The United Nations Charter established as "principal organs" of the Organization a General Assembly, a Security Council, an Economic and Social Council. a Trusteeship Council, an International Court of Justice, and a Secretariat headed by a Secretary-General. Each is described briefly below, except the Trusteeship Council, which has been without functions since 1 November 1994, when Palau, the last remaining UN "trust territory" became independent. In September 2005 the General Assembly meeting at the summit level agreed to delete references to the functions of the Trusteeship Council from the Charter.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

All member States of the United Nations (192 in 2010), are represented in the General Asssembly, and each has a single vote. The Assembly has the broadest scope of the Principal Organs. It may consider and make recommendations on anything of interest to member States, except items being actively dealt with by the Security Council. Most Assembly resolutions are recommendations; however, when it acts on the UN budget, implementation by States is mandatory. Despite its largely negative image in the mass media as a talk shop, the General Assembly has been by far the most effective organ of the United Nations. The programs it has established include Unicef and the World Food Programme, which are the world's largest humanitarian organizations. The UN Development Programme (UNDP) is also a General Assembly creation. To go to the General Assembly page at the UN web site click here

SECURITY COUNCIL

The 15-member Security Council is mandated to maintain international peace and security. It has 5 permanent members (Britain, China, France, Russian Federation, United States) with the power of veto and 10 elected members which serve two-year terms that are not immediately renewable. To facilitate collective action, the Charter provides for a Military Staff Committee composed of representatives of the armed forces of the five permanent members, but it has never functioned. Council resolutions are supposed to be mandatory but they are routinely flouted. Among the principal organs, the Security Council has been the most ineffective. The main reason for its ineffectiveness is that the permanent members are themselves the world's biggest arms merchants, and have actively subverted international cooperation. To go to the Security Council page at the UN web site click here.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL

The 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) is the main coordination hub of the Organization, reaching out geographically through five Regional Commissions (Africa, Asia-Pacific, West Asia, Latin America/Caribbean, Europe), and thematically through 10 Functional Commissions dealing with statistics, population, social development, human rights, status of women, narcotic drugs, crime prevention and criminal justice, science and technology, sustainable development and forests. ECOSOC is the organ through which the United Nations relates to the rest of the UN System,and Non-governmental Organizations, ECOSOC subsidiary bodies include a number of committees and expert groups that deal with a variety of topics, including the coordination of UN programs, energy, development policy, cooperation in tax matters and transport of dangerous goods. High-level segments of ECOSOC focus on a different theme every year. Most such sessions in recent years have been devoted to different aspects of action necessary to realize the anti-poverty goals set for 2015 by the Millennium session of the General Assembly. To go to the ECOSOC page at the UN web site click here

THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE

The International Court of Justice, commonly known as the World Court, is based at The Hague in the Netherlands. It has 15 judges, elected jointly by the UN General Assembly and Security Council, serving renewable 9-year terms. The Court acts under a statute that is an integral part of the UN Charter. To go to the web site of the ICJ click here.

THE SECRETARIAT

"The Secretariat shall comprise a Secretary-General and such staff as the Organization may require" says Article 97 of the UN Charter. The Secretary-General is the "Chief Administrative Officer" of the Organization and is empowered to "bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security." That combination of powers gives the post of Secretary-General considerable potential to guide the course of multilateral cooperation, but it has remained unrealized; in fact, the Secretariat has been something of a political football over the last six decades. For our assessment of each of the eight men who have held the office so far, see UN People. To go the UN web site page on the Secretariat click here