Advocacy > Issues > Organizations Briefs > About UN
UNITED NATIONS - UN
The UN is an inter-governmental organization devoted to world peace bringing together virtually all nations.
Mission
|
|
The UN has four purposes:
- To maintain international peace and security
- To develop friendly relations among nations
- To cooperate in solving international problems and in promoting respect for human rights
- To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations
Under the UN Charter, an international treaty which sets out basic principles of international relations, Member States agree to settle disputes by peaceful means, refraining from threatening or using force against other states.
Membership
The 191 UN Members are sovereign states. When States become Members of the United Nations, they agree to accept the obligations of the UN Charter.
Background
The United Nations was established on 24 October 1945 by 51 countries committed to preserving peace through international cooperation and collective security. Today, nearly every nation in the world belongs to the UN–188 countries in all.
Funding
Members’ contributions
Structure
The United Nations has six main organs. Five of them – the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council and the Secretariat – are based at UN Headquarters in New York. The sixth, the International Court of Justice, is located at The Hague, Netherlands.
The UN System
- A number of “Specialized agencies” are linked to the UN through cooperative agreements, among them: the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), World Health Organization (WHO), International Labour Organization (ILO), UN Educational, Scientific & Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
- In addition, a number of UN offices, programmes and funds belong to the “UN family”, such as the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Fields of activity
The UN per se only deals incidentally with tourism, e.g. at the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD), which focused for the first time on tourism in 1999 and again in 2005-06 at CSD 13 & 14. The UN agency devoted to tourism is the World Tourism Organization which became a fully fledge UN agency in 2003.
Relationship with IH&RA
- IH&RA holds consultative status II with ECOSOC (the UN Economic and Social Council) and as such is recognised as a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) by the UN.
- IH&RA submits a quadrennial report to ECOSOC on its activities with the agencies of the UN system.
- IH&RA was approached by the UN to lead a delegation to represent Business and Industry at the Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Tourism preceding the 7th meeting of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD7) in April 1999 – the first time the CSD focused solely on tourism.
- The CSD experience has brought IH&RA into closer focus at the UN and demonstrated that a number of issues tackled by IH&RA (Dealing with HIV/AIDS in the Workplace, Combating Child Sex Tourism) were of immediate concern to that body. Conversely, IH&RA was able to convey to its members the message that governments were increasingly focused on notions of private sector responsibility and accountability in the fields of tourism and the environment.
- In an interesting shift of focus, the Secretary General recently outlined an initiative styled the Global Compact specifically designed to foster co-operation with the private sector, indicating that the UN now considers the sector as a potential partner.
Key contacts
Mr. Kofi Annan,
Secretary General
Ms Joanne DiSanno,
Director
Department of Economic & Social Affairs (DESA)
Address
One UN Plaza
New York, NY 10017 US
Tel: 1 212 963 58 55
Fax: 1 212 963 30 62
Web site: www.un.org
|
