United Nations

The world's preeminent international organization, the United Nations (UN), has played a role in almost every major international controversy since World War II. Its primary forums are the Security Council, with its five permanent members, and the General Assembly, which includes all the nations of the world. The UN's primary functions include the pursuit of collective security, peacekeeping, weapons inspections, the promotion of economic development, global health initiatives, and humanitarian assistance such as famine relief and responding to natural disasters. Its many agencies are also involved in protecting religious, cultural, and historical sites of interest, and the UN has provided a forum for negotiation of disputes between nations as well as for interstate and ethnoreligious conflicts.

[Page 1327]Because of the imperial and colonial nature of the ...