(WORLD HISTORY)UNITED NATIONS ORGANISATION AND GLOBAL DISPUTES

UNITED  NATIONS  ORGANISATION AND GLOBAL DISPUTES

• The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization established 24 October 1945, to promote international co-operation. 
• A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was created following the Second World War to prevent another such conflict. 
• At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193(latest South Sudan). 
• The headquarters of the United Nations is situated in Manhattan, New York City, and enjoys extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. 
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• UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, and UNICEF. 
• The UN's most prominent officer is the Secretary-General.
• Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UN's work.
• The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. 

Background and creation:

• In the century prior to the UN's creation, several international treaty organizations and conferences had been formed.
• States first established international organizations to cooperate on specific matters. The International Telecommunication Union was founded in 1865 as the International Telegraph Union, and the Universal Postal Union was established in 1874. Both are now United Nations specialized agencies.
• In 1899, the International Peace Conference was held in The Hague to elaborate instruments for settling crises peacefully, preventing wars and codifying rules of warfare. It adopted the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes and established the Permanent Court of Arbitration, which began work in 1902.
• To regulate conflicts between nations, International Committee of the Red Cross and the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907. 
• Following First World War, the Paris Peace Conference established the League of Nations (under Treaty of Versailles) to maintain harmony between countries.This organization resolved some territorial disputes and created international structures for areas such as postal mail, aviation, and opium control, some of which would later be absorbed into the UN. However, the League lacked representation for colonial peoples (then half the world's population) and significant participation from several major powers, including the US, USSR, Germany, and Japan; it failed to act against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1931, the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, and German expansions under Adolf Hitler that culminated in the Second World War.
• League was effective to solve only those problems where interests of major Powers were not involved.It was also based not on voting but consensus which made decision making more difficult.
• The International Labour Organization was also created under the Treaty of Versailles as an affiliated agency of the League.

1942 "Declaration of United Nations" by Allies of World War II:

• The Atlantic Charter was a joint declaration released by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill on August 14, 1941(even before USA involvement in world war 2) following a meeting in Newfoundland. The Atlantic Charter provided a broad statement of U.S. and British war aims.Churchill and Roosevelt met on August 9 and 10, 1941 aboard the USACruiser, to discuss their respective war aims for the Second World War and to outline a postwar international system. The Charter they drafted included eight “common principles” that the United States and Great Britain would be committed to supporting in the postwar world. Both countries agreed not to seek territorial expansion; to seek the liberalization of international trade; to establish freedom of the seas, and international labor, economic, and welfare standards. Most importantly, both the United States and Great Britain were committed to supporting the restoration of self-governments for all countries that had been occupied during the war and allowing all peoples to choose their own form of government.

• On January 1, 1942, representatives of 26 nations at war with the Axis powers met in Washington to sign the "Declaration by United Nations" (endorsing the Atlantic Charter), pledging (1)to use their full resources against the Axis and (2)agreeing not to make a separate peace.It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France. 
• Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries.
• One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted. 
• By 1 March 1945, 21 additional states had signed.
• During the war, the United Nations became the official term for the Allies. To join countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis.

Other Conferences and Declarations:

• At the Quebec Conference in August 1943, US Secretary of State and British Foreign Secretary agreed to draft a declaration that included a call for “a general international organization, based on the principle sovereign equality of all nations.” 
• An agreed declaration was issued after a Foreign Ministers Conference in Moscow in October 1943. 
• When President Franklin D. Roosevelt met with Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin in Tehran, in November 1943, he proposed an international organization comprising an assembly of all member states and a 10-member executive committee to discuss social and economic issues. The United States, Great Britain, Soviet Union, and China would enforce peace as “the four policemen.” 
• Meanwhile Allied representatives founded a set of task-oriented organizations: the Food and Agricultural Organization (May 1943), the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (November 1943), the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (April 1944), the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (July 1944), and the International Civil Aviation Organization (November 1944).

Founding the UN 1945:

• The United Nations was formulated and negotiated among the delegations from the Soviet Union, the UK, the US and China in Dumbarton Oaks Conference.
• The UN Conference on International Organization opened in San Francisco, 25 April 1945, attended by 50 governments and a number of non-governmental organizations involved in drafting the United Nations Charter. The UN officially came into existence 24 October 1945, upon ratification of the Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council—France, the Republic of China, the Soviet Union, the UK and the US—and by a majority of the other 46 signatories.
• The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, and the Security Council took place in Central Hall Westminster in London beginning 6 January 1946.The General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the United Nations.Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva,Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory.The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General.

Objectives:

(1)Peacekeeping and security:

• The UN, after approval by the Security Council, sends peacekeepers to regions where armed conflict has recently ceased or paused to enforce the terms of peace agreements. Since the UN does not maintain its own military, peacekeeping forces are voluntarily provided by member states.
• The peacekeeping force as a whole received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1988.
• In September 2013, the UN had peacekeeping soldiers deployed on 15 missions. The largest was the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO).The smallest, United Nations Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP).
• UN peacekeepers with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) have been stationed in the Middle East since 1948, the longest-running active peacekeeping mission.
• UN has been successful in two out of three peacekeeping efforts.
• The UN has also drawn criticism for perceived failures. In many cases, member states have shown reluctance to achieve or enforce Security Council resolutions. Disagreements in the Security Council about military action and intervention are seen as having failed to prevent the Bangladesh genocide in 1971,the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s, and the Rwandan genocide in 1994. Similarly, UN inaction is blamed for failing to either prevent the Srebrenica massacre in 1995 or complete the peacekeeping operations in 1992–93 during the Somali Civil War. 
• UN peacekeepers have also been accused of child rape, soliciting prostitutes, and sexual abuse during various peacekeeping missions.
• In addition to peacekeeping, the UN is also active in encouraging disarmament. Regulation of armaments was included in the writing of the UN Charter in 1945.
• The advent of nuclear weapons came only weeks after the signing of the charter, resulting in the first resolution of the first General Assembly meeting calling for specific proposals for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction".
• The UN has been involved with arms-limitation treaties, such as the Outer Space Treaty(1967), the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (1968), the Seabed Arms Control Treaty (1971), the Biological Weapons Convention (1972), the Chemical Weapons Convention (1992), and the Ottawa Treaty (1997), which prohibits landmines.
• Three UN bodies oversee arms proliferation issues: the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization Preparatory Commission.

(2)Human rights:

• One of the UN's primary purposes is "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion", and member states pledge to undertake "joint and separate action" to protect these rights.
• In 1948, the General Assembly adopted a Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaiming basic civil, political, and economic rights common to all human beings.The Declaration serves as a "common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations" rather than a legally binding document, but it has become the basis of two binding treaties, the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. 
• In practice, the UN is unable to take significant action against human rights abuses without a Security Council resolution, though it does substantial work in investigating and reporting abuses.
• In 1979, the General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, followed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.
• With the end of the Cold War, the push for human rights action took on new impetus.The United Nations Commission on Human Rights was formed in 1993 to oversee human rights issues for the UN.In 2006, it was replaced by a Human Rights Council consisting of 47 nations.
• In 2006, the General Assembly passed a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,and in 2011 it passed its first resolution recognizing the rights of LGBT people
• Other UN bodies responsible for women's rights issues include United Nations Commission on the Status of Women, a commission of ECOSOC founded in 1946; the United Nations Development Fund for Women, created in 1976; and the United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, founded in 1979.

(3)Economic development and humanitarian assistance:

• Another primary purpose of the UN is "to achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character".
• Numerous bodies have been created to work towards this goal, primarily under the authority of the General Assembly and ECOSOC. In 2000, the 192 United Nations member states agreed to achieve eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
• The UN Development Programme (UNDP), an organization for grant-based technical assistance founded in 1945, is one of the leading bodies in the field of international development. The organization also publishes the UN Human Development Index.
• The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), founded in 1945, promotes agricultural development and food security.
• UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund) was created in 1946 to aid European children after the Second World War and expanded its mission to provides aid around the world and to uphold the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
• The World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF) are independent, specialized agencies and observers within the UN framework, initially formed separately from the UN through the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944.
• The World Bank provides loans for international development, while the IMF promotes international economic co-operation and gives emergency loans to indebted countries.
• WHO, which focuses on international health issues and disease eradication, is another of the UN's agency. In 1980, the agency announced that the eradication of smallpox had been completed. In subsequent decades, WHO largely eradicated polio, river blindness, and leprosy.The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), begun in 1996, co-ordinates the organization's response to the AIDS epidemic. The UN Population Fund, is the world's largest source of funding for reproductive health and family planning services.
• Along with the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the UN often takes a leading role in co-ordinating emergency relief. The World Food Programme (WFP), created in 1961, provides food aid in response to famine, natural disasters, and armed conflict. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), established in 1950, works to protect the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless people.UNHCR and WFP programmes are funded by voluntary contributions from governments, corporations, and individuals.

(4)Other

• Since the UN's creation, over 80 colonies have attained independence. The General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples in 1960 with no votes against but abstentions from all major colonial powers. The UN works toward decolonization through groups including the UN Committee on Decolonization, created in 1962.The committee lists seventeen remaining "Non-Self-Governing Territories".
• With UN Environmental Programme (UNEP) in 1972, the UN has made environmental issues a prominent part of its agenda. 
• The UN also declares and co-ordinates international observances, periods of time to observe issues of international interest or concern. Examples include World Tuberculosis Day, Earth Day, and the International Year of Deserts and Desertification.

Cold War era:

• Though the UN's primary mandate was peacekeeping, the division between the US and USSR often paralysed the organization, generally allowing it to intervene only in conflicts distant from the Cold War.(A notable exception was a Security Council resolution in 1950 authorizing a US-led coalition to repel the North Korean invasion of South Korea, passed in the absence of the USSR which was protesting against exclusion of Communist China from permanent security council)
• In 1947, the General Assembly approved a resolution to partition Palestine, approving the creation of the state of Israel.
• In 1956, the first UN peacekeeping force was established to end the Suez Crisis
• However, the UN was unable to intervene against the USSR's simultaneous invasion of Hungary following that country's revolution.
• In 1960, the UN deployed United Nations Operation in the Congo (UNOC), the largest military force of its early decades, to bring order to the breakaway State of Katanga, restoring it to the control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 1964.In 1964,the United Nations Peacekeeping Force was deployed in Cyprus, which would become one of the UN's longest-running peacekeeping missions.
• With the spread of decolonization in the 1960s, the organization's membership saw an influx of newly independent nations. In 1960 alone, 17 new states joined the UN, 16 of them from Africa. 
• On 25 October 1971, with opposition from the United States, but with the support of many Third World nations, the mainland, communist People's Republic of China was given the Chinese seat on the Security Council in place of the Republic of China (Taiwan); the vote was widely seen as a sign of waning US influence in the organization.
• Third World nations organized into the Group of 77 coalition under the leadership of Algeria, which briefly became a dominant power at the UN.
• In 1975, a bloc comprising the USSR and Third World nations passed a resolution, over strenuous US and Israeli opposition, declaring Zionism to be racism; the resolution was repealed in 1991, shortly after the end of the Cold War.
• With an increasing Third World presence and the failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the Middle East, Vietnam, and Kashmir, the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its ostensibly secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange.By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its peacekeeping budget.

Post-Cold War:

• After the Cold War, the UN saw a radical expansion in its peacekeeping duties, taking on more missions in ten years than it had in the previous four decades. Between 1988 and 2000, the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled, and the peacekeeping budget increased more than tenfold.
• The UN negotiated an end to the Salvadoran Civil War(in El Salvador), launched a successful peacekeeping mission in Namibia, and oversaw democratic elections in post-apartheid South Africa and post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia. 
• In 1991, the UN authorized a US-led coalition that repulsed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.The hopes raised by these successes proved as a "false renaissance" for the organization, given the more troubled missions that followed.
• Though the UN Charter had been written primarily to prevent aggression by one nation against another, in the early 1990s the UN faced a number of simultaneous, serious crises within nations such as Somalia, Haiti, Mozambique, and the former Yugoslavia.
• The UN mission in Somalia was widely viewed as a failure after the US withdrawal following casualties in the Battle of Mogadishu, and the UN mission to Bosnia faced "worldwide ridicule" for its indecisive mission in the face of ethnic cleansing.
• In 1994, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the Rwandan Genocide amid indecision in the Security Council.
• Beginning in the last decades of the Cold War, American and European critics of the UN condemned the organization for perceived mismanagement and corruption.In 1984, the US President, Ronald Reagan, withdrew his nation's funding from UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, founded 1946) over allegations of mismanagement, followed by Britain and Singapore.
• Boutros Ghali, Secretary-General from 1992 to 1996, initiated a reform of the Secretariat, reducing the size of the organization somewhat. His successor, Kofi Annan (1997–2006), initiated further management reforms in the face of threats from the United States to withhold its UN dues.
• In the late 1990s and 2000s, international interventions authorized by the UN took a wider variety of forms. The UN mission in the Sierra Leone Civil War of 1991–2002 was supplemented by British Royal Marines, and the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was overseen by NATO.
• In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq despite failing to pass a UN Security Council resolution for authorization, prompting a new round of questioning of the organization's effectiveness.
• Under the current Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, the UN has intervened with peacekeepers in crises including the War in Darfur in Sudan and the Kivu conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and sent observers and chemical weapons inspectors to the Syrian Civil War. 
• In 2013, an internal review of UN actions in the final battles of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 concluded that the organization had suffered "systemic failure".

Structure of UNO:

• Five principal organs:

(1) the General Assembly
(2)the Security Council
(3)the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)
(4)the Secretariat
(5)the International Court of Justice

• A sixth principal organ, the Trusteeship Council, suspended operations in 1994, upon the independence of Palau, the last remaining UN trustee territory.
• Four of the five principal organs are located at the main UN Headquarters in New York City.The International Court of Justice is located in The Hague, while other major agencies are based in the UN offices at Geneva,Vienna,and Nairobi.
• Other UN institutions are located throughout the world. 
• The six official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.
• On the basis of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the UN and its agencies are immune from the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding the UN's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries.
• Below the six organs sit, "an amazing collection of entities and organizations, some of which are actually older than the UN itself and operate with almost complete independence from it".These include specialized agencies, research and training institutions, programmes and funds, and other UN entities.
• The United Nations obey the Noblemaire principle, which is binding on any organisation that belongs to the united nations system.  This principle holds that an international organization must remunerate its entire staff equally for work of equal value, irrespective of differences in levels of pay in the various countries from which they are drawn.It must also be able to recruit and retain staff from all its member states. Consequently, the uniform level of pay it provides must be sufficient to attract staff from the country or countries where national pay levels are highest.
• The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and their affiliated organizations have not agreed to be covered by the UN common system of Salaries and Allowances.

(1)General Assembly:

• The General Assembly is the main deliberative assembly of the United Nations. Composed of all United Nations member states, the assembly meets in regular yearly sessions, but emergency sessions can also be called.The assembly is led by a president, elected from among the member states on a rotating regional basis, and 21 vice-presidents.
• When the General Assembly votes on important questions( recommendations on peace and security; election of members to organs; admission, suspension, and expulsion of members; and budgetary matters), a two-thirds majority of those present and voting is required.All other questions are decided by a majority vote. 
• Each member country has one vote. Apart from approval of budgetary matters, resolutions are not binding on the members.
• The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security that are under consideration by the Security Council.
• Draft resolutions can be forwarded to the General Assembly by 8 committees including Security Council.

(2)The Security Council:

• Charged with maintaining peace and security among countries. While other organs of the United Nations can only make "recommendations" to member states, the Security Council has the power to make binding decisions that member states have agreed to carry out. 
• The decisions of the Council are known as United Nations Security Council resolutions.
• Made up of fifteen member states, consisting of five permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—and ten non-permanent members.The five permanent members hold veto power over UN resolutions, though not debate. The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms, with member states voted in by the General Assembly on a regional basis.The presidency of the Security Council rotates alphabetically each month.

(3)Secretariat

• The UN Secretariat is headed by the Secretary-General, assisted by a staff of international civil servants worldwide.
• It provides studies, information, and facilities needed by United Nations bodies for their meetings. It also carries out tasks as directed by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and other UN bodies.
• The Secretary-General acts as the de facto spokesperson and leader of the UN. He is organization's "chief administrative officer".The Secretary-General can bring to the Security Council's attention "any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security".The office has evolved into a dual role of an administrator of the UN organization and a diplomat and mediator addressing disputes between member states and finding consensus to global issues.
• The Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly, after being recommended by the Security Council, where the permanent members have veto power.There are no specific criteria for the post, but over the years it has become accepted that the post shall be held for one or two terms of five years, that the post shall be appointed on the basis of geographical rotation, and that the Secretary-General shall not originate from one of the five permanent Security Council member states.

(4)International Court of Justice:

• The International Court of Justice (ICJ), located in The Hague, in the Netherlands, is the primary judicial organ of the UN. Established in 1945 by the UN Charter, the Court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice. 
• The ICJ is composed of 15 judges who serve 9-year terms and are appointed by the General Assembly; every sitting judge must be from a different nation.
• The ICJ's primary purpose is to adjudicate disputes among states. The court has heard cases related to war crimes, illegal state interference, ethnic cleansing, and other issues.The ICJ can also be called upon by other UN organs to provide advisory opinions.

(5)Economic and Social Council

• The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) assists the General Assembly in promoting international economic and social co-operation and development. 
• ECOSOC has 54 members, which are elected by the General Assembly for a three-year term. The president is elected for a one-year term and chosen amongst members. 
• The council has one annual meeting in July, held in either New York or Geneva. 
• Viewed as separate from the specialized bodies it co-ordinates, ECOSOC's functions include information gathering, advising member nations, and making recommendations.Owing to its broad mandate of co-ordinating many agencies, ECOSOC has at times been criticized as unfocused or irrelevant.
• ECOSOC's subsidiary bodies include the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, which advises UN agencies on issues relating to indigenous peoples; the United Nations Forum on Forests, which co-ordinates and promotes sustainable forest management; the United Nations Statistical Commission, which co-ordinates information-gathering efforts between agencies; and the Commission on Sustainable Development, which co-ordinates efforts between UN agencies and NGOs working toward sustainable development. 
• ECOSOC may also grant consultative status to non-governmental organizations.

Specialized agencies

• The UN Charter stipulates that each primary organ of the UN can establish various specialized agencies to fulfill its duties such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Food and Agriculture Organization, UNESCO, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO). 
• The UN performs most of its humanitarian work through these agencies.

Membership:

• Membership in the United Nations is open to all other peace-loving states that accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations.
• The admission of any such state to membership in the United Nations will be effected by a decision of the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.
• In addition, there are two non-member observer states of the United Nations General Assembly: the Holy See (which holds sovereignty over Vatican City) and the State of Palestine.
• Political control of Western Sahara is in dispute; and the territories administered by Taiwan and Kosovo are considered by the UN to be provinces of China and Serbia, respectively.

Group of 77

• The Group of 77(has more than hundred members) at the UN is a loose coalition of developing nations, designed to promote its members' collective economic interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity in the United Nations.The group was founded in 1964 by the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The group held its first major meeting in Algiers in 1967, where it adopted the Charter of Algiers and established the basis for permanent institutional structures.

Funding:

• The UN is financed from assessed and voluntary contributions from member states. The General Assembly approves the regular budget and determines the assessment for each member. This is broadly based on the relative capacity of each country to pay, as measured by its gross national income (GNI), with adjustments for external debt and low per capita income.
• The Assembly has established the principle that the UN should not be unduly dependent on any one member to finance its operations. Thus, there is a "ceiling" rate, setting the maximum amount that any member can be assessed for the regular budget.
• A large share of the UN's expenditure addresses its core mission of peace and security, and this budget is assessed separately from the main organizational budget. UN peace operations are funded by assessments, using a formula derived from the regular funding scale that includes a weighted surcharge for the five permanent Security Council members, who must approve all peacekeeping operations. This surcharge serves to offset discounted peacekeeping assessment rates for less developed countries. 
• Special UN programmes not included in the regular budget, such as UNICEF and the World Food Programme, are financed by voluntary contributions from member governments, corporations, and private individuals

Evaluation and Criticism:

• Other evaluations of the UN's effectiveness have been mixed. Some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased.
• Since its founding, there have been many calls for reform of the United Nations but little consensus on how to do so. Some want the UN to play a greater or more effective role in world affairs, while others want its role reduced to humanitarian work. 
• There have also been numerous calls for the UN Security Council's membership to be increased, for different ways of electing the UN's Secretary-General, and for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.
• The most enduring divide in views of the UN is "the North–South split" between richer Northern nations and developing Southern nations. Southern nations tend to favour a more empowered UN with a stronger General Assembly, allowing them a greater voice in world affairs, while Northern nations prefer an economically laissez-faire UN that focuses on transnational threats such as terrorism.
• After World War II, the French Committee of National Liberation was late to be recognized by the US as the government of France, and so the country was initially excluded from the conferences that created the new organization. The future French president Charles de Gaulle criticized the UN, famously calling it a machin ("contraption"), and was not convinced that a global security alliance would help maintain world peace, preferring direct defence treaties between countries.
• Throughout the Cold War, both the US and USSR repeatedly accused the UN of favouring the other. In 1953, the USSR effectively forced the resignation of Trygve Lie, the Secretary-General, through its refusal to deal with him.
• The French President, François Hollande, stated in 2012 that "France trusts the United Nations. She knows that no state, no matter how powerful, can solve urgent problems, fight for development and bring an end to all crises... France wants the UN to be the centre of global governance."
• Critics have also accused the UN of bureaucratic inefficiency, waste, and corruption. In 1976, the General Assembly established the Joint Inspection Unit to seek out inefficiencies within the UN system. During the 1990s, the US withheld dues citing inefficiency and only started repayment on the condition that a major reforms initiative was introduced. In 1994, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) was established by the General Assembly to serve as an efficiency watchdog.In 2004, the UN faced accusations that its recently ended Oil-for-Food Programme—in which Iraq had been allowed to trade oil for basic needs to relieve the pressure of sanctions—had suffered from widespread corruption, including billions of dollars of kickbacks. An independent inquiry created by the UN found that many of its officials had been involved.
• The accomplishments of the United Nations in the last 60 years are impressive in their own terms. Progress in human development during the 20th century has been dramatic and the UN and its agencies have certainly helped the world become a more hospitable and livable place for millions.The United Nations never fulfilled the hopes of its founders, but it accomplished a great deal nevertheless", citing its role in decolonization and its many successful peacekeeping efforts.