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United NationsUN flag watermark.svg

Welcome to the United Nations Portal

The flag of the United Nations

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, and human rights issues. It was founded in 1945 with the signing of the United Nations Charter by 50 countries.

The UN was founded after the end of World War II by the victorious Allied Powers in the hope that it would act to intervene in conflicts between nations and thereby avoid war. The organization's structure still reflects in some ways the circumstances of its founding. The five permanent members of the UN Security Council, each of which has veto power on any UN resolution, are the main victors of World War II or their successor states: the People's Republic of China (formerly the Republic of China), France, Russia (formerly the Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, and the United States.

There are currently 192 United Nations member states, encompassing almost every recognized independent state. From its headquarters in New York City, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout each year. The organization is divided into five major administrative organs - the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the Economic and Social Council. Additional bodies deal with the governance of all other UN System agencies, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The UN's most visible public figure is the Secretary-General, currently Ban Ki-moon of South Korea, who attained the post on 1 January 2007.

More about the United Nations...

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The ECOSOC chamber

The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations assists the General Assembly in promoting international economic and social cooperation and development. ECOSOC has 54 members, all of whom are elected by the General Assembly for a three-year term. The president is elected for a one-year term and chosen amongst the small or middle powers represented on ECOSOC. ECOSOC meets once a year in July for a four-week session. Since 1998, it has held another meeting each April with finance ministers heading key committees of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Viewed separate from the specialized bodies it coordinates, ECOSOC’s functions include information gathering, advising member nations, and making recommendations. In addition, ECOSOC is well-positioned to provide policy coherence and coordinate the overlapping functions of the UN’s subsidiary bodies and it is in these roles that it is most active.

Selected biography

Dag Hammarskjöld

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 smoothe 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

Peacekeepers in Eritrea
United Nations peacekeepers monitoring the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Photo credit: Dawit Rezenè, World66

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Kofi Annan
We may have different religions, different languages, different coloured skin, but we all belong to one human race. We all share the same basic values.
Kofi Annan, Secretary-General from 1997 to 2006

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Headquarters of the International Criminal Court in the Hague

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  • To tag: Complete Category:United Nations General Assembly observers and find other categories, any articles that appear in the UN footer with project notice, pages that link to the UN Portal, stub tags to any short UN related articles that need them

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