Origin and Aims. The United Nations is an association of states, or intergovernmental organizations, pledged to maintain international peace and security and to co-operate in solving international political, economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems. The name ‘United Nations’ was devised by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and was first used in the Declaration by United Nations of 1 Jan. 1942, during the Second World War, when 26 nations pledged to continue fighting the Axis Powers.
The United Nations Charter was drawn up by the representatives of 50 countries at the United Nations Conference on International Organization, which met in San Francisco from 25 April to 26 June 1945. Delegates started with proposals worked out by the representatives of China, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom and the United States at Dumbarton Oaks (Washington, D.C.) from 21 Aug. to 28 Sept. 1944. The Charter was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries. Poland,...
Further Reading
Baehr, Peter R. and Gordenker, Leon, The United Nations: Reality and Ideal. 2005
Binder, Martin, The United Nations and the Politics of Selective Humanitarian Intervention. 2017
Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict, Preventing Deadly Conflict: Final Report with Executive Summary. 1997
Cortright, D. and Lopez, G. A., The Sanctions Decade: Assessing UN Strategies in the 1990s. 2000
Fraser, Trudy, Maintaining Peace and Security?: The United Nations in a Changing World. 2014
Gareis, S. B., The United Nations: An Introduction. 2nd ed. 2012
Karlsrud, John, The UN at War: Peace Operations in a New Era. 2017
Kennedy, Paul, The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present, and Future of the United Nations. 2006
Knight, W. Andy, Adapting the United Nations to a Postmodern Era. 2nd ed. 2005
Meisler, S., United Nations: The First Fifty Years. 1998
New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, United Nations Handbook 2017–18. 2017
Price, Richard and Zacher, Mark W., United Nations and Global Security. 2004
Tannam, Etain, International Intervention in Ethnic Conflict: A Comparison of the European Union and the United Nations. 2014
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(2019). United Nations (UN). In: The Statesman’s Yearbook 2019. The Statesman's Yearbook. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-95321-9_1
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