The United Nations (UN) is a group of countries that came together in 1945. It is made up of 193 Member States right now.
Its mission and work are based on the goals and ideals in its founding Charter, which are carried out by its different organs and agencies.
It works to keep the peace and security of the whole world, protect human rights, help people in need, promote sustainable development, and defend international law.
The main parts of the United Nations
The UN works through its six main bodies. These are:
1. General Assembly
2. Council of Security
3. UN Secretariat
4. The Social and Economic Council
5. Council of Trustees
6. International Court of Justice
General Assembly
• The General Assembly is the UN’s main body for making decisions and deciding what to do.The General Assembly is the only UN group that has representatives from all 193 of the UN’s Member States.
• Every September, all UN members meet in New York City’s General Assembly Hall for the annual General Assembly session and general debate. Many heads of state come and speak at this event.
• The General Assembly needs a two-thirds majority to make decisions on important issues like peace and security, letting new members in, and the budget.
• A simple vote is used to decide on other issues.
• The assembly chooses a new President of the General Assembly every year for a one-year term.
• 6 Main Committees: The six main groups of the General Assembly can work on draughts of resolutions: (1) First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), (2) Second Committee (Economic and Financial), (3) Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural), (4) Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), (5) Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), and (6) Sixth Committee (Legal).
Each Member State can have one person serve it on each Main Committee and on any other committee that may be set up and on which all Member States have the right to be represented.
Member states can also give these committees advisers, professional advisers, experts, or other people with similar roles.
• The other committees:
The General Committee meets from time to time during each session to look at how far the General Assembly and its groups have come and make suggestions for how they can move forward. It is made up of the President of the General Assembly, 21 Vice-Presidents of the Assembly, and the heads of the six main committees. The five people who are always on the Security Council are also the Vice-Presidents.
Its job is to check the credentials of members from Member States and report back to the General Assembly.
Security Council
Under the UN Charter, it is the Security Council’s main job to keep peace and security around the world. It is made up of fifteen member states: China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are the five permanent members, and the other ten members are chosen by the General Assembly on a regional basis for two-year terms.
“Veto power” is the ability of a permanent member to veto (reject) any Security Council resolution. Critics say that the unconditional veto power of the five governments is the most undemocratic thing about the UN. They also say that veto power is the main reason why the international community doesn’t do more to stop war crimes and crimes against humanity. But in 1945, the United States wouldn’t join the United Nations unless it had a veto. The fact that the United States wasn’t in the League of Nations made it less successful. People who support the veto power see it as a way to keep the world stable, a way to stop military operations, and a very important way to stop the U.S. from dominating the world.
Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
It is the main body for coordinating, reviewing, talking about, and making recommendations on economic, social, and environmental issues, as well as putting internationally agreed-upon development goals into action. It has 54 members who are elected by the General Assembly for three-year terms that overlap. It is the main place where the United Nations thinks, talks, and comes up with new ideas about sustainable development.Each year, ECOSOC bases its work on a theme that is important for sustainable growth around the world. • It coordinates the work of the 14 UN specialised agencies, 10 functional commissions, and 5 regional commissions. It also receives reports from 9 UN funds and programmes and makes policy recommendations to the UN system and to Member States.
UN bodies within the purview of the ECOSOC:
• Agencies with specific jobs
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), and the World Bank Group.
International Monetary Fund (IMF) International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) International Maritime Organisation (IMO) International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Universal Postal Union (UPU) World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) World Tourism Organisation (WTO)
Commission on Population and Development Commission for Social Development Commission on Human Rights
Commission on the Status of Women Commission on Drugs Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Commission on Science and Technology for Development Commission on Sustainable Development
• Regional Commissions • United Nations Forum on Forests
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), and Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA). Standing Committees: Committee for Programme and Coordination, Commission on Human Settlements, Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations, and Committee on Negotiations with Intergovernmental Agencies.
United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names • Expert bodies made up of members serving in their personal capacity • Committee for Development Policy • Meeting of Experts on the United Nations Programme in Public Administration and Finance • Ad Hoc Group of Experts on International Cooperation in Tax Matters • Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights • Committee on Energy and Natural Resources for Development • Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues
Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS Programme Coordination Board
Funds and programmes that send reports to ECOSOC include: the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Development Fund for Women, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP), the World Food Programme (WFP), and UN-HABITAT.
Trusteeship Council
• It was set up by Chapter XIII of the UN Charter, which was signed in 1945.
The Trusteeship Council of the United Nations gives an administrative authority to a territory that doesn’t have its own government. A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for some territories that changed hands from one country to another after World War I, or the legal documents that laid out the internationally agreed-upon rules for running the territory on behalf of the League of Nations.
It had to make sure that the right steps were taken to get the Trust Territories ready for self-government and independence. By 1994, all of the Trust Territories had reached either self-government or independence. On November 1, 1994, the Trusteeship Council stopped doing its job.
International Court of Justice (ICJ):
The International Court of Justice is the United Nations’ main court. It was set up by the Charter of the United Nations in June 1945, and it started working in April 1946.
• The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was set up by the League of Nations in 1920, gave way to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
• It is in The Hague, Netherlands, at the Peace Palace. It is made up of 193 states.
• Unlike the other six main UN bodies, it is the only one that is not based in New York (USA).
• It settles legal disputes between countries and gives advice on legal questions brought to it by authorised UN organs and specialised agencies. This is all done in line with international law.
Structure
• The Court is made up of 15 judges who are chosen for nine-year terms by the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations. These parts vote at the same time, but in their own ways.
• A candidate must get a majority of votes from both groups in order to be elected.
• One-third of the Court is chosen every three years, and Judges can run again if they want to. This helps keep things running smoothly.
• The ICJ has an executive body called the Registry that helps it run. It has both English and French as its official languages.
• The Court’s 15 members are spread out among the following regions:
Three came from Africa, two from Latin America and the Caribbean, three from Asia, five from Western Europe and other countries, and two from Eastern Europe.
• Unlike other parts of foreign organisations, the Court is not made up of government representatives. Members of the Court are independent judges who must first swear in open court that they will do their jobs fairly and honestly. • To protect their independence, no Member of the Court can be fired unless all the other Members agree that he or she no longer meets the requirements. In fact, this has never been the case.
UN Secretariat
• The Secretary-General and tens of thousands of foreign UN staff members make up the Secretariat. They do the day-to-day work of the UN as ordered by the General Assembly and the other main bodies of the Organisation.
The General Assembly, on the advice of the Security Council, appoints the Secretary-General as the Organization’s top administrator for a five-year term that can be renewed. Staff members are hired from all over the world and work in duty stations and on peacekeeping missions all over the world.
• There are five regional bodies under the Secretariat:
Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)
ECE stands for the Economic Commission for Europe. ECLAC stands for the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
ESCAP stands for the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, or ESCWA
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, also known as the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) or the UN Human Rights Office, is a department of the United Nations Secretariat that works to promote and protect the human rights that are guaranteed by international law and listed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The OHCHR was set up by the UN General Assembly on December 20, 1946.
• The High Commissioner for Human Rights is in charge of the office. He or she coordinates human rights operations across the UN System and runs the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
