CHAPTER 10: THE UNITED NATIONS
PART III: THE WORLD ISSUES
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A
replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization 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 in Manhattan, New York City, and
experiences extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. The
organization 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.
During the Second World War, US President Franklin D. Roosevelt initiated talks on a successor agency
to the League of Nations, and the United Nations Charter was drafted at a conference in April–June
1945; this charter took effect 24 October 1945, and the UN began operation. The UN's mission to
preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet
Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in major actions in Korea and the Congo,
as well as approving the creation of the state of Israel in 1947. The organization's membership grew
significantly following widespread decolonization in the 1960s, and by the 1970s its budget for economic
and social development programmes far outstripped its spending on peacekeeping. After the end of the
Cold War, the UN took on major military and peacekeeping missions across the world with varying
degrees of success.