United Nations

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization created in the aftermath of World War II to promote peace and prosperity among and within nations and states. Its formal existence began on October 24, 1945, with the ratification of the UN Charter by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and other signatories.

The UN is generally considered to be the successor to the League of Nations, which was established in 1919 to promote international cooperation, peace, and security. As the league's international role faded in the 1930s and 1940s, various national governments agreed to form a new organization. They met in San Francisco in 1945 to draw up the UN Charter. As of December 2009, the UN had 192 member states; Montenegro (which joined in 2006) is its newest member.

The charter is the constitution of the UN, detailing rights and obligations of member states and establishing and describing UN organs and procedures. According to its charter, the purposes of the UN are the following:

(1) to maintain international peace and security …

(2) to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples …

(3) to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms…

(4) to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these common ends. (UN, 2005, p. 5)

The following principles guide the work of the UN (2004, p. 5):

• 1.
  All its members have sovereign equality.
• 2.
  All members are to fulfill in good faith their Charter obligations.
• 3.
  They are to settle their international disputes by peaceful means.
• 4.
  They are to refrain from threat or use of force against any other state.
• 5.
  They are to give the UN every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the Charter.
• 6.
  Nothing in the Charter is to authorize the UN to intervene in matters that are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.

Countries that accept the obligations and responsibilities entailed in the UN Charter may apply for membership; the General Assembly admits new members on the recommendation of the Security Council. The charter also allows for expulsion of a member, but this has never occurred.

The UN has six principal organs: (1) General Assembly, (2) Security Council, (3) Economic and Social Council, (4) Trusteeship Council, (5) International Court of Justice, and (6) Secretariat. There are also numerous UN programs and funds (e.g., UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund], UN-Habitat, UNDP [United Nations Development Programme]), specialized agencies (e.g., UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization], WHO [World Health Organization]), and thousands of nongovernmental organizations associated with the UN in a variety of ways.

These UN organs are heavily dependent on data, methods, theories, topics and practices, many of them specific to the field of geography.

Like the discipline of geography, the work of the UN is broad in scope but integrative in nature, with an emphasis on education and capacity building. The work requires definition and understanding of place and its dimensions.

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