The United Nations (UN) is an international intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations on 26 June 1945 with the articulated mission of maintaining international peace and security, to develop friendly relations among states, to promote international cooperation, and to serve as a centre for harmonizing the actions of states in achieving those goals.
The United Nations headquarters is located in New York City, with several other offices located in Geneva, Nairobi, Vienna and The Hague. The UN comprises six principal organizations: General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, International Court of Justice, Secretariat and Trusteeship Council which, together with several specialized agencies and related agencies, make up the UN System. There is a total of 193 member states, representing nearly all of the world's sovereign states, as well as two observer states, the Holy See and the State of Palestine.
The United Nations has primarily focused on economic and social development, particularly during the wave of decolonization in the mid-twentieth century. The UN currently operates 11 peacekeeping missions, by order of inception, in the Middle East, Kashmir, Cyprus, the Golan Heights, Lebanon, the Western Sahara, Kosovo, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan and the Central African Republic. The UN has been recognized as a global leader of peace and human development, with many officials and agencies having been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize but has also been criticized for perceived ineffectiveness, bias, and corruption.
In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife.
During World War I, several major leaders, especially then-U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, advocated for a world body to guarantee peace. The winners of the war, the Allied Powers, met to decide on formal peace terms at the Paris Peace Conference. The League of Nations was approved and started operations, but the United States never joined. On 10 January 1920, the League of Nations formally came into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, took effect. The League of Nations Council acted as an executive body directing the Assembly's business, though with few powers explicitly vested in either body, the League's operation was mostly derived from informal convention than the Covenant itself. With few exceptions, all of the League's substantive decisions required unanimity, a provision negotiated in the name of upholding national sovereignty. It began with four permanent members of the Council—the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Japan. The fifth permanent seat on the Council, meant to be held by the United States, was later given to Germany and, after its withdrawal, the Soviet Union. Forty nations voted for Japan to end its occupation of Manchuria but Japan voted against it and withdrew from the League instead. It also failed to act against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, after the appeal for international intervention by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I at Geneva in 1936 went with no avail, including when calls for economic sanctions against Italy failed. Italy and other nations left the League.
When World War II broke out in 1939, the League effectively closed down. Among its final acts was the expulsion of the Soviet Union for the invasion of Finland.
Declarations by the Allies of World War II (1941–1944)
The first step towards the establishment of the United Nations was the Inter-Allied Conference in London that led to the Declaration of St James's Palace on 12 June 1941. By August 1941, American president Franklin D. Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill had drafted the Atlantic Charter; which defined goals for the post-war world. At the subsequent meeting of the Inter-Allied Council in London on 24 September 1941, the eight governments in exile of countries under Axis occupation, together with the Soviet Union and representatives of the Free French Forces, unanimously adopted adherence to the common principles of policy set forth by Britain and the United States.
Roosevelt and Churchill met at the White House in December 1941 for the Arcadia Conference. Roosevelt is considered a founder of the UN, and coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries. Churchill accepted it, noting its use by Lord Byron. The text of the Declaration by United Nations was drafted on 29 December 1941, by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Harry Hopkins. It incorporated Soviet suggestions but included no role for France. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted.
Roosevelt's idea of the "Four Powers" refers to the four major Allied countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China, emerged in the Declaration by the United Nations. On New Year's Day 1942, Roosevelt, Churchill, the Soviet Union's former Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov, and the Chinese Premier T. V. Soong signed the "Declaration by United Nations", and the next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures. During the war, the United Nations became the official term for the Allies. In order to join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis powers.
The October 1943 Moscow Conference resulted in the Moscow Declarations, including the Four Power Declaration on General Security. This declaration was signed by the Allied Big Four—the United States, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and China—and aimed for the creation "at the earliest possible date of a general international organization". This was the first public announcement that a new international organization was being contemplated to replace the League of Nations. The Tehran Conference followed shortly afterwards at which Roosevelt, Churchill and Joseph Stalin, the leader of the Soviet Union, met and discussed the idea of a post-war international organization.
The new international organization was formulated and negotiated amongst the delegations from the Allied Big Four at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference from 21 September to 7 October 1944. They agreed on proposals for the aims, structure and functioning of the new organization. It took the conference at Yalta in February 1945, and further negotiations with the Soviet Union, before all the issues were resolved.
By 1 March 1945, 21 additional states had signed the Declaration by the United Nations. After months of planning, the UN Conference on International Organization opened in San Francisco on 25 April 1945. It was attended by 50 nations' governments and a number of non-governmental organizations. The delegations of the Big Four chaired the plenary meetings. Previously, Churchill had urged Roosevelt to restore France to its status of a major power after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. The drafting of the Charter of the United Nations was completed over the following two months, and it was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries. The UN officially came into existence at 20:07 (UTC) on 24 October 1945, upon ratification of the Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and China — and by a majority of the other 46 nations.
The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, and the Security Council took place in London beginning in January 1946. Debates began at once, covering topical issues such as the presence of Russian troops in Iranian Azerbaijan and British forces in Greece. British diplomat Gladwyn Jebb served as interim secretary-general.
The General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN. Construction began on 14 September 1948 and the facility was completed on 9 October 1952. The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was the first elected UN secretary-general.