The United Nations is an international organisation founded in 1945 through the Charter of the United Nations. The Charter was signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 and entered into force on 24 October 1945. The UN was created after the Second World War as a permanent framework through which states could cooperate on international peace and security and a wider range of political, economic, social, humanitarian and human rights issues.
The Charter establishes the organisation as an international institution and sets out its purposes and principles. The United Nations currently has 193 Member States, and all members participate in the General Assembly. Admission of new members is decided by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council, according to the Charter. The UN is therefore not a world government but an international organisation whose authority derives from its founding Charter and subsequent international law.
The United Nations has four purposes stated in Article 1 of its Charter. These include maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations based on equal rights and self determination, achieving international cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, and serving as a centre for harmonising the actions of nations in pursuing common ends. These purposes define the broad scope of the organisation.
The UN therefore deals with far more than armed conflict. Its system encompasses development, humanitarian affairs, health, education, culture, human rights, international law and other subjects. The breadth of these purposes reflects the understanding that international peace depends not only on preventing war but also on cooperation over wider international problems.
The UN's principal organs are established by Article 7 of the Charter. They are the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council, Trusteeship Council, International Court of Justice and Secretariat. The General Assembly includes all UN Member States and provides the principal universal forum for discussion and decision making within the organisation.
The Security Council has primary responsibility within the UN system for international peace and security and consists of fifteen members under the Charter's current structure, including five permanent members and ten members elected for two year terms. The Economic and Social Council addresses international economic and social cooperation. The International Court of Justice is the principal judicial organ. The Secretariat carries out administrative and operational functions under the Secretary General. The Trusteeship Council has largely completed the specific functions for which it was created.
The Security Council occupies a distinctive position because the Charter gives it responsibilities concerning international peace and security. Article 23 establishes fifteen members, consisting of five permanent members and ten non permanent members elected by the General Assembly for two year terms. The Council can consider threats to peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression and can adopt measures under the Charter.
Chapter VI concerns peaceful settlement of disputes, while Chapter VII concerns action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression. The Security Council's structure reflects the political settlement that accompanied the creation of the UN after the Second World War. Its permanent membership and voting arrangements are therefore important features of the organisation's institutional design and have major consequences for how collective security decisions are made.
The General Assembly is the UN's universal deliberative body because every Member State is represented in it. Article 9 of the Charter provides that the General Assembly consists of all UN members. The Assembly can discuss matters within the scope of the Charter and can make recommendations on many international questions. Article 13 gives it functions relating to international cooperation, the progressive development and codification of international law, and economic, social, cultural, educational and health cooperation and human rights.
The Assembly therefore provides a forum in which states can debate international issues even when there is no consensus in the Security Council. Its resolutions can have significant political and normative importance, although General Assembly recommendations are not generally equivalent to binding Security Council measures adopted under applicable Charter powers. The distinction between recommendation and binding legal obligation is essential to understanding UN decision making.
The United Nations is also a major framework for international law and international cooperation. The Charter itself is an international treaty and is legally binding on UN Member States. It establishes principles including sovereign equality, fulfilment in good faith of Charter obligations, peaceful settlement of disputes and restrictions on the threat or use of force inconsistent with the Charter's purposes and principles. The UN also supports the development, codification, registration and publication of international agreements and treaties.
Article 102 provides that treaties and international agreements entered into by UN members after the Charter came into force should be registered with the Secretariat and published. The United Nations Treaty Series provides a permanent public record of treaties and international agreements registered or filed with the Secretariat. These functions make the UN important not only as a political forum but also as part of the institutional infrastructure of international law.
The United Nations is not a supranational world government in the ordinary sense. Member states retain sovereignty, and the Charter establishes principles governing the relationship between the organisation and its members. Article 2 states that the organisation is based on sovereign equality and that members must fulfil Charter obligations in good faith. The Charter also contains a principle concerning matters essentially within domestic jurisdiction, subject to the Charter's enforcement provisions.
The UN's authority therefore operates within a constitutional international framework rather than through unlimited legislative power over every domestic matter. At the same time, states can undertake substantial international obligations through the Charter and other treaties. The practical authority of the UN depends on the powers assigned to its organs, the cooperation of member states, international law and the political circumstances surrounding particular issues.
The United Nations has developed considerably since its founding in 1945. Its membership expanded from the original 51 states to 193, reflecting decolonisation and the emergence of new independent states. Its activities have also expanded beyond the immediate post war focus on peace and security into development, humanitarian assistance, human rights, health, environmental matters, international law and numerous specialised fields. The UN system includes specialised agencies and related international institutions with distinct mandates.
Article 55 of the Charter identifies international economic and social cooperation, higher standards of living, employment, development, health, cultural and educational cooperation and universal respect for human rights among the organisation's objectives. The organisation has therefore become a broad institutional system through which states address problems that cannot easily be managed by national governments acting independently.
