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Flip to reveal answersWhat is the UN and when was it set up?
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All 11 Flashcards — The United Nations
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Question
What is the UN and when was it set up?
Answer
The United Nations — the near-universal body for keeping peace and cooperating — set up in 1945 after World War II and run by the UN Charter.
Question
What is the UN Charter?
Answer
The UN's founding treaty, which sets out its aims and rules.
Question
What is the General Assembly?
Answer
The UN body where all member states meet and each has one equal vote; its resolutions are not legally binding.
Question
What is the Security Council?
Answer
The UN's most powerful body, which can order sanctions or the use of force; its five permanent members each hold a veto.
Question
Who are the P5?
Answer
The five permanent members of the Security Council — the US, UK, France, Russia and China — who each hold a veto.
Question
What is the veto?
Answer
The power of each permanent member to block any Security Council action single-handedly — the biggest limit on UN action.
Question
What does the Secretariat do?
Answer
It is the UN's staff, led by the Secretary-General, who run its day-to-day work.
Question
Name some UN agencies and what they do.
Answer
The WHO (health), UNHCR (refugees), UNDP (development) — they do the UN's practical work.
Question
What are the UN's main achievements?
Answer
Peacekeeping, coordinating aid and health, setting global norms and human rights, and providing a forum that prevents some conflicts.
Question
What are the UN's main limitations?
Answer
The veto blocks strong action, it has no army and depends on states, GA resolutions are non-binding, and it cannot compel powerful states.
Question
What is a balanced view of the UN?
Answer
A real achievement in need of reform — effective when great powers agree, paralysed by the veto when they do not.
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Topic 1.6 hub
Interdependence
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