Portal:United Nations

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

UN 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 51 countries.

The UN was founded after the end of World War II (October 24,1945) 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 political power-structure of when it was founded. 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 193 United Nations member states, including the majority of internationally 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 United Nations 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 United Nations system organizations, 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. The newest Member State is South Sudan, added on July 2011.

More about the United Nations...

Selected article

The ICC headquarters in the Hague

The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. 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. Established in 1945 by the UN 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. English and French are its two official languages.

Selected biography

Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon (born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean diplomat and the current Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ban was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 2006. On 13 October 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On 1 January 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan, and passed several major reforms regarding peacekeeping and UN employment practices.

Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with U.S. President George W. Bush, and Darfur, where he helped persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.

Selected image

Food aid in Kenya
C-130 Hercules planes waiting to deliver food aid in Lokichogio Airport, Kenya, as part of the United Nations World Food Programme, in 2004. The airstrip had recently been cleared of unexploded ordnance, enabling food, clothing and medicine deliveries to be dramatically increased.

Photo credit: Matt Murphy, Office of Weapons Removal and Abatement, United States Department of State

Selected quote

Never measure the height of a mountain until you have reached the top. Then you will see how low it was.
Dag Hammarskjöld, Secretary-General from 1953 to 1961

Did you know?

Flag of Indonesia

Things you can do

Things you can do
  • 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

Other projects

Topics

UN

Specialized agencies

Functions

History

Categories

Categories

Associated Wikimedia

UN on Wikinews  UN on Wikiquote  UN on Wikibooks  UN on Wikisource  UN on Wiktionary  UN on Wikiversity  UN on Commons
News Quotations Manuals & Texts Texts Definitions Resources Images & Media
Wikinews
Wikiquote
Wikibooks
Wikisource
Wiktionary
Wikiversity
Wikimedia Commons
Purge server cache