Peace: A global organisation to maintain peace and security

Peace

A global organisation to maintain peace and security

Even before the final victory over the Axis powers, the leaders of the wartime coalition of the United Nations had decided to establish an organisation dedicated to maintaining world peace. Having agreed in principle to this in the autumn of 1944, the countries of the wartime coalition signed the organisation’s founding charter at a conference in San Francisco in August 1945, giving it the same name as the wartime coalition established in 1942. Although the UN’s founding members were all members of the victorious coalition, membership was gradually extended to the defeated nations and newly created states. The founding members empowered the organisation to oversee international order, maintain peace and mediate in armed conflicts. The central body is the General Assembly, which meets once a year, while the actual decision-making body is the Security Council, which has five permanent members and ten non-permanent members. The UN also has a number of specialised agencies. Today the UN is a key international organisation with a membership that includes nearly every country in the world. Although the UN has faced many limitations and even powerlessness, it remains a symbol of post-war efforts for peace and security and a catalyst for global development, humanitarian and mutual aid and peacekeeping interventions in numerous armed conflicts.

Damijan Guštin

Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History (retired)