Whilst addressing the UN General Assembly on the Russian annexation of
Crimea, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said the following regarding the inefficiency of
the veto "In every democratic country, if someone has stolen your property, an independent court
will restore justice, in order to protect your rights, and punish the offender. However, we must
recognize that in the 21st century our organization lacks an effective instrument to bring to
justice an aggressor country that has stolen the territory of another sovereign state.”[14]

Fait accompli

The practice of the permanent members meeting privately and then presenting their resolutions
to the full council as a fait accompli has also drawn criticism; according to Erskine Barton
Childers, "the vast majority of members – North as well as South – have made very clear...their
distaste for the way three Western powers [the UK, US and France] behave in the Council, like a
private club of hereditary elite-members who secretly come to decisions and then emerge to tell
the grubby elected members that they may now rubber-stamp those decisions."[15]

In this case, the United Nations has received some criticism is in its gender-inclusivity and its
reception of feminist viewpoints. While at the large scale the UN provides outlets and aid to
women through UN Women and the Sustainable Development Goals, the reality is that the UN is
still very male-dominated. While it has achieved gender parity in its employees at the two lowest
levels of responsibility (P-1 and P-2[16]), equal representation has not yet been achieved at any
levels higher than these. Senior leadership as of 2015 was made up of 78% men, and parity is not
expected for another 112 years based on current trends[17]. Both the percentage of appointments
made and the likelihood and speed at which employees are promoted mirror the trend above;
parity achieved at low levels while at the D-2 level women see roughly a quarter of what their
male counterparts do [18].

One reason attributed with the slow progress is that there are no methods to hold the UN
accountable to its proposed changes due to its size and the different approaches taken within the
different subsidiaries of the organization [19]. Another reason is the generally poor reception of
feminist ideologies in the international relations framework of the UN. Security is typically
linked to masculinity, and consequently when asked to apply a feminist lens, this request is often
met with hostility toward such “fluffy” subjects [20].

Democratic character of the UN

Other critics object to the idea that the UN is a democratic organization, saying that it represents
the interests of the governments of the countries who form it and not necessarily the individuals
within those countries. World federalist Dieter Heinrich points out that the powerful Security
Council system does not have distinctions between the legislative, executive, and judiciary
branches: the United Nations Charter gives all three powers to the Security Council.[21]
Multi-Sections System

According to Yigal Palmor, former spokesman of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the
multi-sections system of the UN prevents individual players or those who don't have
geographical friends from participating in the United Nations System. He says that Israel is the
only UN member, in the whole UN system, that have been prevented by the UN from playing the
game like everyone else. Palmor claims that due to the multi-sections system of the UN, Israel is
being systematically excluded from all geographical sections and groups, and due to that Israel
can't even apply to most of the UN councils. Israel originally should belong to the geographic
section of Asia, but due to objection from Arab and Muslim countries in the region (such as Iran,
Iraq etc.) it has been excluded, since its establishment. From time to time Israel has been
accepted in the "Western countries and more" sections, but it's very limited.[22]

Effectiveness criticisms

Some have questioned whether the UN might be relevant in the 21st century.[23] While the UN’s
first and second Charter mandates require the UN: “To maintain international peace and
security.... (and if necessary to enforce the peace by) taking preventive or enforcement
action,”[24] due to its restrictive administrative structure, the permanent members of the Security
Council themselves have sometimes prevented the UN from fully carrying out its first two
mandates.[25] Without the unanimous approval, support (or minimally abstention) of all 5 of the
permanent members of the UN's Security Council, the UN's charter only enables it to "observe",
report on, and make recommendations regarding international conflicts[citation needed]. Such
unanimity on the Security Council regarding the authorization of armed UN enforcement actions
has not always been reached in time to prevent the outbreak of international wars.[25]

In 1962, UN secretary general U Thant provided valuable assistance and took a great deal of
time, energy and initiative as the primary negotiator between Nikita Khrushchev and John F.
Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, thus providing a critical link in the prevention of a
nuclear war at that time.[26] A 2005 RAND Corporation study found the UN to be successful in
two out of three peacekeeping efforts. It compared UN nation-building efforts to those of the
United States, and found that seven out of eight UN cases are at peace, as opposed to four out of
eight US cases at peace.[27] Also in 2005, the Human Security Report documented a decline in
the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuses 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 since the end of the Cold War or
due to the fact the US and USSR were no longer pumping up oppressive governments after the
Cold war ended.[28]

The bureaucratic dimension of the UN has been a cause for frustration with the organization. In
1994, former special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN to Somalia Mohamed
Sahnoun published "Somalia: The Missed Opportunities",[29] a book in which he analyses the
reasons for the failure of the 1992 UN intervention in Somalia; he shows in particular that,
between the start of the Somali Civil War in 1988 and the fall of the Siad Barre regime in
January 1991, the United Nations 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 United Nations’
bureaucratic inefficiencies and excessive caution (most UN envoys to Somalia operating from
the safety of their desks in Nairobi rather than visiting clan leaders in the field). If sweeping
reform was not undertaken, warned Mohamed Sahnoun, then the United Nations would continue
to respond to such crisis in a climate of inept improvisation.[30]

Diplomatic and political criticisms

Inability to prevent conflicts

Other critics and even proponents of the United Nations question its effectiveness and relevance
because in most high-profile cases, there are essentially no consequences for violating a Security
Council resolution. An early example of this was the Bangladesh Liberation War and the 1971
Bangladesh genocide committed by the Pakistan Army on Bangladeshis. Critics of the UN
argued that the UN was completely ineffective in preventing the genocide,[31] and that military
intervention by India was the only thing to stop the mass murder.[32] Another such case occurred
in the Srebrenica massacre where Serbian troops committed genocide against Bosnian Muslims
in the largest case of mass murder on the European continent since World War II. Srebrenica had
been declared a UN "safe area" and was even protected by 400 armed Dutch peace keepers, but
the UN forces did nothing to prevent the massacre. In the 21st century, the most prominent and
dramatic example is the War in Darfur, in which Arab Janjaweed militias, supported by the
Sudanese government, committed repeated acts of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the
indigenous population. Thus far, an estimated 300,000 civilians have been killed in what is the
largest case of mass murder in the history of the region, yet the UN has continuously failed to act
against this severe and ongoing human rights issue. At the 68th Session of the UN General
Assembly, New Zealand Prime Minister John Key heavily criticized the UN's inaction on Syria,
more than two years after the Syrian Civil War began.[33]

Handling of the Cold War

In 1967, Richard Nixon, while running for President of the United States, criticized the UN as
"obsolete and inadequate" for dealing with then-present crises like the Cold War.[34] Jeane
Kirkpatrick, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to be United States Ambassador to the
United Nations, wrote in a 1983 opinion piece in The New York Times that the process of
discussions at the Security Council "more closely resembles a mugging" of the United States
"than either a political debate or an effort at problem solving."[35]
Attention given to the Arab-Israeli conflict

Number of country-specific UN General Assembly resolutions concerned with the Middle East (Palestine
& Palestinians, Israel, Lebanon, Syria) vs. total country-specific resolutions. The graph is additive.

See also: Israel, Palestine, and the United Nations § Alleged bias and disproportionate attention on
Israel; Human rights in Israel § United Nations; and UN Watch

Issues relating to the state of Israel, Palestinians and other aspects of the Arab–Israeli conflict
occupy a large amount of debate time, resolutions and resources at the United Nations. The
Secretary of State of the United States, John Kerry, has accused the U.N. Human Rights Council
of focusing disproportionately on allegations of abuses by Israel,[36] and Ban Ki-moon, the
Secretary-General of the United Nations, admitted that there is a biased attitude against Israel at
the UN,[37] although he retracted later.[38] Other critics such as Dore Gold, Alan Dershowitz,
Mark Dreyfus, Robert S. Wistrich, Alan Keyes, and the Anti-Defamation League also consider
UN attention on Israel's treatment of Palestinians to be excessive.[39][40][41][42][43][44] According to
Wistrich, "a third of all critical resolutions passed by [the UN] Human Rights Commission
during the past forty years have been directed exclusively at Israel. By way of comparison, there
has not been a single resolution even mentioning the massive violations of human rights in
China, Russia, North Korea, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Syria, or Zimbabwe."[45]

The adoption of UNSCOP's recommendation to partition Palestine by the United Nations

General Assembly in 1947[46] was one of the earliest decisions of the UN. According to political
commentator Alan Dershowitz, after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the UN defined the term
"refugee" as applied to Palestinian Arabs fleeing Israel in significantly broader terms than it did
for other refugees of other conflicts.[47]

In 2007, United Nations Human Rights Council president Doru Romulus Costea said that the
UNHRC had "failed" in dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[48]

The UN has sponsored several peace negotiations between Israel and its neighbors, the latest
being the 2002 Road map for peace. The controversial Resolution 3379 (1975), which equated
Zionism with racism, was rescinded in 1991. According to Robert S. Wistrich, "on the same day
Resolution 3379 was adopted, the General Assembly decided to establish the 'Committee on the
Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.' With a large budget at its disposal and acting as an
integral part of the United Nations, it has for more than thirty years done everything within its
power to establish a Palestinian state in place of Israel."[39]

Allegations of anti-Zionism and antisemitism

Further information: UNESCO § Israel

The UN has been accused by Dershowitz, human rights activists Elie Wiesel, Anne Bayefsky,
and Bayard Rustin, historian Robert S. Wistrich, and feminists Phyllis Chesler and Sonia
Johnson of tolerating antisemitic remarks within its walls.[39][42][49][50] Israeli delegates to the UN
"have been treated to a sickening litany of anti-Semitic abuse at the General Assembly, in the
UN Human Rights Commission, and sometimes even in the Security Council" for decades.[39]

UN conferences throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s often passed resolutions denouncing
Zionism. These conferences often did not have anything to do with Middle East politics. UN
documents of the period denied the existence of the Jews, Israel ancient history, the Holocaust,
and the notion that Jews deserve the same rights granted to other groups.[51] Wistrich described
the 1980 World Conference of the United Nations Decade for Women in Copenhagen in his
book, A Lethal Obsession:

"Jewish feminists heard truly chilling comments, such as 'The only good Jew is a dead Jew' and
'The only way to rid the world of Zionism is to kill all the Jews.' One eye-witness overheard
other delegates saying that the American women's movement had a bad name because its most
prominent founding figures ... were all Jewish. The feminist activist Sonia Johnson described the
anti-Semitism at the Copenhagen conference as 'over, wild, and irrational.' ... The psychologist
and author Phyllis Chesler recorded the savage response when one Jewish woman mentioned
that her husband had been shot without a trial in Iraq and that she had to escape to Israel with her
children. The place went wild: 'Cuba si! Yankee no! PLO! PLO!' they shouted. 'Israel kills
babies and women. Israel must die.'"[39]

The most infamous example of this trend was the passage of United Nations General Assembly
Resolution 3379, which equated Zionism with racism, on November 10, 1975. It was the first
postwar ideology to ever be condemned in the United Nations' history. The resolution was
internationally condemned in the media (especially in the media of Western countries). Many
observers noted that the resolution was passed on the thirty-seventh anniversary of Kristallnacht,
the pogrom historians agree marked the beginning of the Holocaust.

A UN sponsored conference was held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. The conference was
meant to combat racism, but ended up being a forum for world leaders to make various anti-
Semitic statements.[52][53] Among the anti-Semitic literature freely handed out at the conference
were cartoons equating the Nazi swastika with the Jewish Star of David, flyers expressing the
wish that Adolf Hitler had completely killed every last Jew on Earth, and copies of The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[54][55] Tom Lantos, Colin Powell, Chuck Schumer, Elie Wiesel,
Irwin Cotler, Alan Dershowitz, and Robert S. Wistrich condemned the entire conference, calling
it hateful, racist, and anti-Semitic.[42][56]
Alleged support for Palestinian militancy

According to Dore Gold, Alan Dershowitz, and Robert S. Wistrich, the United Nations has a
long history of elevating what it calls "national liberation movements," armed groups who
commit violence against civilians to achieve political goals, virtually to the status of
civilians.[42][57][58] In 1974 and again in 1988, the UN invited Yasser Arafat to address the
General Assembly.[57][59][60][61] Alan Dershowitz accused the UN of allowing states that sponsor
terrorism to sit on the Security Council.[62] These visits legitimized the PLO without it "having to
renounce terrorism."[63]

In July 1976, Palestinian and German terrorists hijacked an Air France plane headed from France
to Israel, landed it in Uganda, and threatened to kill the civilian hostages. Ugandan dictator Idi
Amin provided sanctuary for the terrorists in the Entebbe airport. After Israel raided the Ugandan
airport and rescued most of the hostages, United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim
condemned Israel for the violation of "Ugandan sovereignty."[64]

Alan Dershowitz stated that while Tibetan people, Kurds, and Turkish Armenians all desire
"national liberation," the United Nations has only officially recognized Palestinian claims to
"national liberation" and allows representatives of the Palestinian cause to speak at the UN.[65]
The difference between the three groups and the Palestinians is that the Palestinians use terrorism
as a tactic for getting their voice heard, while the Tibetans and Turkish Armenians do not.[65] The
UN, according to Dershowitz, favors "national liberation" groups who practice terrorism above
those who do not, including those people who have been under more brutal occupation for a
longer time (such as Tibetans). Dershowitz has accused the UN of allowing its refugee camps in
the Palestinian territories to be used as terrorist bases.[42]

UN admits Sri Lanka civil war failure

A review of UN action during the final months of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009, in which
tens of thousands of people were killed, criticized the UN leadership, United Nations Security
Council and top UN officials in Sri Lanka. UN staff were afraid to publicize widespread killings,
top UN leaders did not intervene and the 15-member Security Council did not give "clear" orders
to protect civilians, said the report.[66]

The review, led by former UN official Charles Petrie, said senior UN staff in Sri Lanka were
afraid to highlight deaths because they feared it would put at risk humanitarian access to the
hundreds of thousands of civilians in the region. UN staff in Sri Lanka and New York failed to
"confront" the government about obstacles to humanitarian assistance and were unwilling to
"address government responsibility for attacks that were killing civilians." Rights groups have
given a toll of up to 40,000 dead with most killed in army shelling.[66]

The report said UN headquarters' talks with the 193 member states "were heavily influenced by
what it perceived member states wanted to hear, rather than what member states needed to know
if they were to respond." Turning to the Security Council, the report said the body had been
"deeply ambivalent" about putting Sri Lanka on its conflict agenda.[66]
Philippe Bolopion, UN director for Human Rights Watch, said the report highlighted a
"dereliction of duty" and was "a call to action and reform for the entire UN system."[66]

Criticisms of scandals

In the book Snakes in Suits, a study of psychopaths in the workplace, Babiak and Hare write that
corruption appears to be endemic at the UN:

There are few organizations in the Western world that could survive with the allegations of
mismanagement, scandal, and corruption that permeate the United Nations. For many
delegates, officials, and employees, particularly those from developing nations, the UN is little
more than an enormous watering hole.

Concerned about its shabby image, the UN recently developed a multiple-choice “ethics quiz”
for its employees. The “correct” answers were obvious to everyone [Is it all right to steal from
your employer? (A) Yes, (B) No, (C) Only if you don’t get caught].

The quiz was not designed to determine the ethical sense of UN employees or to weed out the
ethically inept, but to raise their level of integrity. How taking a transparent test could improve
integrity is unclear. There has been no mention of how management and other officials did on
the test.[67]

Oil-for-Food Programme scandal

In addition to criticism of the basic approach, the Oil-for-Food Programme suffered from
widespread corruption and abuse. Throughout its existence, the programme was dogged by
accusations that some of its profits were unlawfully diverted to the government of Iraq and to
UN officials.[68][69]

Peacekeeping child sexual abuse scandal

Main article: Child sexual abuse by UN peacekeepers

Reporters witnessed a rapid increase in prostitution in Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia, and

Kosovo after UN and, in the case of the latter two, NATO peacekeeping forces moved in. In the
1996 UN study The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, former first lady of Mozambique
Graça Machel documented: "In 6 out of 12 country studies on sexual exploitation of children in
situations of armed conflict prepared for the present report, the arrival of peacekeeping troops
has been associated with a rapid rise in child prostitution." [70]

In 2011, a United Nations spokesman confirmed sixteen Beninese peacekeepers were barred
from serving with them following a year-long probe. Of the sixteen soldiers involved, ten were
commanders. They failed to maintain an environment that prevents sexual exploitation and
abuse. Sexual misconduct by United Nations troops had earlier been reported in Congo,
Cambodia and Haiti, as well as in an earlier incident involving Moroccan peacekeepers in Côte
d'Ivoire.[71]
Accountability

In regards to criticism of corruption within the UN system by its employees, James Wasserstrom
was dismissed from his field job for reporting kickbacks taken by UN employees. Upon appeal,
the UN was directed to compensate him with US$65,000 for the wrongful dismissal.[72]

Haiti cholera outbreak

Main article: Haiti cholera outbreak

UN aid workers from Nepal were identified as the source of a cholera outbreak which killed over
10,000 Haitians and sickened hundreds of thousands more.[73][74] Yet the UN claimed diplomatic
immunity and refused to provide compensation.

The Grand Flaw in the UN

Recently, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged member States to recommit to “collective
security” and human rights. He claimed the UN prevented another war but those who suffered
from the lethal consequences of the Cold War or the current violence and loss of human rights as
a result of an ongoing and predictably endless global war on terrorism might disagree.

Peace, or the absence of war, particularly a nuclear war, was the original motivation for the
creation of the UN. But it’s increasingly clear to those who deal with threats to individual and
national security, and others concerned about human rights and the environment, that effectively
protecting human security, national security and the environment will require more than just
“peace”.

What the vast majority of ‘we the people’ of the world really want is security without the loss of
our most cherished freedoms. And, the prosperity that so many cherish is essentially a function
of maximizing both freedom and security.

Threats like Ebola, climate change, violent extremism and WMD proliferation in a world where
the rights of nations and corporations remain superior to the rights of ‘we the people’, will never
see nations, people or economies free from threats and violations of the most fundamental of
human rights — the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Encouragingly, the UN Secretary General specifically stated that UN Member States needed to
fortify a sense of unity on the meaning of the term ‘collective security’, which he stressed was
the core purpose of the organization. He also noted that Nation States have been falling short of
their responsibility to prevent conflict, something the UN Charter is very clear on.

What he didn’t mention was the grand flaw of the UN’s original design. A design that puts the
rights of nation states (national sovereignty) superior to the protection of human rights. And a
structure that alludes to the sovereign equality between all member states but gives absolutely no
means of enforcing that equality, short of war, or sanctions — which can be more deadly than
war. The UN’s greatest structural flaw is that the universal protection of human rights is only an
afterthought. A grand gesture with absolutely no muscle other than words (in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights), accusations (frequent UN reports), powerless courts (ICC and
ICJ) and noble promises (R2P).

There should be no doubt that violations of human rights eventually weaken state sovereignty
and national security. But there is no serious organizational effort in the world right now
demanding or even offering solutions to resolve this grand flaw. If anyone is looking for such
solutions, a new book offers many along with detailing rational means for achieving them. The
book is titled “Transforming the United Nations System” written by Joseph E. Schwartzberg and
endorsed by former UN Secretary General as “an essential reference work for
all…concerned…”.

Ban states “In today’s world, the less sovereignty is viewed as a wall or a shield; the better our
prospects will be for protecting people and solving our shared problems…” But, in fact, it is the
belief that national sovereignty is the key to protecting national security and human rights that is
the grand flaw that still disempowers the current UN system.

Human rights abuses kill, maim, and displace people, divide communities, undermine
economies, devastate environments and destroy cultural heritage. Ban called for “a conceptual
shift” in international understanding of UN human rights action in order to transform the
Security Council’s role in peace and security. Yet, no organization today boldly takes the stand
in support of such needed transformation of the Security Council.

Ban said “We must ask whether, for example, earlier efforts to address human rights violations
and political grievances in Syria could have kept the situation from escalating so horrendously.”
He went on to say, “We must be willing to act before situations deteriorate. This is both a moral
responsibility and critical for the maintenance of international peace and security. We cannot
afford to be indifferent.” Anyone adding up just the economic costs of our indifference would
have to agree. The environmental costs are increasingly obvious. And, the human costs are
almost unimaginable.

Noting that the distinctions between national and international were beginning to disappear, Mr.
Ban cited commerce, communication, public health and climate change as areas of transnational
concern. Terrorism and extremism were also serious issues and he highlighted the need to
respond decisively, and to combat extremism without multiplying the problem and with full
respect for human rights. What he was saying without actually saying it is ‘we need enforceable
international laws’ (i.e. the ‘force of law’ instead of the ‘law of force’ for dealing with our
individual, religious, economic and national differences.)

Regarding many other important issues of international concern, the UN’s 70th anniversary
should serve as a chance to seriously reflect on nation states’ common enterprise and to take
transformative actions like those detailed in Mr. Schwartzberg’s book. And high on any list
should be the newest, laudable, affordable and achievable goals soon to be affirmed for
sustainable development and climate change. But we must recognize and act on the reality that
any hope of actually achieving these vital goals will require three fundamental tactics.

1. A holistic and global approach. (global enforcement of UDHR).

2. A new source of secure and adequate funding (a global financial transaction tax)
3. Stressing these goals in the context of maximizing national security and protecting fundamental
human rights and basic freedoms.

The world awaits an organization (or movement of organizations) that will stand for and
passionately advocate for any or all of these fundamental prerequisites to having the world work
for everyone.

Transforming the UN from a confederation of states into a federation of states, with the global
rule of law in protecting human rights and the environment dictating the rights of nations or
corporations is the most important rule change needed.

The bad news is that time is not on our side. Those with the power to make such change appear
to be emotionally detached from actual deaths, torture, diseases, disabilities, pain, and other
suffering of hundreds of millions of innocent men, women and children. There is clearly a lack
of political will to do what is humanly doable. Could it be a lack of empathy and courage? It
certainly isn’t a lack of money or scalable solutions.

We know what needs to be done. We know it’s the moral thing to do. Doing the math we know
we cannot bare the economic cost of not doing it.

Nearly 40 years ago I attended a presentation on climate change. The title of that talk was “Is
there intelligent life on earth?” In hindsight, knowing of all the ‘smart’ technologies we have at
our finger tips and the massive “intelligence agencies” our government funds, I would have to
answer “yes” to that question. If asked “is there wisdom in our application of that intelligence?”
The answer would be as self-evident as our God given universal rights to life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness.

http://blog.therules.org/the-grand-flaw-in-the-un/