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The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization tasked to promote and secure international co-operation and to create and maintain international order. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II with the aim of preventing another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, and is subject to extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict. The UN is the largest, most familiar, most internationally represented and most powerful intergovernmental organization in the world.

The UN Charter was drafted at a conference between April and June 1945 in San Francisco, and was signed on 26 June 1945 at the conclusion of the conference; this charter took effect on 24 October 1945, and the UN began operation. The UN's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in major actions in Korea and the Congo, as well as approving the creation of the Israeli state in 1947. The organization's membership grew significantly following widespread decolonization in the 1960s, and by the 1970s its budget for economic and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military and peacekeeping missions across the world with varying degrees of success.

The UN has six principal organs: the General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC; for promoting international economic and social co-operation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the UN Trusteeship Council (inactive since 1994). UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, and UNICEF. The UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese politician and diplomat António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work.

The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UN's effectiveness have been mixed. Some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased.

Selected article

The United Nations Charter is the treaty that forms and establishes the international organization called the United Nations. While this document is occasionally misconstrued as a constitution it is, in fact, an agreement between states and not a compact among the individual peoples to create a government. It was signed at the United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco, California, United States, in 1945, by 50 of the 51 original member countries (Poland, the other original member, which was not represented at the conference, signed it later). It entered into force on October 24, 1945, after being ratified by the five permanent members of the Security Council—the Republic of China (later replaced by the People's Republic of China), France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (later replaced by the Russian Federation), the United Kingdom, and the United States—and a majority of the other signatories.

Selected biography

Dag Hammarskjöld (29 July 1905 – 18 September 1961) was a Swedish diplomat and the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, serving from April 1953 until his death in a plane crash in September 1961.

During his time in office, Hammarskjöld tried to smooth relations between Israel and the Arab states, negotiated the release of 15 U.S. pilots who had captured by the Chinese during the Korean War, established the United Nations Emergency Force, and intervened in the Suez Crisis. While overseeing the decolonization of Africa, he was strongly criticized by the Soviet Union for his decision to send a UN emergency force to keep the peace.

Hammarskjöld is still the only UN Secretary-General to die in office, and is the only person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. U.S. President John F. Kennedy called Hammarskjöld "the greatest statesman of our century".

Selected image

Refugee camp in Zaire
Rwandan refugees making camp in Kimbumba, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), in 1994 following the Rwandan Genocide.

Photo credit: United States Federal Government

Selected quote

Jeffrey Sachs
Despite a decade of criticism and budget cuts, the specialized UN agencies have far more expertise and hands-on experience than any other organizations in the world.

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Dag Hammarskjöld

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