United Nations (UN), international organization of nation-states, based on the sovereign equality of its members. Under its charter, the UN was established "to maintain international peace and security"; "to develop friendly relations among nations"; and "to achieve international cooperation in solving "economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian [problems]" and in "encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms". Members are pledged to fulfil the obligations they have assumed, to settle international disputes by peaceful means, to refrain from the threat or use of force, to assist the UN in actions ordered under the charter and to refrain from assisting any country against which such UN action is being taken, and to act according to the charter's principles.

Development of the UN

The United Nations is usually considered the successor to the League of Nations, the international organization formed after World War I to serve many of the same purposes. The league, however, failed to maintain peace and grew progressively weaker in the years just before World War II.

Origins

The first commitment to establish a new international organization was made in the Atlantic Charter, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of Great Britain on August 14, 1941, at a conference held on a warship off the coast of Newfoundland. They pledged to establish a "wider and permanent system of general security" and expressed their desire "to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field". The principles of the Atlantic Charter were more widely accepted in the Declaration by United Nations, signed on January 1, 1942, by representatives of 26 allied nations that were fighting against the Axis powers during World War II. In this document the term United Nations, suggested by Roosevelt, was first used formally. Direct action to form the new organization was taken at a 1943 conference in Moscow. On October 30, representatives of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Great Britain, China, and the United States signed a declaration in which they recognized the need to establish "at the earliest practicable date a general international organization". Meeting in Tehr?n a month later, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin reaffirmed "the supreme responsibility resting upon us and all the United Nations to make a peace which will е banish the scourge and terror of war". Following up on the Moscow declaration, representatives of the four powers met at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., in the autumn of 1944, to work out a series of proposals for an international organization. They agreed on a draft charter that specified its purposes, structure, and methods of operation, but they could not agree on a method of voting in the proposed Security Council, which was to have the major responsibility for peace and security. The voting issue was settled at the Yalta conference in February 1945, when Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met for the last of their wartime negotiating summits. Essentially, the Soviet leader accepted the Anglo-American position that limited great-power prerogatives on procedural matters, but retained the right of veto on substantive issues. At the same time, the allied leaders called for a conference of United Nations to prepare the charter of the new organization. Delegates from 50 nations met in San Francisco on April 25, 1945, for what was officially known as the United Nations Conference on International Organization. During a two-month period, they completed a charter consisting of 111 articles, based on the draft developed at Dumbarton Oaks. The charter was approved on June 25 and signed the next day; it became effective on October 24, 1945, after ratification by a majority of the signatories. The bonds of the wartime alliance against common enemies undoubtedly hastened agreement on establishing the new organization.

Headquarters

On December 10, 1945, the United States Congress invited the UN to establish its headquarters in the United States. The organization accepted and in August 1946 moved to a temporary location in Lake Success, New York. Later that year a site was purchased bordering the East River in Manhattan, and plans for a permanent headquarters were drawn up. The site was granted a measure of extraterritoriality under an agreement between the United States and the UN. The complex, completed in mid-1952, includes the General Assembly Hall, the Secretariat Building, the Conference Building, and the Dag Hammarskjold Library.

Membership

Under the charter, UN membership is open to all "peace-loving" states that accept the obligations of the organization. The 50 nations that attended the San Francisco conference, with the addition of Poland, became founding members of the UN. Until 1971 China was represented by a delegation from the Nationalist government of Taiwan; in October of that year, however, the General Assembly voted to seat the delegation from the People's Republic of China in its stead. New members are admitted by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. Since 1945, membership has increased more than threefold, mainly with the admission of many new African and Asian countries that had been European colonies. As of May 1994, the UN had 184 members.

Organization

The charter established six principal UN organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the Secretariat. All member states are represented in the General Assembly, which is the main deliberative body of the UN. The General Assembly meets annually in regular sessions and in special sessions at the request of a majority of its members or of the Security Council. The assembly has no enforcement authority; its resolutions are recommendations to member states that carry the political and moral force of majority approval but lack power of direct implementation. The charter, however, permits the assembly to establish agencies and programmes to carry out its recommendations; among the most important of these are the following: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). The Security Council, which is in continuous session, is the UN's central organ for maintaining peace. The council has 15 members, of which 5ю China, France, Great Britain, Russia, and the United Statesюhave been accorded permanent seats. Periodically proposals have been made for new permanent members to be added (e.g. Germany, Japan), and old ones removed (e.g. France, Britain) to reflect the changing balance of world power, but to date no substantive revision has been made. Nonpermanent members serve for two years, with five new members elected by the General Assembly every year. Decisions of the council require nine votes, including the concurring votes of the permanent members on substantive issues. This rule of "great-power unanimity" does not apply to procedural matters. The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), which meets annually, has 54 members; 18 members are elected each year by the General Assembly for 3-year terms. ECOSOC coordinates the economic and social activities of the UN and its specialized agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO); the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO); and the International Labour Organization (ILO). In practice, ECOSOC's functions are limited because each specialized agency is organized separately and is governed by its own constitution and elected bodies; the agencies submit annual reports to ECOSOC. The UN and the specialized agencies together are called the United Nations System. The Trusteeship Council originally was responsible for supervising 11 territories placed under international trust at the end of World War II. By the early 1990s all of the original trust territories had been dissolved, and all of the dependencies had achieved either full sovereignty or self- government as part of a larger state. The remaining trusteeship, the Palau Islands, became an independent republic in 1994, and the Trusteeship Council ceased to exist. Other colonial questions have been transferred to the General Assembly and special subsidiary bodies. The International Court of Justice, situated in The Hague, the Netherlands, is the judicial body of the UN. The court hears cases referred to it by UN members, who retain the right to decide whether they will accept the court's ruling as binding. When asked to do so by the UN, its principal organs, or the specialized agencies, the International Court of Justice may also render advisory opinions. Fifteen judges sit as members of the court; they are elected for 9-year terms by the General Assembly and the Security Council. The Secretariat serves the other UN organs and carries out the programmes and policies of the organization. The body is headed by the secretary-general, who is appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. Since the founding of the UN six secretaries-general have held office: Trygve Lie (Norway), 1946-1953; Dag Hammarskjold (Sweden), 1953-1961; U Thant (Burma), 1961-1971; Kurt Waldheim (Austria), 1972-1981; Javier Perez de Cuellar (Peru), 1982-1991; and Boutros Boutros Ghali (Egypt), beginning in 1992.

Financing

The UN's operating costs are met by contributions from member states in accordance with a schedule of assessments approved by the General Assembly. Only the regular budget, constituting ongoing activities under the charter, is covered by fixed assessments; special programmes such as UNICEF and the UNDP are usually financed through voluntary contributions. For the 1990 and 1991 period, the regular budget appropriations totalled more than US$2.1 billion. Under the 1990 and 1991 schedule, most members paid less than 1 per cent of the budget; only 15 countries contributed more than 1 per cent. The largest contributors were the United States (25 per cent) and the former USSR (10 per cent). Of the other members, only Japan, Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Canada contributed more than 2 per cent. In the mid-1980s the UN underwent a serious financial crisis. Many member states, including the United States and the USSR, withheld part of their contributions due to national fiscal problems and dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the UN system.

The UN and Peace and Security

Under the charter, the Security Council is primarily responsible for matters of peace and security, with the General Assembly retaining only residual authority. Articles 33-38 of the charter authorize the Security Council to encourage disputing nations to settle their differences through peaceful means, including negotiations, inquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, and judicial settlement. In carrying out this responsibility, the council may delegate representatives or set up special committees to investigate disputes and recommend means of settlement. When the council determines that a dispute threatens peace, it may, under Articles 39-51, enforce its recommendations, either by nonmilitary means, such as economic or diplomatic sanctions, or by the use of military forces. This is the only place where the charter authorizes enforcement action. Such action is subject to the concurring votes of the five permanent council members, however, and thus emphasizes the significance of the great-power veto on important issues. Military action is also subject to the availability of armed forces, a condition that has been difficult to fulfil. Finally, under Article 26, the Security Council is responsible for formulating plans "for the establishment of a system for the regulation of armaments". The UN Charter places less emphasis on international arms control and disarmament as means of achieving peace than did the League of Nations Covenant. Because of events between the two world wars, many world leaders concluded that peace could be achieved only through the cooperation of the major powers acting, as Roosevelt put it, as the world's "policemen". This idea is incorporated in the requirement for great-power unanimity; it also explains why the charter has been called a system of "limited" collective security, as enforcement action cannot be taken against the will of any country that holds a permanent seat on the council.

Impact of the Cold War

Shortly after World War II and the establishment of the UN, political cooperation among the major powersюand especially between the United States and the USSRюbroke down, and the world entered into the period of the Cold War. As the interests of the United States and the USSR clashed, the ability of the UN to maintain peace was limited. Under Article 43 of the charter, the Security Council was to negotiate agreements with member states to provide military units that could enforce its decisions. Negotiations, which began in 1946, soon became deadlocked on questions of the size, composition, and stationing of military forces. The United States proposed that each permanent council member provide specialized troops, with the Americans, for example, offering air force units, the British providing naval units, and the Soviets sending land troops. The USSR, however, argued for "equality", with each country providing equal numbers of troops across the board. These differences were never settled. A similar stalemate soon developed in the UN Atomic Energy Commission, created by the first resolution passed by the General Assembly on January 24, 1946. The commission's mandate was to develop a system to control atomic energy and limit it to peaceful uses. The United States presented a comprehensive plan for international control of atomic energy, including an agreement to dispose of its own nuclear weapons and facilities once an international system for inspection became operative. The USSR insisted that the United States destroy all existing nuclear weapons immediately and objected to any international inspection as an infringement on national sovereignty. Again, the differences between the two nations proved irreconcilable. The original intentions of the charter have, in fact, never been implemented. The Security Council was not completely stalled, however; it was able to bring about the settlement of disputes, largely through mediation and good offices, in situations in which the interests of the permanent members, especially the United States and the USSR, converged. One such case involved the withdrawal of the Dutch from Indonesia in 1949; another in that same year concerned ending the Six-Day War in 1967. In 1950, however, strong differences arose among the great powers when forces from North Korea attacked South Korea, precipitating the Korean War.

Korea

Korea, which had been under Japanese control since 1905, was divided after World War II at the 38th parallel in the Korean Peninsula. Separate governments were formedюthe one in the north sponsored by the USSR and the other by the United States. UN efforts to unify Korea through nationwide free elections failed. When North Korean forces attacked the South on June 25, 1950, the Security Council declared the attack a breach of the peace and called for withdrawal of North Korean troops north of the 38th parallel. In two other resolutions, the council established a UN command under US auspices and asked member nations to provide military units to assist in repelling the armed attack on the Republic of Korea. Two elements of the Korean case were unusual. The first was the USSR's absence from the Security Council. Six months earlier, the Soviet representative had left the council in protest against the continued presence of the Nationalist Chinese delegate in the seat designated for China, despite the defeat of the Nationalists and the establishment of a Communist government on the mainland. The USSR thus was not present to veto the council's actions against the Soviet-sponsored North Korean regime. When the Soviet delegate returned to the council in July, he declared the Korean action illegal because it was undertaken without the agreement of all the permanent council members. The United States responded that the issue had been decided with the agreement of those permanent members who were present and voting. In this argument, the USSR took a "strict" interpretation, and the United States a "broad" interpretation, of the charter's provisions, each motivated by political interests. A second unusual element in the Korean case was the establishment of a UN command that was, in effect, a United States military command, composed of troops from 16 member nations and the Republic of Korea. Because no previous agreements had been reached to provide military forces to the UN, the Security Council took ad hoc action by asking the United States to use its already established military structure as the base for UN action. Otherwise, the UN would have been unable to act quickly and expeditiously. The conflict continued for more than three years; on July 27, 1953, an armistice was signed. More than 40 years later, the country is still divided despite acceptance by both sides of the principle of reunification. The Korean question has remained on the General Assembly agenda. Resolutions have been passed urging the two sides to replace the long armistice with a stable peace. In 1991 North Korea and South Korea were admitted to the UN. One major consequence of the Korean conflict was the "Uniting for Peace" resolution. After the USSR returned to the Security Council, the United States presented to the General Assembly a resolution authorizing the assembly to consider cases that threaten peace when a veto has prevented council action. This "Uniting for Peace" resolution, adopted on November 3, 1950, made explicit an expansion of General Assembly authority in matters of peace and security.

UN Peacekeeping Forces

Since the early 1950s the UN role in maintaining peace and security around the world has expanded. UN- sponsored forces have been especially active in areas where decolonization has led to instability. In many cases, the withdrawal of the former colonial power left a political vacuum, and a struggle for domination ensued. In response, the UN developed a strategy of what Secretary-General Hammarskjold called "preventive diplomacy"юthe deployment of peacekeeping forces with two main purposes: to separate antagonists, providing time and opportunity for negotiation, and to keep local conflicts from spreading over an entire region. In 1988 the peacekeeping forces were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. UN peacekeeping operations have been carried out in the Middle East since 1956 and in Cyprus since 1964. In Africa a force was maintained in the Congo (now Zaire) from 1960 to 1964; since then, peacekeeping missions have been sent to Angola, Western Sahara, South Africa, and Mozambique. In 1992 the UN began a major operation in Somalia, involving about 30,000 troops by early 1993, to provide protection for humanitarian operationsюparticularly food deliveries to areas of famine. Two other major areas of UN involvement in the early 1990s were Cambodia, where the UN monitored elections, and the former Yugoslavia, where civil war among Serbs, Croats, and Muslims in the republics of Croatia and Bosnia has left tens of thousands of people dead and millions homeless. Under the rules originally formulated by Hammarskjold, the great powers were excluded from UN peacekeeping forces, preventing them from advancing their own interests under cover of the UN flag. With the end of the cold war, British and French troops had prominent roles in the former Yugoslavia, and a large US force was initially sent to pacify Somalia. In 1992 a contingent of Japanese troops joined the Cambodian operation.

Middle East

The first UN peacekeeping force was organized in the Middle East in response to the Suez crisis of 1956. The Middle East had been an area of bitter rivalries since 1948, when hostilities broke out between the Arab countries in the region and the new nation of Israel, created in accordance with a UN plan that partitioned Palestine into two separate states, one Jewish and one Arab. In 1949 a UN mediator, acting under the authority of the Security Council, negotiated a series of armistice agreements between Israel, on the one hand, and Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria, on the other. A United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) was formed to help the parties supervise the terms of the agreements; for a time the region remained in a state of uneasy truce. Suez Crisis Fighting broke out again on October 29, 1956, when Israel moved troops into the Sinai Peninsula, forcing Egyptian soldiers back to the Suez Canal. Earlier that year, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized the canal, evoking concern in Great Britain and France that the canal might be closed to their shipping. The Middle East situation was complicated greatly when the British and the French attacked Egypt on October 31, landing forces in the Suez Canal area. Britain and France also vetoed a Security Council resolution that called on Israel to withdraw its forces behind the 1949 armistice line. Under the authority of the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, the General Assembly, in a series of resolutions, urged an end to hostilities and set up a United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) to supervise compliance by all parties. By late December, British and French forces had withdrawn from Egypt, and by March 1957 arrangements had been made for the withdrawal of Israeli troops. The first UNEF unit arrived in Egypt on November 15, 1956, and by February 1957 some 6,000 troops from ten member states were positioned in three zones: along the frontier between Egypt and Israel; in the Gaza Strip; and near the Straits of Tiran to monitor passage into the Gulf of Aqaba, which was vital for Israeli shipping. Further Hostilities In May 1967 UNEF was withdrawn at the request of Egypt, and on June 5 Israel launched what became known as the Six- Day War, a coordinated attack on all fronts to secure stronger defensive positions along its borders. By June 10 Israel occupied the Sinai and the Gaza Strip, the territory on the West Bank of the River Jordan, and part of the Golan Heights on the Syrian border. The Security Council on November 22 unanimously approved Resolution 242, setting down a series of principles for securing peace in the region. In essence, the resolution proposed that Israel withdraw from the occupied territories in return for recognition of its independence by the Arab states and the establishment of secure borders. Hostilities broke out once again in October 1973, when Egypt attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai, and Syria struck against those along the Golan Heights. The Security Council, after calling for a cease-fire, again urged the parties to seek a broader settlement of their dispute by implementing Resolution 242. In the Sinai, a new peacekeeping force, UNEF II, was set up to patrol a buffer zone between Israeli and Egyptian troops. By March 1974 both sides had disengaged. In the north, along the Golan Heights, sporadic fighting continued until June, when a United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) was put into place. However, the sources of the Arab-Israeli conflict remained unchanged. Since 1974 the Middle East has been an annual item on the UN agenda. Yet another peacekeeping force was set up in March 1978 to help stabilize the situation in southern Lebanon after Israeli forces crossed the border to retaliate against a Palestinian raid. A United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was established with 6,000 troops from ten countries. United States Mediation Efforts outside the UN to seek a broader settlement achieved some success when, in March 1979, Egypt and Israel, through US mediation, signed a formal peace treaty providing for a phased Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai, the restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries, and a general framework for extending the peace process to other Arab states. Withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai led to the discontinuation of UNEF II; its mandate was permitted to lapse on July 24, 1979. The 1980s UNTSO observers continued to function between Egypt and Israel under the terms of the 1949 agreement, and both UNDOF and UNIFIL were still operating in the 1990s. Southern Lebanon remained turbulent. The region was a stronghold of Palestinian commando bases until the Israeli invasion of June 1982; subsequently, Israeli and Syrian forces remained in Lebanon, along with Palestinian guerrillas. Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and of the territories on the West Bank of the River Jordan came under increasingly severe attack in both the Security Council and the General Assembly. Resolutions recognized the rights of the Palestinian Arabs, and their representatives were given opportunities to bring their case to the world forum. Expansion of Israeli settlements in the territories further complicated the problem. In 1993 leaders of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed a peace agreement calling for the Palestinians to gradually assume responsibility for civil administration of the occupied lands, beginning with the Gaza Strip and Jericho area. The first stages of the agreement were implemented in 1994. The Gulf Conflict Iraq's invasion of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, which began the Gulf War brought an immediate response from the Security Council. A series of resolutions passed between August and November condemned the occupation and annexation of Kuwait; imposed an extensive embargo on commercial and financial dealings with Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait; sanctioned the use of military force to ensure compliance with the embargo; and, finally, authorized member states to use "all necessary means" to expel Iraq from Kuwait if Iraq had not already withdrawn by January 15, 1991. In response, Iraq called for an international peace conference to consider a broad range of regional conflicts, including the Israeli-Palestinian dispute; the United States and its allies insistently opposed such linkage. After the US-led coalition in the Gulf War quickly defeated Iraq and restored Kuwaiti independence, a UN peacekeeping force moved in to monitor a demilitarized zone along the Iraq-Kuwait border. Further UN presence was called on in northern Iraq to protect Kurds who had rebelled against the regime of Saddam Hussein.

Africa

The first major operation in Africa began in 1960 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (now Zaire) shortly after it became independent of Belgium. A mutiny among Congolese troops led to a breakdown in public order. Belgium quickly dispatched military forces to the area; at the same time, the province of Katanga (now Shaba), led by its premier Moise Tshombe, declared its independence. Congolese President Joseph Kasavubu and Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba asked the UN for assistance. With authorization from the Security Council the secretary- general organized an economic programme and an international peacekeeping force that, at its peak, totalled more than 20,000 troops. On February 21, 1961, the Security Council authorized the UN troops to use force. The UN's task was complex: to help maintain order without even the appearance of taking sides, and to exercise military authority carefully for defensive purposes without launching offensive programmes. The UN undoubtedly helped the Congo to emerge as a united country. A heavy loss was incurred in 1961, however, when Secretary-General Hammarskjold was killed in an aeroplane crash while trying to bring about a cease-fire between the central government and Katanga. The UN peacekeepers in Western Sahara, South Africa, Angola, and Mozambique were mostly observers. The mission to Somalia, begun late in 1992, was much more complex. After the defeat of Somalia's longtime leader, Muhammed Siad Barre, by rebels in 1991, the nation descended into anarchy. International famine-relief agencies found it increasingly difficult to operate, and massive starvation was imminent. In April 1992 the Security Council voted to establish an operation in Somalia. But when 500 troops arrived in September, they were unable to operate. On December 3 the council voted to accept an offer from the United States to provide a large force to safeguard relief operations. Within a month about 15,000 US troops were in Somalia, and food supplies had begun to reach most of the people. The UN took command of the operation from the United States in May 1993, but in June, in an ambush, 23 Pakistani soldiers were killed by Somali rebels thought to be controlled by Mohammad Farrah Aidid, a clan leader. The United States sent in reinforcements with the goal of capturing Aidid and pacifying his forces. After several failed missions, the United States and the UN reemphasized attempts to reach a political solution.

Cyprus

The United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) has been stationed there since March 1964 to serve as a deterrent to open fighting between the Greek and Turkish communities. Cyprus gained independence from Great Britain in 1960 under a constitution that sought to balance the rights and interests of the two ethnic groups in the population, the Greeks being heavily in the majority. After three years of relative peace, violence broke out between the two communities late in 1963. On March 4, 1964, the Security Council recommended UN mediation and authorized the formation of a peacekeeping force. The force reached almost 7,000 later that year, but has been progressively reduced, numbering some 2,100 troops in the late 1980s. The most difficult period occurred in 1974, when Turkey intervened in support of the Turkish Cypriots after a change of government threatened to shift the constitutional balance in favour of those Greek Cypriots who desired union with Greece. A cease-fire was achieved by mid-August and was followed the next year by a transfer of more than 8,000 Turkish Cypriots to the Turkish-controlled north of the island with the assistance of UNFICYP. Since then UNFICYP has patrolled a strip separating the northern sector from the Greek sector in the south. Meanwhile, the secretary-general has continually been involved in discussions to negotiate a settlement between the Greek and Turkish Cypriots. In recent years, these discussions have focused on guidelines necessary to bring about a bizonal state and guarantee the security of the Turkish Cypriot community. In late 1983, with the talks still stalemated, the northern region (occupied by Turkish forces) declared its independence as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The UN refused to recognize the new Turkish Cypriot state, and UNFICYP personnel continued to serve as a barrier between the two sides.

Decolonization

Providing peacekeeping forces in areas of conflict has been only one of the UN contributions to the process of decolonization. The UN trusteeship system, following the lines of the League of Nations mandates, was limited to the former colonies of ex-enemy states and to former league mandates that had not reached self-government. An early proposal to place all colonial territories under UN trusteeship was opposed by the colonial powers. A far- reaching commitment towards self-government nonetheless emerged in Article 73 of the charter, which constituted a Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories and was universal in scope, applying to all colonial territories. Article 73 was only a statement of long-range intent, but it permitted the broadly based General Assembly, rather than the more limited Trusteeship Council, to become the central arena for colonial questions. The declaration called on colonial regimes to submit reports on economic and social conditions in their territories. As early as 1946, a committee was set up by the assembly to review those reports; it grew into a permanent Committee on Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories, which increasingly acted as an instrument of international accountability and pressured the colonial powers to hasten the granting of independence. With the addition of newly independent states as members of the UN by 1960, a broad majority in the assembly voted to expand the objectives of Article 73 through a new Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. The 1960 declaration asserts that colonialism "constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights" and that "inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence". With or without the UN, the old colonial empires were doomed to break up; the process had already begun by the end of World War II. The UN, however, provided an organized structure in which opposition to colonialism could be energized and in which new nations, emerging from colonialism, could be mobilized for a common cause. The UN also provided a forum to deal with colonial questions. The trusteeship system, and even the original Article 73, was based on the idea that self-government was a limited and long-range objective. Through the General Assembly, now dominated by a majority of formerly colonized states, independence has been identified as an immediate right of all peoples and international support of the struggle for self- determination has been organized. The problems of decolonization in southern Africa have had a particularly long history of controversy in the UN. They have included several issues involving the former Portuguese-administered territories, the efforts of the white majority to retain control in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), conflict with South Africa over the former mandate of South-West Africa (now Namibia), and the policy of apartheid (racial segregation) enforced by the South African government from 1948 to 1991. Portuguese Territories >From the time it joined the UN in 1955, Portugal refused to comply with Article 73 and submit information about its territories, arguing that its "overseas provinces" were part of Portugal itself and thus could not be subject to international regulation. A special committee, set up in 1960, concluded that Portugal's relationship with its territories was colonial in nature; it affirmed the rights of the people in the territories to self-determination. Throughout the 1960s both the Security Council and the General Assembly condemned Portugal for repressive acts against the liberation groups that had emerged in all the territories. Portuguese policies changed only after a revolutionary upheaval in Portugal itself. In August 1974 the new Portuguese government began a process that, by the end of 1975, led to the independence of its territories: Guinea-Bissau on September 10, 1974; and, in 1975, Mozambique on June 25, Cape Verde on July 5, Sao Tome and Principe on July 12, and Angola on November 11.
Southern Rhodesia In 1965 the white minority government of Southern Rhodesia, already under limited self- rule, issued a "unilateral declaration of independence" from Great Britain. The British had earlier resisted pressures to grant independence to the territory until a broadly based government could be established. The white minority government was immediately condemned by the General Assembly. In a series of subsequent resolutions, the Security Council voted mandatory economic sanctions aimed at cutting off Southern Rhodesia's trade and communications. The assembly also supported liberation groups organized to resist the minority regime and recommended that they be given material assistance by UN agencies. The minority regime, largely supported by South Africa, was able to withstand both internal and external pressures until 1980, when, after a long struggle and a period of complex political transition, a new government, ruled by the black majority, took office. On April 17, 1980, Southern Rhodesia became an independent nation as the Republic of Zimbabwe. Namibia (South-West Africa) The process of decolonization in Namibia, formerly South-West Africa, was not completed until 1990. Originally a German colony, South-West Africa was mandated to the Union (now Republic) of South Africa after World War I. Following World War II South Africa chose to maintain the status quo rather than administer the territory under the trusteeship system and refused to allow UN surveillance over its administration. In 1950 the International Court of Justice determined that South Africa had an obligation to submit reports to the UN. The court, in 1962, declared the application of apartheid policies in Namibia illegal. In 1971 the court ruled that the continued presence of South Africa in the territory was illegal because a General Assembly resolution in 1966 had terminated its mandate, turning over the administration of the territory to a UN Council for South-West Africa (subsequently named the Council for Namibia) the following year. During the late 1970s and the 1980s, negotiations with South Africa were based on Security Council Resolution 385, calling for UN-supervised elections in the territory. Negotiations to prepare for elections were carried out through a group of five Western nations, in cooperation with key African governments, and through the secretary-general and the UN special representative for Namibia. These negotiations were complicated by open fighting between the South African government and liberation groups and by disagreement over the role to be played by the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO), a black African nationalist group. In December 1988, South Africa formally agreed to allow Namibia to become independent in a compromise that also included the removal of Cuban troops from Angola. Open elections for a constituent assembly were held under UN supervision in November 1989, and Namibia attained independence on March 21, 1990. South African Apartheid The end of the Portuguese Empire and the emergence of Zimbabwe created pressures on South Africa to settle the Namibia question. The conditions for settlement, however, were related to South African determination to maintain its discriminatory policies of apartheid within its own borders despite condemnation from the world community and the bitter antagonism of the black states of Africa, most of which have gained their independence since 1960. The problem of apartheid was on the UN agenda from the time it was propagated by the South African government in 1948 as an official policy. It was consistently condemned as a crime against humanity despite the South African argument that it was a domestic matter and therefore outside UN jurisdiction. Although South Africa remained a member of the UN, since 1970 its delegations' credentials were not accepted, thus barring its participation in the General Assembly. The assembly also recommended that South Africa be excluded from all international organizations and conferences. These efforts to ostracize the nation in order to bring about desired changes were centred in the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, which coordinated worldwide efforts against the discriminatory policy. In 1977 the Security Council established a mandatory arms embargo on South Africa, and the General Assembly later called for wider economic sanctions. The attack on apartheid was a central, unifying issue for the black African states, the single largest regional voting group in the UN. The UN provided a world forum to put pressure on those countries that continued to have diplomatic and economic relations with South Africa, as well as on the nation itself. By the end of 1991 the legal basis of apartheid had been abolished, but blacks still lacked political rights, including the right to vote. By 1993 blacks and whites were meeting to negotiate a new constitution, and in October the UN voted to lift all sanctions. South Africa held its first democratic elections in which blacks could vote in April 1994, and African National Congress leader Nelson Mandela was elected as the country's first black president.

The UN and Trade and Development

The UN has frequently been involved in the difficult early stages of political independence, when most new nations have requested large-scale economic and social assistance. Economic and social activities now constitute the most extensive part of the UN's work; more than 85 per cent of the budget and staff are devoted to activities that fall into three broad categories. First, the ECOSOC serves as a forum for broad discussions of economic and social problems and for coordination of the UN programmes and those of the specialized agencies. Second, to support both ECOSOC and the General Assembly, information and investigatory services are provided by a staff and special study groups, including standing bodies of ECOSOC such as the Statistical, Population, and Human Rights commissions. Third, the UN is responsible for operating programmes such as UNDP and UNICEF and for subsidiary organs such as UNCTAD, created to carry out specific responsibilities approved by the General Assembly. The economic activities also must be seen as part of the entire UN System, including subsidiary organs and committees and the specialized agencies. In turn, the specialized agencies can be divided into two groups. The financial institutionsюthe International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD; part of the World Bank group)юare responsible for making loans to member states. The IMF permits UN members to support the value of their currencies by covering temporary deficits in their balance of payments. The World Bank helps to finance long-range development projects. The functional agenciesюsuch as UNESCO, WHO, and the FAOюare responsible for international cooperation and technical assistance in their fields of expertise.

Funding and Development

The first development programme in the UN was a modestly funded programme of technical assistance, established in 1949. In 1952, largely on the initiative of Asian and Middle Eastern member states, a UN committee proposed a Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development (SUNFED) to provide grants-in-aid and low- interest loans to supplement the limited, relatively high-interest loans available through the World Bank. The SUNFED proposal was rejected by the industrialized countries whose financial contributions were essential for its success. In response to the increasing financial needs of developing nations, however, the International Development Association (IDA) was established in 1960 as an affiliate of the World Bank, mainly was to provide long-term, low-interest loans. The industrialized countries preferred to provide aid through the mechanism of the World Bank because of the difference in voting procedures between the UN and the financial institutions. The UN proceeds on the basis of one nation, one vote; in the financial institutions, voting is weighted by monetary contributions. As countries in Asia and Africa have gained political independence, developing nations have been increasingly able to wield majority control in the UN, particularly in the General Assembly; in the financial institutions, however, the industrial countries, as the major contributors, retain a voting majority. Thus, Third World countries have sought to shift greater authority for development financing from the World Bank and the IMF to the UN, a move that the major powers have opposed. This is one of the main points of contention between the two groups. In 1959 a Special Fund was created as a limited version of the SUNFED proposal. The Special Fund was restricted to relatively small preinvestment grants to be used in the first stage of larger projects that might later become eligible for more extensive funding from the World Bank, IDA, or other sources. In 1966 the Special Fund and the earlier technical assistance programme were combined into the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). By the mid-1980s, UNDP was carrying out more than 5,000 projects funded through voluntary contributions from member states. UNDP is an example of an agency that handles funding, operational, and coordinating functions. It operates under a governing council composed of representatives of 48 member states (21 industrialized and 27 developing countries), which meets twice a year to approve new projects. UNDP projects form part of 3-to 5-year "country programmes" that are drawn up by recipient countries in connection with their national development plans. The projects are then usually executed by other departments of the UN or by the specialized agencies; educational projects, for example, will be executed by UNESCO and health projects by WHO. Since the 1960s the General Assembly has tried to give greater direction to development programmes by establishing goals and procedures in a series of so-called development decades for the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. For each decade, the General Assembly passed a broadly conceived resolution to serve as a set of guidelines for the 10-year period. A major goal of these resolutions has been to increase the amount of development funding available from all sources.

United Nations Conference on Trade and Development

UN development programmes are part of a much wider network of assistance that also includes regional and nationally organized programmes. At the same time, developing countries must still supply most of the capital, through savings and foreign earnings, for their economic growth. Therefore, development assistance has been increasingly related to general conditions in the world economyю especially those conditions under which developing nations engage in foreign trade and earn foreign capital from exporting raw materials and manufactured goods. The relation between development assistance and trade was particularly emphasized in the work carried out in the UN Economic Commission for Latin America in the 1950s. By the early 1960s the connection was widely accepted by the developing countries that took the initiative in the General Assembly for establishing UNCTAD in 1964. Just before the first session of UNCTAD, 77 developing nations issued a statement of goals, saying that "International trade could become a more powerful instrument... of economic development not only through the expansion of the traditional exports of the developing countries, but also through the development of markets for their share of world exports under improved terms of trade". UNCTAD is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly, the purpose of which is to promote international trade, especially in order to accelerate development in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. All UN members belong to UNCTAD, which meets once every four years in a general conference. Besides the staff, the permanent machinery includes a Trade and Development Board made up of members proportionally representing four groups of states: the Afro-Asian group; the industrialized states with market economies; Latin American countries; and the republics of Eastern Europe and the former USSR. In negotiations within UNCTAD or in the General Assembly, the Afro-Asian and Latin American countries traditionally constituted the "South" in contending with the position taken by the industrialized market economies of the "North". In this "North-South" dialogue over world economic relations, the USSR and its allies participated only marginally. Consistent with Communist ideology, the USSR generally argued that the state of the world economy was the result of earlier imperialist conditions; thus, it was the Western powers' responsibility to compensate for the exploitation of their former colonies. The terms of this debate, and its protagonists, have changed with the collapse of European Communism and accelerating economic development in certain areas of the "South". Since 1964 UNCTAD activities have largely focused on reforms of the world economy that would enhance the position of developing countries. The first is the Integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC), which involves the negotiation of agreements to ensure stable prices for primary commodities exported by developing nations. Sudden drops in the world prices of tin, copper, or coffee, for example, can drastically reduce the foreign earnings of countries for which these might be the sole exportable commodities. Related to the IPC, another reform is the establishment of a Common Fund to be used to finance stocks of such commodities so that the world supply can also be regulated to avoid fluctuations in prices. UNCTAD also advocates a lessening of protectionist measures directed against exports of manufactured products from developing countries. The world's major trading nations have generally lowered tariffs over the years through arrangements worked out under the auspices of theGeneral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). These, however, operate on the basis of reciprocal tariff reductions, a condition that places developing nations, which are only in an early stage of industrialization, at a disadvantage. Although the position of the major powers on the UNCTAD proposals has shifted over the years from complete rejection to a reluctant acceptance in principle, actual implementation of these measures has been delayed. Agreements on individual commodities have provided no assurance of stable prices; the Common Fund has not been financed; and governments in many industrialized nations have been increasingly reluctant to allow imports on a preferential basis that would compete with the products of their own industries. In response, the developing countries have launched a bolder, more political attack on the structure of the world economy by calling for a new international economic order.

The New International Economic Order

The elements of a new order were spelled out in resolutions passed during two special sessions of the General Assembly in 1974 and 1975. The resolutions were preceded, however, by two profound changes in economic conditions. The first change was a general deterioration of the world economy beginning in the late 1960s and continuing into the 1970s. From the end of World War II until the mid-1960s, a historic period of growth had occurred in the world economy, especially in the Western market economies and Japan, under US leadership. The rate of growth began to slacken by the end of the 1960s, when the United States suffered a series of deficits in balance of payments, severely weakening its own economy and those of its major trading partners, as well as its capability to dominate the world economy. This recession also affected the developing countries that depended on the Western nations not only for development assistance but also as markets for their exports and sources of finished goods, especially technologically advanced items. A second change began in 1973, with the drastic rise in oil prices initiated by the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. First created in 1960, OPEC represents the world's major producers of petroleumюa group of developing countries from the Middle East, Africa, and South America that controlled a resource critical to the highly industrialized economies. Their dependence on this vital resource was dramatized by the price hike at the very time when the structure of economic relations among the industrialized nations was changing. The success of OPEC gave developing nations the incentive to demand a restructuring of economic relations in which they could gain greater influence over the rules governing international trade. The New International Economic Order (NIEO) is embodied in four General Assembly resolutions that, taken as a whole, incorporate the goal of the development decades to increase the level of financial assistance with the UNCTAD programme for stabilizing commodity prices and opening new markets to developing countries. The other aims of the NIEO for developing nations include greater self-sufficiency, fuller participation in the IMF and World Bank, an increased share of world trade and level of industrialization, protection of their resources through international codes governing the conduct of multinational corporations, and a gradual shifting of the pattern of exchange to reflect more fully the interdependence of nations. The NIEO represents a long- range set of so-called Third World aspirations that challenge the more established interests of the industrialized nations. In 1980 the General Assembly voted to convene another special session to review progress towards the NIEO and prepare for a new set of global negotiations on economic issues. After almost a year of preliminary discussions, the assembly could not agree on an agenda and procedures for a global conference, and the special session ended with no concrete results. Substantial differences remain on procedural issues, including the use of the UN, as opposed to the IMF and World Bank, as the main forum for negotiation on financial matters. The relevance of the whole NIED programme is also now subject to review with many Third World nations in the Pacific Rim and Latin America developing at speed in the 1990s and a general shift in economic thinking in favour of the free market as a motor for development.

The Role of the UN

The UN today is both more and less than its founders anticipated. It is less because, from the close of World War II to the end of the 1980s, the rivalry between the United States and the USSR exposed the weakness of great- power unanimity in matters of peace and security. It is more because the rapid breakup of colonial empires from the 1940s to the 1970s created a void in the structure of international relations that the UN, in many areas, was able to fill. Even during the period of superpower rivalry, the UN helped ease East-West tensions. Through its peacekeeping operations, for example, it was able to insulate certain areas of tension from direct great-power intervention. The UN also established several committees on disarmament and was involved in negotiating treaties to ban nuclear weapons in outer space and the development of biological weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency has helped to control the proliferation of nuclear weapons by inspecting nuclear installations to monitor their use. Major arms-control measures, however, such as the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963), the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968), the Strategic Arms Limitation talks (SALT) of 1972 and 1979, and the Strategic Arms Reduction treaties (START) of 1991 and 1993 were achieved through direct negotiations between the superpowers. Beyond providing peacekeeping forces, the UN has played a wider role in the transition to statehood in a few critical areas. It has been a major forum through which newly independent states have begun to participate in international relations, giving them opportunities to represent their interests outside their immediate regions, to join coalitions of nations with similar interests, and to escape the limited relationships of their earlier colonial connections. One problem facing the UN in the 1990s is the feeling in some Western nations that it has become an instrument of the developing countries and thus is no longer a viable forum for fruitful negotiations. Many global problems have been considered in a series of special UN-sponsored conferences, including the Conference on the Human Environment (1972), the World Population Conference (1974), the World Conference of the International Women's Year (1975), the Conference on Human Settlements, or Habitat (1976), the Conference on Desertification (1977), the World Assembly on Ageing (1982), and the World Summit for Children (1990). In 1992 more than 100 heads of state and governmentюthe largest assemblage of national leaders in historyю met in Rio de Janeiro for the Conference on Environment and Development, or Earth Summit. The collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe and the USSR between 1989 and 1991 posed new challenges and opportunities for the UN. On the one hand, the end of the rivalry between the United States and USSR enabled the UN to assume a more active role in seeking to resolve disputes in Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, Western Sahara, and the Persian Gulf. On the other hand, the Yugoslav civil war and the ethnic conflicts within and between the former Soviet republics exemplified the threats to peace and stability presented by the breakup of the Communist world. How to pay for an expanded peacekeeping role and how to accommodate the increased political and economic influence of Germany and Japan were also challenges for the UN in the 1990s. After more than 40 years of international discussion, the establishment of a new postюHigh Commissioner for Human Rightsюwas approved in 1993. Appointed by the secretary-general, the commissioner would be responsible for monitoring worldwide respect for fundamental human rights. The United Nations is not a world government; rather, it is a very flexible instrument through which nations can cooperate to solve their mutual problems. Whether they do cooperate and use the UN creatively depends on how both their governments and their peoples view relations with others and how they envision their place in the future of humankind.

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