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Basic Course 4: What Does the United
Nations System
Look Like?
The
United Nations was founded in 1945 to "to save succeeding generations from
the scourge of war", as the central task of the new organisation was described
in the famous first line of the UN
Charter. However,
an absence of war was not just understood under peace here, but also questions
of further development and justice in the sense of a positive understanding of
peace. The advancement of economic and social development counted as task fields
for the world organisation from the very beginning [see
Basic Course 1 for more information on tasks and aims].
In order to be able to fulfill this broad range of tasks, the Charter chooses that
the principal organs of the
United Nations
create ancillary and special organs and that it
cooperate with other organs in pursuing these aims. The six principal organs
forming the kern of the organisation of the United Nations have made wide
use of this practice. Hence, during the course of time, a network of organs and
cooperations has differentiated out around this kern, for which the term United
Nations System has come into being.Gareis and Varwick divide the elements of
this system up into two categories:
 | "First, those which have been
created by the UNO itself, the special organs, programmes and regional
institutions assigned to the General
Assembly, the Economic
and Social Council or the
Secretariat, |
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and secondly,
the
specialist institutions, independent bodies and organisations with their own
legal status linked to the UN via agreements, which unite to form a
family of organisations, an image which is very frequently used."
[taken from: Sven Gareis/Johannes Varwick, Die Vereinten Nationen. Aufgaben, Instrumente und Reformen;
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Schriftenreihe Band 403, Bonn 2003, P. 34]
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As
the diagram attempts to make clear, multifarious links to commerce (above all
global players, for instance within the framework of the "Global
Compact")
need to be added to this in addition to science and
international civil society. More than 1,500 NGO (non-governmental organisations)
are registered with the Economic and Social Council! "The United Nations
System which has been set up is a dynamic creation, and is difficult to limit in
strict terms. A complete overview of its widely branching tasks is hardly
possible anymore, even for experts."
[taken from: Sven Gareis/Johannes Varwick, Die Vereinten Nationen. Aufgaben, Instrumente und Reformen;
Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Schriftenreihe Band 403, Bonn 2003, P. 35]
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The United Nations has published a broad overview
under
www.unsystem.org
detailing the special organs and specialist
institutions of the United Nations in an alphabetical index.
The index also serves as a link list at the same
time, and makes the website a good starting point for Internet research
into the widely branching system of the United Nations. |
More sections within
the framework of Basic Course 4:
[Author: Ragnar Müller]
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