United Nations Association-McLean County Chapter

Educational Tools

Selected UN Organizations

 

International Criminal Court

One of the primary objectives of the United Nations is securing universal respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals throughout the world. In this connection, few topics are of greater importance than the fight against impunity and the struggle for peace and justice and human rights in conflict situations in today's world. The establishment of a permanent international criminal court (ICC) is seen as a decisive step forward. The international community met in Rome, Italy, from 15 June to 17 July 1998 to finalize a draft statute, which came into effect in July 2002. An international criminal court has been called the missing link in the international legal system. The International Court of Justice at The Hague handles only cases between States, not individuals. Without an international criminal court for dealing with individual responsibility as an enforcement mechanism, acts of genocide and egregious violations of human rights often go unpunished. In the last 50 years, there have been many instances of crimes against humanity and war crimes for which no individuals have been held accountable. In Cambodia in the 1970s, an estimated 2 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge. In armed conflicts in Mozambique, Liberia, El Salvador and other countries, there has been tremendous loss of civilian life, including unarmed women and children. Massacres of civilians continue in Algeria and the Great Lakes region of Africa.

United Nations

The United Nations is central to global efforts to solve problems which challenge humanity. Cooperating in this effort are more than 30 affiliated organizations, known together as the UN system. Day in and day out, the UN and its family of organizations work to promote respect for human rights, protect the environment, fight disease, foster development and reduce poverty. UN agencies define the standards for safe and efficient transport by air and sea, help improve telecommunications and enhance consumer protection, work to ensure respect for intellectual property rights and coordinate allocation of radio frequencies. The United Nations leads the international campaigns against drug trafficking and terrorism. Throughout the world, the UN and its agencies assist refugees and set up programmes to clear landmines, help improve the quality of drinking water and expand food production, make loans to developing countries and help stabilize financial markets.

United Nations Environment Program

According to the mission statement, the goal of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is to provide leadership and encourage partnerships in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing and enabling nations and people to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations. The UNEP is built on a heritage of service to the environment. As one of the productive consequences of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, UNEP provides an integrative and interactive mechanism through which a large number of separate efforts by intergovernmental, non-governmental, national and regional bodies in the service of the environment are reinforced and interrelated. UNEP was established as the environmental conscience of the United Nations system, and has been creating a basis for comprehensive consideration and coordinated action within the UN on the problems of the human environment. Besides the latest news and information in the field, on this website, there are texts of documents such as the Malmo Ministerial Declaration, Nairobi Declaration, Agenda 21, Rio Declaration, Stockholm 1972, etc.

United Nations University

This website is a link to the United Nations University which has a number of lectures on various topics.