United Nations

An organization of voluntary signatory members of the United Nations (UN) Charter. The United Nations was founded in 1945 as a product of the vision of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Allied nations of World War II, who saw a need for a global police force to create order in the post-World War II era. The UN Charter, which was ratified by the original Allied nations, China, the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, and later France, was aimed at main taining international peace and security and providing solutions for global economic and humanitarian pro blems. The UN Security Council now has 15 permanent members, including the original 5. There are 10 nonpermanent members, who are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly, and a total of more than 190 member countries. The UN's headquarters is in New York City, with additional offices in Geneva, Switzerland, and Vienna, Austria. Since the beginning of the 1990s, the UN has taken a more peacekeeping role, including supervising elections and providing police forces.

There are six organs of the United Nations. The first, the Security Council, is the most important and is responsible for maintaining global peace and security. The 5 permanent member states and 10 temporary seats comprise the Security Council. The second, the Secretariat, [Page 528]is headed by the Secretary General, who traditionally is elected to a five-year renewable term. The current Secretary General is Ban Ki-Moon of South Korea. The third, the General Assembly, is the deliberative body that makes resolutions and mediates disputes, although it does not create statutes or make binding decisions. Resolutions are passed by two thirds of the present majority. The General Assembly also elects the temporary member states. The fourth, the Economic and Social Council, coordinates intergovernmental agencies. The fifth, the International Court of Justice, is located in The Hague, Netherlands, and hears cases related to war crimes and ethnic cleansing. The sixth, the Trusteeship Council, was suspended in 1994. There are at least 14 specialized agencies, such as the International Labor Organization, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Atomic Energy Commission.

The UN's effectiveness has encountered several obstacles throughout its history. Some of the obstacles are conflicts resulting from the Cold War, funding, the expansion of membership to Third World nations, corruption, allegations of sexual abuse by peacekeeping forces, and inaction with tragic results.

The coexistence of East-West ideologies has presented formidable challenges to the UN. Peacekeeping activities suffered during the Cold War when both the United States and the Soviet Union traded vetoes with each other over actions each disapproved. Both countries, in their continuing arguments over conflicts such as the Middle East, the wars in Africa, and the Korean Conflict, have used the UN as a forum for influencing other nations. In the late 1950s, the East-West rivalry prevented new membership for those antagonistic to each other's views. As a result of their conflict, both the United States and the Soviet Union have either outright refused or reduced payment for UN actions. The U.S. arrears had reached $1.3 billion at one time, although it has reduced since 2000.

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