The role of the UN in the prevention and settlement of international conflicts. The role of the UN in the settlement of international conflicts Gegraeva Leyla Khamzatovna The role of the UN in the resolution of conflicts

08.03.2020

Powers and functions of the UN Security Council

The Security Council is one of the main organs of the UN and plays a major role in maintaining international peace and security.

The Security Council consists of 15 members: five permanent members (Russia, USA, Great Britain, France, China) and ten non-permanent members elected in accordance with the UN Charter. The list of permanent members is fixed in the UN Charter. Non-permanent members are elected by the UN General Assemblies for two years without the right to immediate re-election.

The Security Council is empowered to investigate any dispute or situation which may give rise to international friction or give rise to a dispute, to determine whether the continuation of this dispute or situation may threaten international peace and security. At any stage of such a dispute or situation, the Board may recommend an appropriate procedure or methods for settlement.

The parties to a dispute, the continuation of which may threaten international peace or security, have the right to independently decide on the submission of the dispute for resolution by the Security Council. However, if the Security Council considers that the continuation of the dispute may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security, it may recommend such terms for the settlement of the dispute as it sees fit.

A State that is not a member of the UN may also draw attention to any dispute to which it is a party if, in respect of that dispute, it accepts the obligations stipulated in advance in the UN Charter for the peaceful settlement of disputes.

In addition, the Security Council determines the existence of any threat to the peace, any breach of the peace or act of aggression, and makes recommendations to the parties or decides what measures should be taken to restore international peace and security. The Council may require the parties to the dispute to comply with such provisional measures as it deems necessary. Decisions of the Security Council are binding on all UN members.

The Council is also empowered to decide what non-military measures should be taken to implement its decisions and to require the members of the organization to implement those measures. These measures may include a complete or partial interruption of economic relations, rail, sea, air, postal, telegraph, radio or other means of communication, as well as the severance of diplomatic relations.

If the Security Council considers that these measures prove or have proved insufficient, it may take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore peace and security. The Member States of the United Nations undertake to place at the disposal of the Council the armed forces necessary for the maintenance of peace.

At the same time, it must be taken into account that the UN Charter in no way affects the inalienable right of each state to individual or collective self-defense in the event of an armed attack on a UN member until the Security Council takes appropriate measures to maintain peace and security.

Each member state of the Security Council has one representative here. The Security Council shall establish its own rules of procedure, including the manner in which its President is elected.

Decisions in the Security Council on questions of procedure are considered adopted if they are voted by nine members of the Council. On other matters, decisions shall be considered adopted when they have been voted by nine members of the Council, including the concurring votes of all the permanent members of the Council, and the party to the dispute must abstain from voting. If, when voting on a non-procedural issue, one of the permanent members of the Council votes against, the decision is considered not adopted (right of veto).

The Security Council may establish subsidiary bodies as necessary for the performance of its functions. Thus, to assist the Security Council in the use of troops placed at its disposal and in the regulation of armaments, a Military Staff Committee was created, consisting of the chiefs of staff of the permanent members of the Security Council or their representatives.

Structure of the UN Security Council

Article 29 of the Charter of the United Nations provides that the Security Council may establish such subsidiary bodies as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions. This is also reflected in rule 28 of the Council's Provisional Rules of Procedure.

All current committees and working groups are composed of 15 members of the Council. While the chair of the standing committees is the President of the Council, whose position is rotated monthly, the chairs or co-chairs of other committees and working groups are appointed members of the Council, whose names are presented annually in the Note by the President of the Security Council.

The mandates of the subsidiary bodies, whether committees or working groups, range from procedural matters (eg documentation and procedures, meetings away from Headquarters) to substantive matters (eg sanctions regimes, counter-terrorism, peacekeeping operations) .

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) are subsidiary bodies of the Security Council within the meaning of Article 29 of the Charter. As such, they are dependent on the United Nations for administrative and financial matters, but as judiciary they are independent of any state or group of states, including their founding body, the Security Council.

Committees

Counter-Terrorism and Non-Proliferation Committees

Counter-Terrorism Committee established pursuant to resolution 1373 (2001)

Committee to Prevent the Proliferation of Nuclear, Chemical or Biological Weapons and Their Means of Delivery (1540 Committee) .

Military Staff Committee

The Military Staff Committee helps plan United Nations military arrangements and regulate armaments.

Sanctions committees (ad hoc)

The application of mandatory sanctions is intended to put pressure on a State or entity to adhere to the goals set by the Security Council without resorting to the use of force. Thus, for the Security Council, sanctions are one of the important tools to ensure compliance with its decisions. Because of its universal nature, the United Nations is a particularly suitable body to introduce and monitor such measures.

The Council has resorted to binding sanctions as one of the tools to enforce its decisions when peace is threatened and diplomatic efforts have proved fruitless. Sanctions include comprehensive economic and trade sanctions and/or targeted measures such as arms embargoes, travel bans, and financial or diplomatic restrictions.

Standing committees and special bodies

Standing committees are open-ended bodies and are usually established to deal with certain procedural matters, such as the admission of new members. Special committees are established for a limited period of time to deal with a particular issue.

Peacekeeping operations and political missions

A peacekeeping operation involves military, police and civilian personnel who work to provide security and political support, as well as in the early stages of peacebuilding. Peacekeeping is flexible and has been carried out in many configurations over the past two decades. The current multifaceted peacekeeping operations are designed not only to maintain peace and security, but also to promote political processes, protect civilians, assist in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of ex-combatants; to support the organization of elections, to protect and promote human rights, and to assist in the restoration of the rule of law.

Political missions are one element in a range of United Nations peace operations that operate at various stages of the conflict cycle. In some cases, after the signing of peace agreements, the political missions managed during the peace negotiation phase by the Department of Political Affairs are replaced by peacekeeping missions. In some cases, United Nations peacekeeping operations are being replaced by special political missions whose task is to monitor the implementation of longer-term peacebuilding activities.

International courts and tribunals

The Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993 following widespread violations of humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia during hostilities. It was the first post-war court established by the United Nations to prosecute war crimes and the first war crimes tribunal since the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, which were established at the end of World War II. The Tribunal hears the cases of those individuals who are primarily responsible for such heinous acts as murder, torture, rape, enslavement and destruction of property, as well as other violent crimes. Its purpose is to ensure the administration of justice for the thousands of victims and their families, and thus contribute to the establishment of lasting peace in the area. As of the end of 2011, the Tribunal had convicted 161 people.

The Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in 1994 to prosecute those responsible for the genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in Rwanda between 1 January and 31 December 1994. It may also prosecute Rwandan citizens who committed acts of genocide and other similar violations of international law in the territory of neighboring States during the same period. In 1998, the Tribunal for Rwanda became the first international court to pass judgment on a genocide case, and the first ever to impose a sentence for such a crime.

Advisory Subsidiary Body

The Peacebuilding Commission (PBC) is an intergovernmental advisory body that supports efforts to bring peace to countries emerging from conflict and is an important complementary tool for the international community in its work on the broad peace agenda.

The Peacebuilding Commission has a unique role to play in terms of:

ensuring coordinated interaction between all relevant actors, including international donors, international financial institutions, national governments and troop-contributing countries;

mobilization and distribution of resources;

The Peacebuilding Commission is an advisory subsidiary body of both the Security Council and the General Assembly.

The United Nations plays a special role in maintaining international stability and ensuring international security, preventing and resolving international conflicts. The UN was created in accordance with the long-standing idea that a universal organization can help countries and peoples of the world to get rid of wars and conflicts forever, to replace the forceful mechanism for regulating international relations with political and legal ones.

The first experience of the activity of a universal organization, which was the League of Nations, founded in 1919, turned out to be unsuccessful. The League of Nations did not live up to expectations, it did not become an international institution guaranteeing universal peace and security, and after the outbreak of World War II, it actually ceased to exist (it was formally dissolved in 1946).

The project of creating a new universal organization began to be discussed by representatives of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition already at the end of 1941. During the Second World War, the very name “United Nations” appeared, which was originally used to designate the states participating in the anti-Hitler coalition. At the conference held in April-May 1945 in San Francisco, the UN Charter was developed, which entered into force in October of the same year.

In accordance with Art. 1 of the UN Charter, this organization was created in order to:

Maintain international peace and security and, to this end, take effective collective measures to prevent and eliminate threats to peace and suppress acts of aggression;

To develop friendly relations among nations on the basis of respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples;

To carry out international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural and humanitarian nature and in promoting and developing respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion;

To be the center for coordinating the actions of nations in achieving these common goals.

In accordance with the UN Charter, all members of the organization must:

Conscientiously fulfill obligations;

Settle their international disputes by peaceful means without endangering international peace, security and justice;

To refrain from the use of force or the threat of force against any state;

To render the United Nations every possible assistance in all actions taken in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, and to refrain from rendering assistance to any state against which the United Nations takes preventive or enforcement action.

Initially, only 51 states were members of the UN, since the allied countries of Germany and Japan, as well as themselves, were closed to the organization. Subsequently, the number of UN members expanded both at the expense of these same states, and at the expense of new ones that arose as a result of decolonization. The last wave of expansion in the number of UN members came in the early 1990s. 20th century and was associated with the collapse of such complex states as the USSR, the SFRY, Czechoslovakia, the withdrawal of Eritrea from Ethiopia. Today, the number of States Members of the United Nations has exceeded 190 and may continue to grow.

When creating the UN, the ideas of the English historian D. Mitrani were taken into account, who during the Second World War came to the conclusion that the reason for the collapse of the League of Nations was the very idea that initially underlay its creation. The League of Nations was conceived as an international institution of a general political nature, despite the fact that the level of conflict in international relations remained traditionally high. As a result, in the discussion of issues of political cooperation, interstate disunity and dissimilarity of interests constantly manifested themselves.

Therefore, D. Mitrani suggested starting the search for a path to international cooperation not with global political problems, but with specific non-political issues of interest to various states, regardless of their social structure. It is for the solution of such specific issues that there is a need and possibility of creating international organizations, which D. Mitrany called organizations of a functional type. These are organizations that distance themselves from political issues and focus their activities on solving specific issues. D. Mitrani believed that the joint work of representatives of different states within the framework of such organizations would show the advantages of international cooperation over confrontation and lead them to an understanding of the need for cooperation and a higher level of mutual trust. Functional organizations can become, according to D. Mitrani, the foundation that the League of Nations was deprived of, which predetermined its death.

In the UN system, along with the previously existing functional type organizations, such as the International Labor Organization (ILO), about thirty new ones were included. All of them, as specialized institutions, work in various spheres of life of the world community, complementing the overall efforts of the UN to fulfill the tasks stated in its Charter. The functional, exclusively technical nature of the activities of the organizations of the UN system allowed them to successfully survive the global international confrontation of the Cold War period and simultaneously solve many problems facing humanity, for example, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) provides assistance to victims of international and intrastate conflicts and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The structure of the United Nations itself includes its highest bodies - the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Trusteeship Council, the International Court, and the Secretariat. The General Assembly is a plenary organ of the UN; all its full members have one casting vote. In UN meetings, in addition to representatives of member states, representatives of other international intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations and movements with an advisory vote can also take part. The General Assembly meets in annual sessions, which begin on the third Tuesday of September and continue until December.

At the beginning of each session, a general debate is held, then work continues in six main committees:

The first committee deals with questions of disarmament and international security;

The second - economic and financial issues;

The third is social, humanitarian and cultural issues;

Fourth - socio-political issues (previously these were issues of decolonization);

Fifth, administrative and budgetary matters;

Sixth - legal issues.

If necessary, the work of the session of the General Assembly may be continued, and after its completion, extraordinary sessions may be specially convened. Extraordinary sessions are convened at the request of the Security Council, as well as the majority of UN members. An extraordinary session of the General Assembly may also be convened at the request of one member of the Organization if it is supported by the majority of the rest.

The UN Charter defines the following functions and powers of the General Assembly:

Consider the principles of cooperation in the maintenance of international peace and security, including the principles governing disarmament and arms regulation, and develop recommendations in relation to these principles;

Discuss and make recommendations on any matter relating to international peace and security, except when the dispute or situation is under the consideration of the Security Council;

Discuss and, with the same exception, make recommendations on any matter within the Charter or on matters relating to the powers and functions of any organ of the United Nations;

Organize research and develop recommendations for the following purposes: promoting international cooperation in the political field, developing and codifying international law, implementing human rights and fundamental freedoms for all and promoting international cooperation in the economic and social fields, as well as in the field of culture, education and health care;

Receive and consider reports from the Security Council and other UN bodies;

Review and approve the UN budget and determine the contributions of individual members;

Elect non-permanent members of the Security Council, members of the Economic and Social Council and eligible members of the Trusteeship Council;

To participate jointly with the Security Council in the election of the judges of the International Court of Justice and, on the recommendation of the Security Council, to appoint the Secretary General.

Decisions of the General Assembly on procedural intraorganizational issues are taken by a simple majority of votes. For the admission of new UN members, the adoption of the budget, a qualified majority is required: 2/3 votes + 1 vote. So much is needed for decision-making on issues of peace and security. However, decisions of the General Assembly on these matters are not legally binding. They are important from a moral and political point of view, as they reflect the position of the majority of the international community. In this regard, decisions of the Assembly can affect situations in conflict zones, as well as wherever there is a threat to general security, but legally binding decisions, according to the UN Charter, can be taken by the Security Council.

Unlike the General Assembly, the Security Council works on a permanent basis; if necessary, it can be convened at any time of the day, since it is the Security Council that bears the main responsibility for maintaining global peace, preventing and eliminating all threats to the world community. Beginning in 1965, the Security Council consisted of five permanent and ten non-permanent members. Non-permanent members are elected by the General Assembly for a term of two years. Five non-permanent members must be re-elected annually, while regional quotas for representation on the Security Council must be maintained.

The difference between permanent members, which include the US, Russia, China, Great Britain and France, from non-permanent ones is that, in addition to permanent membership in decision-making, they have a privilege known as the “right of veto”. Decisions of the Security Council are taken when at least nine of the fifteen members vote for them, if none of the permanent members speaks against. Thus, by voting against, any permanent member of the Security Council can block a decision. All decisions of the Security Council are legally binding and are backed by the most influential states in the world.

The functions and powers of the Security Council, in accordance with the UN Charter, are as follows:

Maintain international peace and security in accordance with the principles and purposes of the United Nations;

Investigate any dispute or any situation that may lead to international conflicts;

Develop plans for the creation of a system of regulation of weapons;

Determine the existence of a threat to the peace or an act of aggression and recommend measures to be taken;

Call on the members of the Organization to apply economic sanctions or other measures not related to the use of force to prevent or stop aggression;

Take military action against the aggressor;

Implement United Nations trusteeship functions in "strategic areas";

At its meetings, the Security Council adopts binding resolutions on issues within its competence. When a threat to peace and security arises, the Security Council must take measures to resolve the conflict situation and propose peaceful ways to resolve disputed issues. When it comes to armed violence, the Security Council has an obligation to take steps to stop it.

In accordance with the UN Charter, only the Security Council has the legitimate right to use force to restore peace and stop aggression. The Security Council may also resort to coercive measures to ensure the implementation of its decisions. These can be economic sanctions, an arms embargo, if absolutely necessary, the Security Council can authorize collective military action, as happened in 1991, when a resolution was adopted on the use of force against Iraq, which occupied the territory of Kuwait.

The Economic and Social Council coordinates the activities of the UN to address the economic and social problems of world development. ECOSOC consists of 54 UN members elected by the UN General Assembly for a term of three years. Under the auspices of ECOSOC, there are specialized organizations and UN agencies that solve economic, social, humanitarian and cultural problems. ECOSOC provides official UN assistance to underdeveloped countries. The total amount of this assistance amounts to billions of dollars, part of this money goes to solving problems that arise in areas of international and domestic conflicts, natural disasters and natural disasters.

The Trusteeship Council was created to help in gaining full independence and state sovereignty for the population of those territories that were not previously independent. It was assumed that the former colonies and other dependent territories would initially come under the control of the Board of Trustees. And only then, after the transitional period, power from the interim administration was to be transferred to legitimate bodies representing the population of previously non-independent territories. In practice, decolonization as a whole proceeded differently, and under the control of the Trusteeship Council there were only a few small territories that today have become independent.

The International Court of Justice was created back in 1919 under the auspices of the League of Nations, and in 1945 it was included in the structure of the UN as its full body.

The UN Secretariat was conceived as a structure that provides the administrative and technical aspects of its activities. Currently, the Secretariat employs almost 9 thousand people who perform a variety of functions, including those related to the settlement of conflict and crisis situations: this is mediation in negotiations, and the development of peace proposals, and the organization of humanitarian assistance to victims of conflicts. Translators, referents, technical secretaries work in the apparatus of the Secretariat, without which the work of the UN is impossible.

The Secretariat is headed by the UN Secretary General. In accordance with the Charter, he must bring to the attention of the Security Council information about all threats to international peace and security, as well as carry out instructions from both the Security Council and the General Assembly and other higher bodies of the UN. In practice, the role of the UN Secretary-General in world politics, including in resolving the problems of settling internal and international conflicts, is greater than originally thought. This circumstance is taken into account when projects for the reform of the United Nations are discussed.

The very idea of reforming the UN appeared in the late 1980s. XX century, when it became clear that serious changes were taking place in world politics. The organization, created in the middle of the century, reflected in its structure and nature of activity the peculiarities of international relations that developed immediately after the end of the Second World War. Over the past decades, vast experience has been accumulated, which makes it possible to judge what has justified itself in the structure and principles of the UN activities, and what needs to be revised.

Among the measures that are proposed to be implemented as part of the reform of the UN, the abolition of the Trusteeship Council as having fulfilled its tasks, raising the status and efficiency of the work of the General Assembly, reforming the Security Council, expanding its composition as permanent members , and by increasing the number of non-permanent ones. So far, there is no agreement on the number and personal candidatures of new states - permanent members of the Security Council. When discussing issues of reforming the UN, we are also talking about improving the peacekeeping activities of this organization.

Comparison of the lofty and noble aspirations proclaimed in the UN Charter with those implemented in practice, with real methods and methods of their implementation, as well as the results and consequences of many UN actions, cannot but cause mixed feelings. The generalized indicator of the effectiveness of the UN for 55 years is as follows: at the end of the twentieth century. more than 1.5 billion people lived on less than $1 a day. More than 1 billion adults, mostly women, could not read or write; 830 million people suffered from malnutrition; 750 million people did not have access to adequate housing or health care.

The United Nations has certainly played a prominent role in history and will leave a stronger mark on it than its predecessor, the League of Nations. Figuratively speaking, the UN played the role of a kind of international constitutional assembly to coordinate the rules of law, which have become common not only for individuals, but also for entire states. And in this capacity, a lot has been done.

The undoubted achievement is the very unification of all peoples and states of the planet under the common banner of ensuring international peace and security. An unconditional achievement is also the recognition of the principle of the sovereign equality of all states and the universal obligation not to interfere in each other's internal affairs. Thanks to the world organization, the share and role of secret diplomacy have significantly decreased, the world has become more open, and humanity has become more informed about what is happening in it. The annual sessions of the General Assembly, which bring together the leading figures of almost all states of the world, give each state the opportunity to address the international community with its problems and concerns, and the inhabitants of the planet to find out in a timely manner what worries humanity as a whole in the first place.

With the active participation of the UN, important international legal acts were developed and adopted, which, in a certain sense, determined the course of world politics in the second half of the 20th century. Suffice it to say that the very first resolution, adopted by the General Assembly on January 24, 1946, dealt with the problems of the peaceful use of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other types of weapons of mass destruction.

Continuing the traditions of the League of Nations, the UN organized the work of its permanent body - the international Conferences on Disarmament in Geneva. It discussed the main ideas of the treaties on the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests: first in the atmosphere, underground and under water (signed in 1963), and then over the seas and oceans (1971). It also discussed the main ideas of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, according to which the nuclear powers pledged not to provide nuclear weapons to other countries, and states that did not yet possess such weapons - not to develop or produce them. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 10 and has been open for signature since September 24, 1996, that is, more than half a century after the adoption of the first UN General Assembly resolution on the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction. In 1972, an agreement was signed on a ban on the development, production and storage of bacteriological weapons, and 20 years later (in 1992) a similar document was signed with regard to chemical weapons. In 1990, it was possible to achieve the conclusion of an agreement on the reduction of conventional armed forces in Europe.

Mankind has long enjoyed the riches of the seas and oceans, but so far only a small fraction of what they can give people. Land, rivers and lakes have already been divided among peoples and states, belonging to those who live in the respective territories. Huge wealth is at the bottom of the seas and oceans, which are international. How to use them and on the basis of what right?

In 1958, the UN member states signed the Convention on the Continental Shelf, according to which the shelf of internationally agreed width is divided among all coastal states. In 1982, an international convention on the law of the sea was concluded. In connection with the beginning of space exploration, the question arose about the ownership of space objects and their natural resources. After lengthy discussions, in 1979 an agreement was signed on the activities of states on the Moon and other celestial bodies. These agreements and the Convention on the Continental Shelf proclaimed space, the deep seabed and its mineral resources common heritage of mankind.

According to these international agreements, it was established that:

1) the sphere of the common heritage of mankind is not subject to any appropriation by states, individuals and legal entities;

2) when using the resources of the common heritage of mankind, the interests of the entire international community should be taken into account;

3) states are obliged to ensure that the activities of their organizations and individuals in areas of the common heritage of mankind are carried out in strict accordance with international rules;

4) when developing resources in these areas, the necessary measures to protect the environment should be taken.

Another important field of activity of the UN is its assistance to the process of eliminating colonial dependence and gaining state independence by the peoples of Africa, Asia and the Pacific and Atlantic basins. An exceptionally important role in this process was played by the UN General Assembly in 1960. Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples". In accordance with it, more than 60 former colonies received state independence and became members of the UN. By the day of the 50th anniversary of the UN (in 1995), there were still 17 self-governing territories in the world. The jubilee session of the General Assembly declared the year 2000 the year of the end of colonialism. The UN also made a certain positive contribution to the process of settling political and ethnic conflicts in individual countries.

The role of the UN in the development of an international code of human rights is especially significant. The inalienability and inalienability of human rights is already mentioned in the UN Charter itself. It also says about the mission of the UN, which consists in the need "... to carry out international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural and humanitarian nature and in promoting and developing respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all, without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion”. Of lasting importance are Universal Declaration of Human Rights and adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and entered into force in 1976. Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights” and " Covenant on Civil and Political Rights". The states that signed them pledged to create all the necessary conditions for the realization of the human rights and freedoms proclaimed here. Many dozens of declarations and conventions on the rights and freedoms of various strata and groups of the population have been adopted in the development of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the international covenants on human rights. The achievements of the UN include the above-mentioned activities of the UN specialized agencies (UNESCO, WHO, ILO, etc.)

The UN achieved the greatest success in those areas of activity where the rivalry of the leading powers of the world was weaker. Although it cannot be denied that it was the leading powers of the world that made the most significant contribution to this success. Oddly enough, it was the rivalry between the USA and the USSR and the systems of social relations they personified that played a good service to mankind, and significantly advanced it along the path of progress. Thus, over the 85 years of the 20th century, despite two devastating world wars, the world production of goods and services increased by more than 50 times. 80% of this colossal growth occurred during the period of the most acute confrontation between the two systems - from 1950 to 1985. During this period, the economic growth rate in the world was the highest in the history of mankind - about 5% annually. Of course, such development became possible due to many factors, including the scientific and technological revolution. In conditions of intense rivalry among themselves, the states sought to use them to the maximum advantage for themselves. All this taken together made it possible to achieve the highest rates of economic growth and the longest cycle of crisis-free development in the world. The merits of the UN and its specialized agencies in these successes are significant. In the 1990s, after the collapse of the USSR, "the ideological conflicts and divisions of the bipolar world have been replaced by ethnic and religious intolerance, political ambitions and greed, and are often exacerbated by the illegal trade in weapons, jewelry and drugs." The rate of economic growth also dropped significantly.

The international organization of the united nations, in the world called the UN, was created during the Second World War with the aim of strengthening peace and security between states, as well as developing their cooperation.

UN structure

To ensure its activities, the UN has a strict structure. Each body in the structure of the organization is responsible for a certain aspect of international relations:

The Security Council is responsible for maintaining peace between countries and ensuring their security. All UN member states are forced to obey the decisions of the Security Council, although it consists of only 15 representatives.
The Secretariat has more than 40 thousand employees in its staff. In fact, they are all international personnel who ensure the work of the UN around the world.
The Secretary General heads the secretariat and is elected from among the representatives of countries that are not members of the Security Council.
The International Court of Justice is the body of the United Nations that carries out the judicial and legal activities of the organization.
The Economic and Social Council help realize economic and social cooperation between countries respectively.
The specialized agencies are approved by one of the above bodies in order to better fulfill their international obligations. The most famous among such organizations are the World Bank, WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO.

The UN and conflict resolution

Activities to promote the preservation of peace and security between countries are carried out primarily in the settlement of international conflicts. The UN organizes peacekeeping operations around the world. At the same time, investigations into the causes of conflicts are carried out, negotiations are underway, and in case of signing ceasefire agreements, their observance by all parties to the conflict is monitored.

If necessary, the UN provides humanitarian assistance to victims of international conflicts or natural disasters. It consists not only of the provision of medicines, food and basic necessities, but also of the rescue activities of the UN.

With the active participation of the UN, important international legal acts were developed and adopted, which, in a certain sense, determined the course of world politics in the second half of the 20th century. Suffice it to say that already the first resolution, adopted by the General Assembly on January 24, 1946, dealt with the problems of the peaceful use of atomic energy and the elimination of atomic and other types of weapons of mass destruction.

Continuing the traditions of the League of Nations, the UN organized the work of its permanent body - the international Conferences on Disarmament in Geneva. It discussed the main ideas of the treaties on the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests: first in the atmosphere, underground and under water (signed in 1963), and then over the seas and oceans (1971). It also discussed the main ideas of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, according to which the nuclear powers pledged not to provide nuclear weapons to other countries, and states that did not yet possess such weapons - not to develop or produce them. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly on September 10 and has been open for signature since September 24, 1996, that is, more than half a century after the adoption of the first UN General Assembly resolution on the elimination of atomic and other weapons of mass destruction. In 1972, an agreement was signed banning the development, production, and storage of bacteriological weapons, and 20 years later (in 1992), a similar document was signed with regard to chemical weapons. In 1990, it was possible to achieve the conclusion of an agreement on the reduction of conventional armed forces in Europe.

In 1958, the UN member states signed the Convention on the Continental Shelf, according to which the shelf of the internationally agreed width is divided among all coastal states. In 1982, an international convention on the law of the sea was concluded. In connection with the beginning of space exploration, the question arose about the ownership of space objects and their natural resources. After lengthy discussions, in 1979 an agreement was signed on the activities of states on the Moon and other celestial bodies. These agreements and the Convention on the Continental Shelf proclaimed space, the deep seabed and its mineral resources common heritage of mankind.