Visit to the UN Headquarters in NYC

While we're in NYC, we're going to visit lots of important places, so we each have to do a report on one of the places. I'm doing mine on the United Nations.


The United Nations:

Founded in 1945, the UN is a global organization with the objective of enabling cooperation in international law, security, economy, social progress and human rights issues, and peacekeeping. It currently includes 192 states.

The UN is divided into several administrations:
· the General Assembly
· the Security Council
· the Economic and Social Council
· the Secretariat
· the International Court of Justice

In addition to this, it also has control over several sub-organizations, like the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The most important figure in the UN is the Secretary General, currently Ban-Ki-moon of South Korea.

The organization accepts a number of languages as official, including Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

Aims:

The main objective of the UN could be summarized as the fulfillment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document, ratified in 1948 by the UN General Assembly in Paris is divided into several sections, including:

· Animal rights

· Children's rights

· Civil rights· Collective rights

· Equal rights· Fathers' rights

· Gay rights· Group rights

· Human rights· Inalienable rights

· Individual rights

· Legal rights

· Men's rights

· Natural right

· Negative & positive

· Reproductive rights

· Self-defense

· Social rights

· "Three generations"

· Women's rights

· Workers' rights

· Youth rights

This means that the UN must act as a peace-keeping organization, an international judicial system, an environment-protection organization, and work towards a global education and a decent standard of living.

History:

The United Nations was intended to be a replacement for the "League of Nations", and organization previous to World War II which had failed to prevent this conflict.

The term "United Nations" was first adopted during WWII by Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill as a way of referring to the Allies. The idea of it as the organization it is today first arose during 1943 and 1944. The Allies held conferences with Moscow, Cairo, and Tehran with representatives from France, China, the UK, the USA, and the USSR.

The United Nations itself wasn't created until October 24th, 1945, after the charter had been drafted by 50 nations with the aid of some non-governmental organizations, and ratified by a majority of 46 states plus the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, the USSR, the UK, and the USA).

Membership:

There are currently 192 member states. In order to become a member, a nation must follows the 2 rules of membership established by the charter:

· 1. 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.

· 2. 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.

This map shows the UN member states in blue, and non-members (such as Kosovo and Taiwan) in grey.

The United Nations Headquarters in New York:




The UN HQ are located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood, on the East Side of Manhattan. It is bordered by the First Avenue (west), East 42nd St. (south), East 48th St. (north), and East River (east). This area, although in NYC, is considered international territory.