Historical BackgroundOffice of the Historian Bureau of Public Affairs
THE UNITED STATES AND THE FOUNDING OF THE UNITED NATIONS, AUGUST 1941 - OCTOBER 1945
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/pubs/fs/55407.htm
The impetus to establish the United Nations stemmed in large part from the inability of its predecessor, the League of Nations, to prevent the outbreak of the Second World War. Despite Germany’s occupation of a number of European states, and the League’s failure to stop other serious international transgressions in the 1930s, such as Japan’s invasion of Manchuria, many international leaders remained committed to the League’s ideals. Once World War II began, President Franklin D. Roosevelt determined that U.S. leadership was essential for the creation of another international organization aimed at preserving peace, and his administration engaged in international diplomacy in pursuit of that goal. He also worked to build domestic support for the concept of the United Nations. After Roosevelt’s death, President Harry S Truman also assumed the important task of maintaining support for the United Nations and worked through complicated international problems, particularly with the Soviet Union, to make the founding of the new organization possible. After nearly four years of planning, the international community finally established the United Nations in the spring of 1945. Origins of the United Nations The concept of creating a global organization of member states dedicated to preserving international peace through collective security increased in popularity during World War I. The bloodshed of the “Great War” persuaded President Woodrow Wilson, and a number of other American and international leaders, to seek the creation of an international forum in which conflicts could be resolved peacefully. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I, which Wilson negotiated on behalf of the United States, contained a framework for a League of Nations, intended to maintain peace and stability. However, despite Wilson’s efforts to gain the domestic support of political leaders and the American public, he was unable to convince the United States Senate to approve U.S. membership in the League. This was due to strong isolationist sentiment and partisan conflicts, stemming in part from his failure to include any prominent Republicans in the peace negotiations. The League’s opponents criticized it as a threat to American sovereignty and security, and objected most stridently to Article Ten of the League Charter, which committed member states to protect the territorial integrity of all other member states against external aggression. Many American lawmakers argued that Article Ten might obligate the United States to take part in wars in defense of dubious, often contested, colonial boundaries. After considering membership in the League with reservations, the Senate ultimately prevented the United States from joining the League. The absence of the United States weakened the League, which was also hindered in its efforts to resolve disputes by the widespread economic crises of the 1930s, its inability to compel states to abide by its decisions, and its requirement that many decisions--including those involving a response to aggression--be decided unanimously. The fact that member states involved in a dispute were granted a seat on the League’s Council, thereby allowing them to prevent unanimous action, meant that the League eventually resorted to expelling aggressor states such as Japan and Italy, with little effect. Proposing the United Nations Concept President Roosevelt recognized the inherent weaknesses of the League of Nations, but faced with the reality of another world war, also saw the value of planning for the creation of an international organization to maintain peace in the post-World War II era. He felt that this time, the United States needed to play a leading role both in the creation of the organization, and in the organization itself. Moreover, in contrast to the League, the new organization needed the power to enforce key decisions. The first wartime meeting between British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and President Roosevelt, the Atlantic Conference held off the coast of Newfoundland in August 1941, took place before the United States had formally entered the war as a combatant. Despite its official position of neutrality, the United States joined Britain in issuing a joint declaration that became known as the Atlantic Charter. This pronouncement outlined a vision for a postwar order supported, in part, by an effective international organization that would replace the struggling League of Nations. During this meeting, Roosevelt privately suggested to Churchill the name of the future organization: the United Nations. The governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China formalized the Atlantic Charter proposals in January 1942, shortly after the United States entered the war. In the Declaration of the United Nations, these major Allied nations, along with 22 other states, agreed to work together against the Axis powers (Germany, Japan, and Italy), and committed in principle to the establishment of the United Nations after the war. Learning from Woodrow Wilson’s failure to gain Congressional support for the League of Nations, the Roosevelt Administration aimed to include a wide range of administration and elected officials in its effort to establish the proposed United Nations. The State Department played a significant role in this process, and created a Special Subcommittee on International Organization in the Advisory Committee on Postwar Planning to advise Congress. The subcommittee reviewed past efforts at international cooperation, and by March 1943 had drafted a formal proposal to establish a new, more effective international organization. Secretary of State Cordell Hull took the proposal to members of Congress in an effort to build bipartisan support for the proposed postwar organization. Consultations between Congress and the Department of State continued into the summer of 1943, and by August, produced a draft United Nations Charter. Congress repeatedly passed resolutions declaring its support for the establishment of an international organization--and for United States membership in that organization. The major Allied Powers--the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China--reiterated their commitment to forming an international organization in the Moscow Declaration of October 30, 1943, and more concrete international planning for the structure of the new organization commenced. Representatives from these four countries met at Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, DC, from August 21 through October 7, 1944, and the four Allied powers issued a statement of Proposals for the Establishment of a General International Organization, largely based on the draft charter formulated by the State Department’s Subcommittee on International Organization, in consultation with the U.S. Congress. The Department of State undertook a public relations campaign to build support for the United Nations. As part of that effort, the Department printed over 200,000 copies of the Dumbarton Oaks proposal and an informative, eight-page guide to the draft United Nations Charter. The Department worked in concert with interested groups to inform the public about the United Nations and even dispatched officials around the country to answer questions on the proposed organization. By the end of the effort, the Department of State had coordinated almost 500 such meetings.Creation of the United Nations The basic framework for the proposed United Nations rested on President Roosevelt’s vision that the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China would provide leadership in the postwar international system. It was these four states, with the addition of France, that would assume permanent seats in the otherwise rotating membership of the United Nations Security Council. At the Anglo-American Malta Conference in early 1945, the two sides proposed that the permanent members of the Security Council would have a veto. Immediately thereafter, at the Yalta Conference, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom agreed on veto power for the permanent members of the Security Council. This crucial decision essentially required unanimity between the five permanent members on the pressing international decisions related to international security and use of force that would be brought before the Security Council. Churchill and Roosevelt also made an important concession to Soviet leader Josef Stalin’s request that the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic be seated in the United Nations General Assembly, thus increasing the Soviet Union’s seats in that body to three. Stalin had originally requested seats for all sixteen Soviet Socialist Republics, but at Yalta this request was turned down, and the compromise was to allow Ukraine and Byelorussia into the United Nations. The United States originally had countered Stalin’s proposal with the request to allow all fifty American states into the United Nations, a suggestion that encouraged Stalin to agree to the compromise. At Yalta, the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom also drafted invitations to a conference beginning in April 1945 in San Francisco that would formally establish the United Nations. After Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945, days before the scheduled San Francisco Conference, Vice President Harry S Truman took the oath of office and immediately announced that the Conference should go forward as planned. Moved by Roosevelt’s death, Stalin, who had initially planned to send Ambassador Andrei Gromyko as the Soviet representative to the San Francisco conference, announced that he would send Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov as well. This news heartened American officials, who had been concerned about maintaining Soviet interest and participation in the United Nations after a number of disagreements over the extent of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe and the fate of Germany in the postwar period. In an address to Congress shortly thereafter, Truman called upon Americans “regardless of party, race, creed or color, to support our efforts to build a strong and lasting United Nations organization.” The San Francisco Conference, formally known as the United Nations Conference on International Organization, opened on April 25, 1945, with delegations from fifty countries present. The U.S. delegation to San Francisco included Secretary of State Edward R. Stettinius, Jr., former Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and Senators Tom Connally (D-Texas) and Arthur Vandenberg (R-Michigan), as well as other Congressional and public representatives. Among the most controversial issues at the San Francisco Conference was the seating of certain countries, in particular, Argentina, the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics, and Poland. The vote to seat Argentina was particularly contentious because the Soviet Union strongly opposed Argentine membership arguing that Argentina had supported the Axis during the war. However, the other Latin American states refused to support the Ukrainian and Byelorussian candidacies if Argentina were blocked. The United States supported Argentina’s membership, but also defended the Ukrainian and Byelorussian seats in order to maintain the Soviet Union’s participation in the United Nations. The makeup of the Polish government was a continuing source of tension between the wartime allies, and thus a Polish delegation was not seated until after the conference. At San Francisco, the delegates reviewed and often rewrote the text agreed to at Dumbarton Oaks. The delegations negotiated a role for regional organizations under the United Nations umbrella and outlined the powers of the office of Secretary General, including the authority to refer conflicts to the Security Council. Conference participants also considered a proposal for compulsory jurisdiction for a World Court, but Stettinius recognized such an outcome could imperil Senate ratification. The delegates then agreed that each state should make its own determination about World Court membership. The conference did approve the creation of an Economic and Social Council and a Trusteeship Council to assist in the process of decolonization, and agreed that these councils would have rotating geographic representation. The United Nations Charter also gave the United Nations broader jurisdiction over issues that were “essentially within” the domestic jurisdiction of states, such as human rights, than the League of Nations had, and broadened its scope on economic and technological issues. Determining the extent of the veto power of the permanent members of the Security Council proved a more serious potential obstacle to agreement on a United Nations charter. The Soviet Union advocated broad use of the veto, viewing it as a possible tool to curb discussion on conflicts involving a permanent member. Such an interpretation worried the smaller states, which were already hesitant about the permanent veto. In order to gain Soviet agreement to modify such an expansive interpretation of the veto, Truman directed Harry Hopkins, who had many wartime discussions with Stalin, to travel to Moscow and negotiate with the Soviet leader on the issue. After bilateral Soviet-American negotiations in Moscow, the Soviet Union eventually agreed to a less extensive veto power. While the permanent members retained veto power with respect to non-procedural matters, the Security Council would not require a unanimous vote to act, and would have the power to take decisions that would be binding on Member States. Following the resolution of most outstanding issues, the San Francisco Conference closed on June 26, 1945. In a show of support, Truman attended the final session for the signing of the United Nations Charter, and congratulated the delegates for creating a “solid structure upon which we can build a better world.” However, Truman still needed to secure Senate ratification of the Charter. Both he and Stettinius urged the Senate to give its advice and consent to ratification; Truman said, “I want to see the United States do it first.” In a testament to the sustained wartime efforts to build support for the United Nations, the Charter was approved in the Senate on July 28, 1945, by a vote of 89 to 2, with 5 abstentions. (The U.S. ratification followed that of Nicaragua and El Salvador.) The United Nations officially came into existence on October 24, 1945, after the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, China, and France, as well as a majority of the other signatories, had ratified the United Nations Charter.Early Challenges and Future Changes At its first session, on February 14, 1946, the United Nations General Assembly voted to establish its permanent headquarters in New York City. In a world emerging from the overwhelming conflict of World War II, the United Nations seemed to represent hope that such devastation would not recur. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the General Assembly in 1948, symbolized this optimism and idealism. Yet the first true test of the United Nations’ ability to prevent widespread international conflict came in June 1950, when North Korea invaded South Korea. In response, the United Nations Security Council initiated military sanctions against North Korea, an action made possible by the absence of the Soviet representative, who had walked out in protest against the Council’s refusal to seat representatives of Communist China. This allowed the Security Council to assist South Korea in repelling its attackers and maintaining its territorial integrity. Other issues brought before the United Nations in its early years included the Greek and Turkish dispute over Cyprus and the Cuban Missile Crisis. However, as relations between the East and the West deteriorated in the Cold War era, the Yalta decision to grant all permanent members of the Security Council veto power frequently stymied the Security Council. This increased the profile of the General Assembly, where no state enjoyed a veto. As issues pertaining to international security remained deadlocked in the Security Council during the Cold War, the increasingly active General Assembly expanded the focus of the United Nations to include economic development, famine relief, women’s rights, and environmental protection, among other issues. With the end of the Cold War, the United Nations has taken on increasing security responsibilities, negotiated peaceful resolutions to conflict, and deployed peacekeeping forces around the world. In recognition of the organization’s significant contributions, the United Nations and United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan were awarded the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian Nobel Committee declared in its award citation, “Today the organization is at the forefront of efforts to achieve peace and security in the world, and of the international mobilization aimed at meeting the world's economic, social and environmental challenges...the only negotiable route to global peace and cooperation goes by way of the United Nations.”Office of the HistorianBureau of Public AffairsU.S. Department of StateOctober 2005
There are currently 192 member states, including nearly every recognized independent state in the world. From its headquarters on international territory in New York City, the UN and its specialized agencies decide on substantive and administrative issues in regular meetings held throughout the year. The organization is divided into administrative bodies, primarily:
HistoryMain article: History of the United Nations The signing of the UN Charter in San Francisco, 1945 The UN was founded as a successor to the League of Nations, which was widely considered to have been ineffective in its role as an international governing body, as it had been unable to prevent World War II. The term "United Nations" was first used by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt,[2] in the 1942 Declaration by United Nations, which united the Allied countries of WWII under the Atlantic Charter, and soon became a term widely used to refer to them. Declarations signed at wartime Allied conferences in 1943 espoused the idea of the UN, and in 1944, representatives of the major Allied powers met to elaborate on the plans at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference.[3] Those and later talks outlined the organization's proposed purposes, membership, organs, and ideals in regards to peace, security, and cooperation.
OrganizationMain article: United Nations System The United Nations system is based on five principal organs (formerly six - the Trusteeship Council suspended operations in 1994);[5] the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice.
The six official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish,[1] while the Secretariat uses two working languages, English and French. Five of the official languages were chosen when the UN was founded; Arabic was added later in 1973. The United Nations Editorial Manual states that the standard for English language documents is British usage and Oxford spelling (en-gb-oed), and the Chinese writing standard is Simplified Chinese. This replaced Traditional Chinese in 1971 when the UN representation of China was changed from the Republic of China to People's Republic of China. The Republic of China is now commonly known as "Taiwan".
General Assembly The General Assembly Main article: United Nations General Assembly The General Assembly is the main deliberative assembly of the United Nations. Composed of all United Nations member states, the assembly meets in regular yearly sessions under a president elected from among the member states. Over a two-week period at the start of each session, all members have the opportunity to address the assembly. Traditionally, the Secretary-General makes the first statement, followed by the president of the assembly. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Westminster Central Hall in London and included representatives of 51 nations.
When the General Assembly votes on important questions, a two-thirds majority of those present and voting is required. Examples of important questions include: recommendations on peace and security; election of members to organs; admission, suspension, and expulsion of members; and, budgetary matters. All other questions are decided by majority vote. Each member country has one vote. Apart from approval of budgetary matters, resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security that are under Security Council consideration.
Conceivably, the one state, one vote power structure could enable states comprising just eight percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a two-thirds vote.[citation needed] However, as no more than recommendations, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which a recommendation by member states constituting just eight percent of the world's population, would be adhered to by the remaining ninety-two percent of the population, should they object.
SecretariatMain article: United Nations Secretariat The Secretariat building at the UN headquarters The United Nations Secretariat is headed by the Secretary-General, assisted by a staff of international civil servants worldwide. It provides studies, information, and facilities needed by United Nations bodies for their meetings. It also carries out tasks as directed by the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the UN Economic and Social Council, and other UN bodies. The United Nations Charter provides that the staff be chosen by application of the "highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity," with due regard for the importance of recruiting on a wide geographical basis.
The Charter provides that the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any authority other than the UN. Each UN member country is enjoined to respect the international character of the Secretariat and not seek to influence its staff. The Secretary-General alone is responsible for staff selection.
The Secretary-General's duties include helping resolve international disputes, administering peacekeeping operations, organizing international conferences, gathering information on the implementation of Security Council decisions, and consulting with member governments regarding various initiatives. Key Secretariat offices in this area include the Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter that, in his or her opinion, may threaten international peace and security.
Envisioned by Franklin D. Roosevelt as a "world moderator", the position is defined in the UN Charter as the organization's "chief administrative officer",[9] but the Charter also states that the Secretary-General can bring to the Security Council's attention "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security",[10] giving the position greater scope for action on the world stage. The position has evolved into a dual role of an administrator of the UN organization, and a diplomat and mediator addressing disputes between member states and finding consensus to global issues.[8]
The Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly, after being recommended by the Security Council. The selection can be vetoed by any member of the Security Council,[11] and the General Assembly can theoretically override the Security Council's recommendation if a majority vote is not achieved, although this has not happened so far.[12] There are no specific criteria for the post, but over the years it has become accepted that the post shall be held for one or two terms of five years, that the post shall be appointed based on geographical rotation, and that the Secretary-General shall not originate from one of the five permanent Security Council member states.[12]
International Court of JusticePeace Palace, seat of the ICJ at The Hague, Netherlands Main article: International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ), located in The Hague, Netherlands, is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. Established in 1945 by the United Nations Charter, the Court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice. The Statute of the International Court of Justice, similar to that of its predecessor, is the main constitutional document constituting and regulating the Court.[14]
It is based in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands, sharing the building with the Hague Academy of International Law, a private centre for the study of international law. Several of the Court's current judges are either alumni or former faculty members of the Academy. Its purpose is to adjudicate disputes among states. The court has heard cases related to war crimes, illegal state interference and ethnic cleansing, among others, and continues to hear cases.[15]
A related court, the International Criminal Court (ICC), began operating in 2002 through international discussions initiated by the General Assembly. It is the first permanent international court charged with trying those who commit the most serious crimes under international law, including war crimes and genocide. The ICC is functionally independent of the UN in terms of personnel and financing, but some meetings of the ICC governing body, the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute, are held at the UN. There is a "relationship agreement" between the ICC and the UN that governs how the two institutions regard each other legally.[16]
Economic and Social CouncilMain article: United Nations Economic and Social Council The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) 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.
Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations. The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council. —United Nations Charter, Chapter 2, Article 4, http://www.un.org/aboutun/charter/ The Group of 77 at the UN is a loose coalition of developing nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations. There were 77 founding members of the organization, but the organization has since expanded to 130 member countries. The group was founded on 15 June 1964 by the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The first major meeting was in Algiers in 1967, where the Charter of Algiers was adopted and the basis for permanent institutional structures was begun.[19]
The founders of the UN had envisaged that the organization would act to prevent conflicts between nations and make future wars impossible, however the outbreak of the Cold War made peacekeeping agreements extremely difficult due to the division of the world into hostile camps. Following the end of the Cold War, there were renewed calls for the UN to become the agency for achieving world peace, as there are several dozen ongoing conflicts that continue to rage around the globe.
Peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo A 2005 RAND Corp study found the UN to be successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts. It compared UN nation-building efforts to those of the United States, and found that seven out of eight UN cases are at peace, as opposed to four out of eight US cases at peace.[20] Also in 2005, the Human Security Report documented a decline in the number of wars, genocides and human rights abuses since the end of the Cold War, and presented evidence, albeit circumstantial, that international activism — mostly spearheaded by the UN — has been the main cause of the decline in armed conflict since the end of the Cold War.[21] Situations where the UN has not only acted to keep the peace but also occasionally intervened include the Korean War (1950-1953), and the authorization of intervention in Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
The UN is one of the official supporters of the World Security Forum, a major international conference on the effects of global catastrophes and disasters, taking place in the United Arab Emirates, in October 2008.
Human rights and humanitarian assistanceEleanor Roosevelt with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1949 The pursuit of human rights was a central reason for creating the UN. World War II atrocities and genocide led to a ready consensus that the new organization must work to prevent any similar tragedies in the future. An early objective was creating a legal framework for considering and acting on complaints about human rights violations. The UN Charter obliges all member nations to promote "universal respect for, and observance of, human rights" and to take "joint and separate action" to that end. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, though not legally binding, was adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 as a common standard of achievement for all. The Assembly regularly takes up human rights issues.
The UN and its agencies are central in upholding and implementing the principles enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A case in point is support by the UN for countries in transition to democracy. Technical assistance in providing free and fair elections, improving judicial structures, drafting constitutions, training human rights officials, and transforming armed movements into political parties have contributed significantly to democratization worldwide. The UN has helped run elections in countries with little democratic history, including recently in Afghanistan and East Timor. The UN is also a forum to support the right of women to participate fully in the political, economic, and social life of their countries. The UN contributes to raising consciousness of the concept of human rights through its covenants and its attention to specific abuses through its General Assembly, Security Council resolutions, or International Court of Justice rulings.
The purpose of the United Nations Human Rights Council, established in 2006,[25] is to address human rights violations. The Council is the successor to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, which was often criticised for the high-profile positions it gave to member states that did not guarantee the human rights of their own citizens[26] The council has 47 members distributed by region, which each serve three year terms, and may not serve three consecutive terms.[27] A candidate to the body must be approved by a majority of the General Assembly. In addition, the council has strict rules for membership, including a universal human rights review. While some members with questionable human rights records have been elected, it is fewer than before with the increased focus on each member state's human rights record.[28]
The rights of some 370 million indigenous peoples around the world is also a focus for the UN, with a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples being approved by the General Assembly in 2007.[29] The declaration outlines the individual and collective rights to culture, language, education, identity, employment and health, thereby addressing post-colonial issues which had confronted indigenous peoples for centuries. The declaration aims to maintain, strengthen and encourage the growth of indigenous institutions, cultures and traditions. It also prohibits discrimination against indigenous peoples and promotes their active participation in matters which concern their past, present and future.[29]
In conjunction with other organizations such as the Red Cross, the UN provides food, drinking water, shelter and other humanitarian services to populaces suffering from famine, displaced by war, or afflicted by other disasters. Major humanitarian branches of the UN are the World Food Programme (which helps feed more than 100 million people a year in 80 countries), the office of the High Commissioner for Refugees with projects in over 116 countries, as well as peacekeeping projects in over 24 countries.
Social and economic developmentMillennium Development Goals
The UN also promotes human development through various related agencies. The World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF), for example, are independent, specialized agencies and observers within the UN framework, according to a 1947 agreement. They were initially formed as separate from the UN through the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944.[30]
MandatesSee also: Category:United Nations Security Council mandates From time to time the different bodies of the United Nations pass resolutions which contain operating paragraphs that begin with the words "requests", "calls upon", or "encourages", which the Secretary-General interprets as a mandate to set up a temporary organization or do something. These mandates can be as little as researching and publishing a written report, or mounting a full scale peace-keeping operation (usually the exclusive domain of the Security Council).
Although the specialized institutions, such as the WHO, were originally set up by this means, they are not the same as mandates because they are permanent organizations that exist independently of the UN with their own membership structure. One could say that original mandate was simply to cover the process of setting up the institution, and has therefore long expired. Most mandates expire after a limited time period and require renewal from the body which set them up.
One of the outcomes of the 2005 World Summit was a mandate (labeled id 17171) for the Secretary-General to "review all mandates older than five years originating from resolutions of the General Assembly and other organs". To facilitate this review and to finally bring coherence to the organization, the Secretariat has produced an on-line registry of mandates to draw together the reports relating to each one and create an overall picture.[32]
Funding Main donators to the UN budget, 2006[35]Member state Contribution (% of UN budget) United States 22.00% Japan 16.624% Germany 8.66% United Kingdom 6.13% France 6.03% Italy 4.89% Canada 2.81% China 2.667% Spain 2.52% Mexico 1.88% Australia 1.59% Brazil 1.52% Other member states 22.679% The UN is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The regular two-year budgets of the UN and its specialized agencies are funded by assessments. The General Assembly approves the regular budget and determines the assessment for each member. This is broadly based on the relative capacity of each country to pay, as measured by their Gross National Income (GNI), with adjustments for external debt and low per capita income.[36]
The Assembly has established the principle that the UN should not be overly dependent on any one member to finance its operations. Thus, there is a 'ceiling' rate, setting the maximum amount any member is assessed for the regular budget. In December 2000, the Assembly revised the scale of assessments to reflect current global circumstances. As part of that revision, the regular budget ceiling was reduced from 25% to 22%. The U.S. is the only member that has met the ceiling. In addition to a ceiling rate, the minimum amount assessed to any member nation (or 'floor' rate) is set at 0.001% of the UN budget. Also, for the least developed countries (LDC), a ceiling rate of 0.01% is applied.[36]
The current operating budget is estimated at $4.19 billion[36] (refer to table for major contributors).
A large share of UN expenditures addresses the core UN mission of peace and security. The peacekeeping budget for the 2005-2006 fiscal year is approximately $5 billion (compared to approximately $1.5 billion for the UN core budget over the same period), with some 70,000 troops deployed in 17 missions around the world.[37] UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular funding scale, but including a weighted surcharge for the five permanent Security Council members, who must approve all peacekeeping operations. This surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries. As of 1 January 2008, the top 10 providers of assessed financial contributions to United Nations peacekeeping operations were: the United States, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, China, Canada, Spain and the Republic of Korea.[38]
Special UN programmes not included in the regular budget (such as UNICEF and UNDP) are financed by voluntary contributions from member governments. Most of this is financial contributions, but some is in the form of agricultural commodities donated for afflicted populations.
Personnel policy The UN and its agencies are immune to the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding UN's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries. This independence allows agencies to implement human resources policies that may even be contrary to the laws of a host - or a member country.[citation needed]
Despite their independence in matters of human resources policy, the UN and its agencies voluntarily apply the laws of member states regarding same-sex marriages, allowing decisions about the status of employees in a same-sex partnership to be based on nationality. The UN and its agencies recognize same-sex marriages only if the employees are citizens of countries that recognize the marriage. This practice is not specific to the recognition of same-sex marriage but reflects a common practice of the UN for a number of human resources matters. It has to be noted though that some agencies provide limited benefits to domestic partners of their staff and that some agencies do not recognise same-sex marriage or domestic partnership of their staff.
ReformMain article: Reform of the United Nations Proposed logo for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, which would involve direct election of a country's representative by its citizens Since its founding, there have been many calls for reform of the United Nations, although little consensus on how to do so. Some want the UN to play a greater or more effective role in world affairs, while others want its role reduced to humanitarian work.[39] There have also been numerous calls for the UN Security Council's membership to be increased, for different ways of electing the UN's Secretary-General, and for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.
The UN has also been accused of bureaucratic inefficiency and waste. During the 1990s the United States withheld dues citing inefficiency, and only started repayment on the condition that a major reforms initiative was introduced. In 1994, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) was established by the General Assembly to serve as an efficiency watchdog.[40]
In September 2005, the UN convened a World Summit that brought together the heads of most member states, calling the summit "a once-in-a-generation opportunity to take bold decisions in the areas of development, security, human rights and reform of the United Nations."[41] Kofi Annan had proposed that the summit agree on a global "grand bargain" to reform the UN, renewing the organisation's focus on peace, security, human rights and development, and to make it better equipped at facing 21st century issues. The result of the summit was a compromise text agreed on by world leaders,[42] which included the creation of a Peacebuilding Commission to help countries emerging from conflict, a Human Rights Council, and a democracy fund, a clear and unambiguous condemnation of terrorism "in all its forms and manifestations", and agreements to devote more resources to the Office of Internal Oversight Services, to spend billions more on achieving the Millennium Development Goals, to wind up the Trusteeship Council due to the completion of its mission, and that the international community has a "responsibility to protect" - the duty to intervene in when national governments fail to fulfil their responsibility to protect their citizens from atrocious crimes,
The Office of Internal Oversight Services is being restructured to more clearly define its scope and mandate, and will receive more resources. In addition, to improve the oversight and auditing capabilities of the General Assembly, an Independent Audit Advisory Committee (IAAC) is being created. In June 2007, the Fifth Committee created a draft resolution for the terms of reference of this committee.[43][44] An ethics office was established in 2006, responsible for administering new financial disclosure and whistleblower protection policies. Working with the OIOS, the ethics office also plans to implement a policy to avoid fraud and corruption.[45] The Secretariat is in the process of reviewing all UN mandates that are more than five years old. The review is intended to determine which duplicative or unnecessary programmes should be eliminated. Not all member states are in agreement as to which of the over 7000 mandates should be reviewed. The dispute centres on whether mandates that have been renewed should be examined. As of September 2007, the process is ongoing.[46]
Controversy and criticism It has been suggested that it may be better to integrate the information in this article's Criticism or Controversy section(s) into the article as a whole to achieve a more neutral presentation. (Discuss) There has been controversy and criticism of the UN organization and its activities since at least the 1950s. In the United States, an early opponent of the UN was the John Birch Society, which began a "get US out of the UN" campaign in 1959, charging that the UN's aim was to establish a "One World Government." In 1967, Richard Nixon, while running for President of the United States, criticized the UN as "obsolete and inadequate" for dealing with then-present crises like the Cold War.[47]Jeane Kirkpatrick, who was appointed by Ronald Reagan to be United States Ambassador to the United Nations, wrote in a 1983 opinion piece in The New York Times that the process of discussions at the Security Council "more closely resembles a mugging" of the United States "than either a political debate or an effort at problem solving."[48] In a February 2003 speech, soon before the United States invasion of Iraq (for which he had been unable to get UN approval), George W. Bush said, "free nations will not allow the United Nations to fade into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society."[49] In 2005, Bush appointed John R. Bolton to the position of Acting U.S. Ambassador to the UN; Bolton had made several statements critical of the UN, including saying, in 1994, "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States."[50]
The adoption of UNSCOP's recommendation to partition Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in 1947[51] was one of the earliest decisions of the UN. Since then, it maintained a central role in this region, especially by providing support for Palestinian refugees via the UNRWA and by providing a platform for Palestinian political claims via the CEIRPP, the UNDPR, the SCIIP, the UNISPAL and the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The UN has sponsored several peace negotiations between the parties, the latest being the 2002 Road map for peace.
In recent years, the Middle East was the subject of 76% of country-specific UNGA resolutions, 100% of the Human Rights Council resolutions, 100% of the Commission on the Status of Women resolutions, 50% of reports from the World Food Program, 6% of Security Council resolutions and 6 of the 10 Emergency sessions. Of note is Resolution 3379 (1975) stating that "zionism is racism"; it was rescinded in 1991. These decisions, passed with the support of the OIC countries, invariably criticize Israel for its treatment of Palestinians. Many have qualified this degree of criticism as excessive.[who?] In particular, the UNHRC was widely criticized in 2007 for failing to condemn other human rights abusers besides Israel.
The United States has been criticized as well as supported for vetoing most UNSC decisions critical of Israel on the basis of their biased language, the so-called Negroponte doctrine.
Since 1961, Israel has been barred from the Asia regional group. In 2000, it was accepted within the WEOG group. The UNRWA has been accused of perpetuating the plight of Palestinian refugees. Although the UN condemns antisemitism, it has been accused of tolerating antisemitic remarks within its walls. Some argue that disproportional criticism of Israel constitutes a new form of antisemitism. UN personnel have been accused of participating directly in the armed conflict on several occasions.
Oil-for-Food ProgrammeSee also: Oil-for-Food Programme The Oil-for-Food Programme was established by the UN in 1996 to allow Iraq to sell oil on the world market in exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian needs of ordinary Iraqi citizens who were affected by international economic sanctions, without allowing the Iraqi government to rebuild its military in the wake of the first Gulf War. Over $65 billion worth of Iraqi oil was sold on the world market. Officially, about $46 billion was used for humanitarian needs. Additional revenue paid for Gulf Warreparations through a Compensation Fund, UN administrative and operational costs for the Programme (2.2%), and the weapons inspection programme (0.8%).[citation needed]
The programme was discontinued in late 2003 amidst allegations of widespread abuse and corruption. Benon Sevan, the former director, was suspended and then resigned from the UN, as an interim progress report of a UN-sponsored investigation concluded that Sevan had accepted bribes from the Iraqi regime, and recommended that his UN immunity be lifted to allow for a criminal investigation.[52] Beyond Sevan, Kojo Annan was alleged to have illegally procured Oil-for-Food contracts on behalf of the Swiss company Cotecna. India's foreign minister, K. Natwar Singh, was removed from office because of his role in the scandal. And the Cole Inquiry investigated whether the Australian Wheat Board breached any laws with its contracts with Iraq.[53]
OthersAlbin Kurti, an activist from Kosovo, has accused the United Nations, who have governed Kosovo since 1999, of persecuting and arresting him for political reasons. His statements are supported by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and International Helsinki Federation. The UN-appointed judge, according to an Amnesty report, "approached the prosecutor after the hearing —in the absence of either Albin Kurti or his court-appointed lawyer—to clarify what the prosecution would like to recommend in relation to his detention."[54]
Further reading"Think Again: The United Nations", Madeleine K. Albright, Foreign Policy, September/October, 2004 Hans Köchler, Quo Vadis, United Nations?, in: Law Review, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, College of Law, May 2005 Online version An Insider's Guide to the UN, Linda Fasulo, Yale University Press (1 November 2003), hardcover, 272 pages, ISBN 0-300-10155-4 United Nations: The First Fifty Years, Stanley Mesler, Atlantic Monthly Press (1 March 1997), hardcover, 416 pages, ISBN 0-87113-656-2 United Nations, Divided World: The UN's Roles in International Relations edited by Adam Roberts and Benedict Kingsbury, Oxford University Press; 2nd edition (1 January 1994), hardcover, 589 pages, ISBN 0-19-827926-4 A Guide to Delegate Preparation: A Model United Nations Handbook, edited by Scott A. Leslie, The United Nations Association of the United States of America, 2004 edition (October 2004), softcover, 296 pages, ISBN 1-880632-71-3 "U.S. At War - International." Time Magazine XLV.19 7 May 1945: 25-28. The Oxford Handbook on the United Nations, edited by Thomas G. Weiss and Sam Daws, Oxford University Press, July 2007, hardcover, 896 pages, ISBN 9780199279517, ISBN 0199279519