UN Touched

Which brings us to the United Nations. Established 24th October 1945, this is the preeminent intergovernmental organisation. If ever there was an organisation that said all the right things and made the right moves, it has to be the UN.

Sure, it's the latest in an 'all-in' approach to make sure we can still go about our business but it's much more than that. If nothing else, you can see the ideas that are formulated when the majority of the planet have to broadly agree.

Its main opposition is among the jingoists and 'love it or leave it' patriots who are susipicious of having their soverignty and sense of superiority compromised.

But let's not worry about them too much.

The success of the UN is there for all to see. Beginning as a means of preventing a repeat of the (second world) war they'd just come out of, it has gone on to encompass multiple facets and has gone from a founding 51 to the 193 member states it now has.

The UN has its headquarters in Manhattan  New York with other main offices in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. They have extraterritoriality.

The United Nations was formulated and negotiated among the delegations from the Soviet Union, the UK, the US and China in Dumbarton Oaks Conference [Wikipedia] The UN Conference on International Organization was attended by 50 governments and a number of non government organisations who together drafted the United Nations Charter.

The first meetings of the General Assembly and the Security Council took place in Methodist Central Hall Westminster.

The United Nations' system is based on five principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice. A sixth , the Trusteeship Council, suspended operations in 1994, upon the independence of Palau, the last remaining UN trustee territory.

The International Court of Justice is based in the Hague.

The General Assembly is the main deliberative body and consists of all member states. It is comprised of

• General Committee - the supervisory committee
• Credentials Committee 
• First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)
• Second Committee (Economic and Financial)
• Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural)
• Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization)
• Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary)
• Sixth Committee (Legal)