UNİTED NATİONS

Why a United Nations?

The UN was founded in 1945 in San Francisco by 51 states. It was the successor to the League of Nations, that had failed to effectively counter aggression in the 1930 Japan simply quit when the League condemned Japanies aggression against China. Like the League , the UN founded to increase international order and the rule of law to prevent another world war.

The international institutions set up at the end of World War II are increasingly being questioned. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were the subject of a critical congressional report in Washington last month. The World Trade Organization, successor to the postwar GATT, has yet to regain its balance after the Seattle protests. On Mondaya thoughtful report asked what the United Nations exists for.

The report comes from none other than Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-general. Despite a career spent toiling within the UN bureaucracy, he has evinced a Gorbachev-like openness about its faults and a willingness to countenance restructuring. His new report includes an attack on the General Assembly's habit of passing countless mandates that never get phased out. And it accepts that the United Nations still has a way to go in modernizing its managerial procedures. No organization that averages 300 days to hire someone can possibly be efficient.

The report acknowledges that the United Nations has not kept up with changes in the international order. Its founding charter presupposed that war between states would constitute the most serious security threat, but far more people have been killed recently in civil wars and ethnic cleansing. To bring the United Nations up to date, Mr. Annan wants it to focus on people, rather than on the member governments that have traditionally been its constituents. This would allow it to side with citizens against governments in Kosovo-type cases.

Mr. Annan also proposes to harness new technology to the United Nations' humanitarian purposes. He has plans to distribute medical information via the Internet to poor countries. He promises a UN Information Technology Service to train groups in the developing world in the uses and opportunities of information technology. And he has persuaded LM Ericsson, the Swedish wireless telecom group, to create a global network of wireless communications for use by relief workers in natural disasters and emergencies.

The world needs institutions to manage globalization. The question is whether the United Nations is up to the job. Mr. Annan's report leaves no doubt about his own appetite for the challenge. But he depends on the backing of member states, which have a poor record of giving the United Nations the resources it needs to tackle peacekeeping, refugee relief and scores of other pressing projects.

The purposes and principles of the United Nations

The UN is the closest thing to a world government that has ever existed, but it is not a world government. İts members are sovereign states that has not empowered the UN to enforce its will within states’, territories except with the consent of those states’ government. Thus, although the UN strengthens world order, its desing acknowledges the relaties of international anarchy and the unwillingness of states to surrender their sovereignty. Within these limits , the basic purpose of the UN is to provide a global institutional structure through that states can sometimes settles conflicts with less reliance on the use of force.

The UN Charter is based on the principles that states are equal under international law; that states have full-sovereignty over their own affairs; that states should have full-independence and territorial integrity; and that states should carry out their international obligations __ such as respecting diplomatic privileges, refraining from committing aggression, and observing the terms of treaties they sign. The Charter also lays out the structure of the UN and the methods by that it operates.

Article 1

The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

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 for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4. To be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

Article 2

The Organization and its Members, in pursuit of the Purposes stated in Article 1, shall act in accordance with the following Principles.

1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

5. All Members shall give the United Nations every assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the present Charter, and shall refrain from giving assistance to any state against which the United Nations is taking preventive or enforcement action.

6. The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.

7. Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state or shall require the Members to submit such matters to settlement under the present Charter; but this principle shall not prejudice the application of enforcement measures under Chapter VII.³

Structure of the UN

The Secretariat

The secretary-general is nominated by the Security Council and must be approved by the General Assembly. The term of office is 5 years and may be renewed. Boutros-Ghali in 1996 fought for a second term with the support of almost every UN member, but the US opposed and prevailed. Kofi Annan, the current secretary-general, finally emerged as a consensus choice.

The Secretariat of the UN is its executive branch, headed by the secretary-general. It is a bureaucracy for administering UN policy and programs, just as the State Department is a bureaucracy for US foreign policy. In security matters the secretary-general personally works with the Security Council; third world development programs are coordinated by a second in comman-the Director General for Development and International Economic Cooperation. The Secretariat is divided into functional areas , with undersecretaries-general and assistant secretaries general.

One purpose of the UN Secretariat is to begin to develop and international civil services of diplomats and bureaucrat whose loyalties are at the global level, not to their particular states are originals. The UN Charter sets the secretary-general and staff apart from the authority of national governments and calls on member states to respect the staff’s exclusively International Character. The UN has been fairly successful in this regard; the secretary-general is most often seen as an independent diplomats thinking about the whole world’s interests , not a pawn of any state.

The General Assembly

The General Assembly is made up of all 185 member states of the UN , each with one vote. It usually meets every fall, from late September through January, in plenary session. State leaders or foreign ministers generally come through one by one to address this assemblage.

The Assembly convenes for special sessions every few years on general topics such as economic cooperation. The Assembly has met in emergency session in the past to deal with an immediate threat to international peace and security, but this has happened only nine times and has now become uncommon.

The General Assembly’s main power lies in its control of finances for UN programs and operation, including peacekeeping. It also can resolutions on various matters, but these are not binding on the members. They are purely advisory and at times have served largely to vent frustrations of the third world majority. Finally the Assembly coordinates UN programs and agencies through its own system of committees, commissions, councils, and so forth.

The Assembly coordinates Un programs and agencies through the Economic and Social Council(ECOSOC), that has 54 member states elected by the General Assembly for three year terms. ECOSOC manages the overlapping work of a large number of programs and agencies. It regional commissions look at how UN programs worked together in a particular region; its functional commission deal with global topics such as population growth, narcotics trafficking, human rights and the status of women; and its expert bodies work on technical subjects that cut across various UN programs in areas such as crime prevention, public finances and geographical names.

The Security Council

The Security Council is responsible for maintaining international peace and security and for restoring peace when it brings down. Its decision are binding on all Un member states. The security council has tremendous power the define the existence and nature of a security threat, the structure the response to such a threat, and to enforce its decisions through mandatory directives to UN members.

The Security Council shall consist of fifteen Members of the United Nations. The Republic of China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the United States of America shall be permanent members of the Security Council. The General Assembly shall elect ten other Members of the United Nations to be non-permanent members of the Security Council, due regard being specially paid, in the first instance to the contribution of Members of the United Nations to the maintenance of international peace and security and to the other purposes of the Organization, and also to equitable geographical distribution.The United Nations, its Members confer on the Security Council primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, and agree that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf.In discharging these duties the Security Council shall act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations. The Security Council shall submit annual and, when necessary, special reports to the General Assembly for its consideration.

The Security Council shall be so organized as to be able to function continuously. Each member of the Security Council shall for this purpose be represented at all times at the seat of the Organization.The Security Council shall hold periodic meetings at which each of its members may, if it so desires, be represented by a member of the government or by some other specially designated representative.The Security Council may hold meetings at such places other than the seat of the Organization as in its judgment will best facilitate its work.

The Economic and Social Council

The Economic and Social Council shall consist of fifty-four Members of the United Nations elected by the General Assembly.At the first election after the increase in the membership of the Economic and Social Council from twenty-seven to fifty-four members, in addition to the members elected in place of the nine members whose term of office expires at the end of that year, twenty-seven additional members shall be elected. Of these twenty-seven additional members, the term of office of nine members so elected shall expire at the end of one year, and of nine other members at the end of two years, in accordance with arrangements made by the General Assembly.Each member of the Economic and Social Council shall have one representative.

The Economic and Social Council may make or initiate studies and reports with respect to international economic, social, cultural, educational, health, and related matters and may make recommendations with respect to any such matters to the General Assembly, to the Members of the United Nations, and to the specialized agencies concerned.It may make recommendations for the purpose of promoting respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all.

It may coordinate the activities of the specialized agencies through consultation with and recommendations to such agencies and through recommendations to the General Assembly and to the Members of the United Nations.

The Economic and Social Council shall set up commissions in economic and social fields and for the promotion of human rights, and such other commissions as may be required for the performance of its functions.

The Economic and Social Council shall invite any Member of the United Nations to participate, without vote, in its deliberations on any matter of particular concern to that Member.

The Economic and Social Council shall adopt its own rules of procedure, including the method of selecting its President.

	Military Staff Committee