Alexandría, Rumania

See also: UNO (homonymy)

The United Nations ( UNO or the United Nations ) is a founded International organization on June 26th, 1945 with San Francisco to solve the international problems. She succeeds the Société of the Nations (SdN). She does not have military force but she can ask the Member States to provide quotas to set up of the gripping forces of peace (the Blue helmets ).

Its general secretary is currently directed by Ban Ki-moon, successor of Kofi Annan.

Objectives

Under the terms of its charter, UNO thus endeavors to be a place where a better future for all is built, and that through 5 objectives:
  • To maintain the Peace and safety in the world;
  • To develop the friendly relations between the nations;
  • To carry out the international cooperation on all the subjects where it can be useful;
  • To be a center where the efforts of the nations in common objectives are harmonized;
  • To supervise the intangibility of the borders.

UNO is not a world government and does not legislate. However, its resolutions give a legitimacy to the interventions of the States and are applied more and more in the national right and international.

Actions

All these actions perennialize through the signature of treated between the nations.

Operation

The United Nations includes/understands six principal bodies:

Where the Société of the Nations was only one dialog space where the diplomats could meet to establish consensuses, UNO can, with the Safety advice, to make concrete decisions. Those can lead, for example, to the authorization to employ an armed force to maintain or restore peace.

In addition to the six principal bodies, UNO created with the wire of many times specialized agencies (like WHO for health or UNESCO for the international cooperation as regards development of education, sciences and the culture).

Principal work and debates are interpreted or translated in writing in the 6 Official languages of UNO: English, Arab, Chinese, Spanish, French, Russian, but only English and French are the working languages of the seat newyorkais of UNO.

The Secretariat of UNO employs some: 8000 civils servant. UNO and its programs and specialized institutions, including the the World Bank and the the IMF, employ on the whole some: 61000 people in the world.

Composition

Member States

See also: List of the Member States of the United Nations, List of the founding members of the United Nations

Since the adhesion of the Montenegro in 2006, UNO includes from now on to it quasi totality of the States of the world, that is to say 192 on 195 qu ' it recognizes - the only States not being members being the the Vatican (which has a statute of observer however), the islands Cook and Nioué.

However, certain entities claiming with a statute of State are not represented with UNO (for example, the Republic of China having for Taiwan territory). However, they claim to form nations (the Palestinian Autorité, for example). Thus, contrary to its denomination, it is the statute of State and not of Nation which gives access to the Organization. The use of the term of Nations instead of States is explained by the implicit assumption why all the States are State-Nations. According to other reflections, the two concepts are separate: there would exist States without nation, of the States gathering several nations or the nations without State.

General secretaries

  1. Sir Gladwyn Jebb (the United Kingdom), General secretary by interim of 1945 with 1946
  2. Trygve Binds (Norway), General secretary of February 1946 until his resignation in November 1952
  3. Dag Hammarskjöld (Sweden), General secretary of April 1953 until his death in an air crash in Africa in September 1961
  4. U Thant (Burma), General secretary of November 1961 in December 1971
  5. Kurt Waldheim (Austria), General secretary of January 1972 in December 1981
  6. Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (Peru), General secretary of January 1982 in December 1991
  7. Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt), General secretary of January 1992 in December 1996
  8. Kofi Annan (Ghana), General secretary of January 1997 in December 2006
  9. Ban Ki-moon (South Korea) General secretary since January 2007

Financing

The financing of the United Nations and its specialized agencies is ensured by the obligatory contributions of the Member States and voluntary contributions of all organizations, companies or private individuals (Ted Turner for example made a gift of 1 billion US dollars).

The ordinary budget of the United Nations (~ 2 billion dollars in 2005), established every two years, is based on the obligatory contributions fixed by the General meeting. For reasons of independence, the maximum level of the largest contribution was fixed at 22% (the minimal threshold is as for him of 0.01% of the global budget).

As example, for 2001, the largest contributors were the the United States (22%), the Japan (19.63.%), the Germany (9.82%), the France (6.5%), the the United Kingdom (5.57%), the Italy (5.09%), the Canada (2.57%), the Spain (2.53%) and the Brésil (2.39%).

In 2005, the composition was the following one: the United States (22%), the Japan (19.5%), the Germany (8.6%), the France (6.5%), the the United Kingdom (6.1%), the Italy (4.9%), the Canada (2.8%), the Spain (2.5%), the Popular republic of China (2%), the South Korea (1.8%).

It is important to stress that the obligatory contributions are not always filled in time by the Member States (only 31 States out of 192 did it in February 2007. UNO being more and more often committed in operations of maintenance of peace in world (objectives which was not formally envisaged in its Charter), that has an significant impact on its budget because of the high cost of these interventions. The result is that the United Nations have a debt of more than 2,5 billion American dollars. To solve this recurring problem, of many States wish an in-depth reform of the United Nations so as to regulate the bureaucratic heaviness of UNO, which could regulate part of the problem…

Economic and Social Council

See also: Economic and Social Council of the United Nations

Depending on the Economic and Social Council, two types of commissions are found:

History

See also: Creation of the United Nations

Precursor of UNO, the Société of the Nations had been introduced in 1919, following the Traité of Versailles and with an aim of preserving peace. She unfortunately did not play this part fully.

The first bases of the United Nations were posed during the development of the Déclaration of the United Nations, which was signed on January 1st, 1942 with Washington DC. The expression the United Nations is due to the president of the the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt; the purpose of she was to mean that States had decided to meet to prevent the armed conflicts so that wars such as the Première and the Second world war reproduce never again, having with the spirit which these wars occurred twice in “the space of a life” like says it the Charter of the United Nations. But it is with the Conférence of Dumbarton Oaks at Washington DC and especially the Conférence of San Francisco in 1945 that exactly the goal and the operation of UNO were defined.

The text founder of UNO is the Charte of the United Nations, it was signed at the end of the Conference of San Francisco by the representatives of the 50 States founders on June 26th, 1945. It should be noted that the Poland, which had not been represented with the Conference of San Francisco, signed it later, but it is part nevertheless of the 51 original Member States, because its government in exile had previously signed the Declaration of the United Nations.

It is on October 24th, 1945, during the ratification by the majority of the countries signatories, that UNO was born officially. Since, the Journée of the United Nations is celebrated the October 24th each year.

Sit

The Seat of the United Nations, at the request of the American members of Parliament, was built with New York along the East River on a ground acquired thanks to a donation of John Davison Rockefeller Junior. It was inaugurated on January 9th, 1951. The seat of the United Nations enjoys certain diplomatic privileges. Property of the United Nations, the site of the Seat is international territory. I.e., for example, no member of American safety can enter there without the permission of the General secretary.

Five of the six principal bodies of UNO are localized there. Only the the International Court of Justice, of older creation, has its seat with $the Hague with the Netherlands. Many important agencies of the United Nations (WHO, OMM, OMPI, ILO, UIT, HCR, HCDH) have their seat with Geneva (Swiss), European head office of UNO and old seat of the SdN, where are held always two thirds of the activities of the system of the United Nations, or with Vienna like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). And others elsewhere in the world, like UNESCO with Paris in France or that of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) with Montreal with the Canada.

Cold war

Before 1950, the USSR practiced the policy of the empty chair to dispute the recognition of the nationalist China (Taiwan), instead of the communist China (Beijing). Following the War of Korea, where the United States could make recognize the North Korea like State attacker and decide the sending of troops under the aegis of the United Nations, the USSR realized that it was in its interest to sit and its representative left his station never again.

UNO remained during paralyzed very a long time during the Cold war. Both Super power S, the United States and the the USSR being permanent members of the Safety advice, paralyzed the United Nations while misusing their right of Veto (it was used 242 times in 45 years).

To try to counter this paralysis, the resolution Acheson was adopted on the initiative of the United States; it made it possible the Parliament to put forth recommendations with the Member States of UNO. However, this one only was used very little in practice.

Since the end of the Cold war, UNO is found more and more on the front of the scene to prevent or regulate the various conflicts, thanks to the assistance of the blue helmets.

Future

The future of UNO passes more and more by an in-depth reform of its operation. Until now, it was pushed back, but the problem of the budget (its debt) and that of the operation of the Safety advice (the arrival of permanent novel members and extension of its field of competence) become increasingly pressing.

During his mandate, the former general secretary, Kofi Annan, ordered many studies on the ways to be followed to reform the organization. But, for lack of consensus within the permanent members of the Safety advice, they for the moment remained dead letter. In particular, John R. Bolton, permanent representative of the the United States in August 2005, supports a position not achieving the unanimity and thus freezes the possibilities of reform.

March 7th, 2006, the General secretary of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, proposed, in a report/ratio with the General meeting, the Member States a vast reform of the administration of UNO, awaited by the world leaders after the Organization had been shaken by a series of scandals. Mr. Annan presented series of measure going of the delocalization of certain services to the reinforcement of the system of making of the markets. This one was these last years put at evil by the scandal of the program “Pétrole against food” of UNO in Iraq and when an internal survey discovered contestable practices in the sector of the maintenance of peace, having caused tens of million dollars of losses for the Organization.

Heading To invest in the United Nations to give him the means of its world vocation , this ratio of 34 pages recognizes the maladjustment of the current administrative structures to the challenges which UNO is supposed to take up each day, 61 years after its creation. It underlines the vertiginous increase, since the end of the Cold war, of the activities of ground of UNO, in particular of the operations of maintenance of the peace, which absorbs more than 70% of the budget of UNO, evaluated to some 10 billion dollars, without taking account of the U.N. agencies (UNICEF, WFP, UNDP…), which has an equivalent budget. Mr. Annan proposes “to redesign the whole of the secretariat completely, his rules, his structure, his wheels, so that it is adapted better to realities of today” and “to give entirely to nine” the whole of the organization.

See too

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