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The name 'United Nations", which was coined by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, first appeared in the "Declaration of the United Nations" in January 1942, when the representatives of 26 nations demanded that their governments continue the war against Nazi Germany and her Allies. The UN Charter was drawn up and signed by representatives of 50 countries at a convention in San Francisco in 1945. The UN was officially established on October 24, 1945, and its Charter was ratified by the USA, Great Britain, France, the USSR and China (the five Permanent Members of the Security Council) and by the majority of the other signatory countries.
The opening words of the UN Charter state the common aims and ideals of the peoples whose governments had united to establish the UN: the prevention of war, the preservation of basic human rights, of equality between the sexes and between peoples, the maintenance of justice, of international obligations and of social progress and the improvement of living standards, whilst safeguarding the freedom of man.
The UN is comprised of six main bodies:
- The General Assembly, which is composed of representatives of each member state (at present 185).
- The Security Council is the body which bears the main responsibility for maintaining peace and security throughout the world. The Council is comprised of representatives of 15 countries: the five Permanent Members and ten additional countries which are each elected for a two-year period.
- The Economic and Social Council, which reports to the General Assembly, is the body which coordinates the UN's economic and social activities and those of its agencies.
- The Trusteeship Council was created to supervise the management of trustee territories within the international trusteeship framework and to assist their residents on their way to independence. Last year Palau the last territory under the trusteeship of the Council, received its independence.
- The International Court of Justice is the UN's main legal institution.
- The Secretariat services the other bodies of the UN and implements the programme and the policies determined by them. At its head is the Secretary General elected by the General Assembly.
In addition to these main bodies listed above, the UN includes a number of other institutions, such as the office of the UN High Commissioner for refugees, the UN Fund (UNICEF), the Conference on Trade and Development and the UN Development Programme.
Within the term "The UN System" are included also the special agencies, which are autonomous organisations, set up by inter-governmental agreements to deal with a wide variety of economic, social, cultural, educational and medical issues, and so forth, in co-operation with the UN Organisation.
During the Cold War, the UN had difficulty in realizing the hopes embodied in the UN Charter, in particular in the fields of establishing and maintaining peace and security. Since the end of the Cold War, major changes are taking place which have turned the UN into a more active framework. At the same time the new reality has also created expectations that the UN has difficulty in living up to, because of the multiplicity of conflicts, their complexity and the lack of the funding that would be required to deal with them.
Today the UN has 17 Peace Forces (some 73,000 people) engaged in different areas of conflict. Last year's budget for those activities totalled some $3.6 billion.
Israel and the UN
The history of the relationship between the UN and Israel, can be divided into three periods:
- The period in which the UN decided on 29.11.47 to establish two states out of the territories of Mandatory Palestine West of Jordan: a Jewish State and an Arab State.
- The period of polarization between the USA and the USSR and of the permanent Arab majority in the General Assembly, prompting Israel to regard the UN as a hostile body.
- The present changing period: The end of the Cold War and the peace process in the Middle East herald a major change in Israel's relations with the UN. This trend towards improvement began in 1991 with the annulment of the UN Resolution equating Zionism and racism, which had been adopted by the UN Assembly in 1975, and continues with the ratification of Israel's credentials. There has also been a significant reduction in the number of resolutions adopted by the Assembly regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict and a moderation of their phrasing, as well as the adoption of a positive resolution supporting the peace process. The UN also participates in the multilateral talks in the framework of the peace process. However, there is still a long way to go to full normalization in Israel/UN relations. One of the major stumbling blocks is that Israel has not been able to join any geographic group in the UN.
