Revision Notes: United Nations Organization | Indian Polity for UPSC CSE PDF Download

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation.

A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organisation was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The headquarters of the United Nations is inManhattan, New York City, and experiences extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna.

The organisation is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict.

In the century prior to the UN’s creation, several international treaty organisations and conferences had been formed to regulate conflicts between nations, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the Paris Peace Conference established the League of Nations to maintain harmony between countries.

This organisation resolved some territorial disputes and created international structures for areas such as postal mail, aviation, and opium control, some of which would later be absorbed into the UN.

However, the League lacked representation for colonial peoples (then half the world’s population) and significant participation from several major powers, including the US, USSR, Germany, and Japan; it failed to act against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, and German expansions under Adolf Hitler that culminated in the Second World War.

The United Nations Charter established six principal bodies of the Organisation: the General Assembly, the United Nations Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the United Nations Trusteeship Council Trusteeship Council (this Council suspended operations in 1994), the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. The Charter allowed for the creation of any other entities that were seen as required. Since its creation of the United Nations is now considerably larger, encompassing numerous specialised organisations and agencies, programmes and funds, training and research bodies as well as other service providers.

There are also numerous subsidiary bodies, including committees, commissions, boards, councils, panels, and working groups.

Specialised organisations and agencies

The United Nations maintains and administers a number of specialised organisations and agencies. These differ from the programmes and funds in that they are headed by an executive board of member states, separate from the General Assembly.Sometimes they do not report to the General Assembly or Security Council but only to their own member states. Some of these bodies also predate the United Nations as is the case for the ITU formed in 1865 to administer an international treaty and the ILO created as part of the League of Nations.

Treaty organisations 

The United Nations maintains, administers or has a working relationship with a number of organisations dedicated to the administration of a variety of international treaties and conventions. At times these perform specific administrative functions while also providing a specific forum for discussing issues around a particular treaty. The organisations themselves generally report to the member states of the treaty rather than to the General Assembly.

Research and training institutes

There are only five officially recognised training bodies of the United Nations System. Irrespective of what does or does not constitute a United Nations organisation, many other institutions serve a research or training purpose, and some are part of other organisations and funds. These are also contained below.

Subsidiary bodies of the General Assembly

The following entities were established by the General Assembly.