United Nations

1. The UN was founded as a successor to the League of Nations.
2. The term "United Nations" was first used by Winston Churchill & Franklin D. Roosevelt , in the 1942 .
3. On 25 April 1945, the UN Conference on International Organization began in San Francisco, by 50 governments and a number of NGOs in drafting the Charter of the United Nations . The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council - France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, The U.K. and the USA & by a majority of the other 46 signatories. The first meetings of the General Assembly, and the Security Council, took place in Westminster Central Hall in London in January 1946.
4. With the addition of Montengro on 28 June 2006, there are currently 192 UN Members States including all fully recognized independent States apart from Vatican City which has observer status.
5. The United Nations system is based on six principal organs - the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice & Trusteeship Council (suspended operation in 1994).
6. The six official languages the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish, while the Secretariat uses two working languages, English and French. Five of official languages were chosen when the UN was founded; Arabic was added later in 1973.
7. In 1971 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".
8. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Westminster Central Hall in London and included representatives of 51 nations.
9. The UN SC is charged with maintaining peace and security among countries.
10. The Security Council is made up of 15 member states, consisting of 5 permanent members & 10 non-permanent members.
11. The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms with member states voted in by the General Assembly on a regional basis. The presidency of the Security Council is rotated alphabetically each month.
12. The Secretariat is headed by the Secretary General, acts as the de facto spokesman and leader of the UN. Envisioned by Franklin D. Roosevelt a "world moderator", the position is defined in the UN Charter the organization's "chief administrative officer"
13. The Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assemby being recommended by the Security Council. The selection can be vetoed any member of the Security Council, 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.
14. 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 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.
15. The International Court of Justice (ICJ), located in The Hague, Netherlands , the primary judicial organ of the United Nations. Established in 1945 by the United Nations Charter, the Court began work in 1946.
16. The International Criminal Court , began operating in 2002.
17. 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. ECOSOC meets once a year in July for a four-week session.
18. UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states of the UN. The forces, also called the "Blue Helmets", who enforce UN accords are awarded UN Medals . The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
19. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by General Assembly on December 10, 1948.
20. UN Human Rights Council was established in 2006.
21. The MDG are eight goals that all 192 United Nations member states have agreed to try to achieve by the year 2015. This was declared in the UN Milenium Declaration, signed in Sept. 2000.
22. The UN is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from member states.
25. 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.