Topic 10. International organizations. Geopolitics and geostrategy.

The modern world is constantly becoming more complicated and contradictory. The amount of the states was constantly growing in the past and will be growing in the future. Now there is 15 countries (territories) that are subjected “The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples” in the list of the UN. Next in turn is the granting of independence to Palestine, to Western Sahara etc. So, there are over 200 countries on the political map of the world today that carry out the differently directed politics on the political map of the world. Tens of thousands (!) of political parties operate in them, there is plenty of confessions, members of parliament, heads of governments, presidents etc. All these political and religious, up to secret, organizations have their own opinion on the arrangement of the country, nation and all the world community. Thus the interstate problems are unavoidable. For their solution, and also for the achievement of the certain general goal, defending of the national interests and so on more and more countries, parties and simply people create the international organizations. Currently, in the world there are already over four thousands of such organizations. We will examine those that were formed by two or several countries. There are the global (worldwide) organizations, regional organizations (Africa, North America, countries of the Middle and Near East and so on) and interstate organizations that unite the states not on the basis of the geographical situation, but after the defined goals or features.

The United Nations (UN) is indisputably the biggest, the most important, global and universal organization today. It was created after the Second World War, in 1945, with the aim of preventing of the next world war and local conflicts, strengthening of international safety and development of international cooperation. The UN operates on the basis of the Statute. Its clauses are obligatory for the countries that are members of this organization.

The principal organs of the UN are the General Assembly and the Security Council. The other leading organs of this international organization are the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, the Trusteeship Council, the Economic and Social Council.

The Headquarters of the UN is situated in New York (USA). In 1945 being a part of the USSR Ukraine was one of the countries that founded the UN. Now our state is a member of several specialized international organizations of the UN.

During the sessions of the General Assembly, where the delegations of all the member countries of the UN assist at, the most actual problems of the worldwide policy are discussed, the recommendations concerning their solution are worked through and adopted. Every country has one voice, irrespective of its area, population size, economic and military power.

The Security Council is responsible for the maintenance of the international peace and security. All members of the UN must carry out its decisions. The Security Council consists of 15 member countries, one third of which (the USA, the Great Britain, France, China and Russia) have status of permanent members. Other ten member countries are elected for definite term in definite sequence.

The UN is headed by the Secretary-General. The main regional offices of this organization that are led by the deputies of the Secretary-General of the UN are in Geneva, Vienna and Nairobi (Kenya). So, in Geneva there is a center of diplomatic conferences. The problems of disarmament and human rights are also discussed here. Vienna has functions of international control of the abuse of drugs, prevention of crime, criminal justice, international trade law. This regional office also watches after the use of the space for peaceful purposes. Nairobi office manages the activity of the UN in the field of the environmental protection. There is also the Commission on Population and Development that operates in the same place.

The International Court of Justice, which importance is constantly growing, belongs to the leading organs to the UNO. It is a main judicial body of the UN that decides the legal arguments between the states. The private persons have no authority to address it. The International Court of Justice is situated in Hague (Netherlands).

There are 16 specialized establishments of the UN that work in different countries. The most famous among them are UNESCO, the IAEA, FАО and others.

The headquarters of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), one of the member countries of which is Ukraine, is situated in Paris (France). The leading organs of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are in Vienna (Austria). Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FАО) is located in Rome. Other famous UN agencies are the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), located in Geneva.

Under the aegis of the USA after the Second World War the World Bank Group was created in the system of the UN (Washington). It is a family of financial organizations, the declared aim of which is facilitation of the economic growth of the developing countries. They are the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA) and others. It includes also the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The UN includes a lot of other worldwide organizations that are especially important in the definite spheres of the modern life of the human society. So, the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) carries out the population census, different international comparisons and calculations. It was founded in 1946 in New York. Other spheres of the worldwide activity of the humanity are controlled by the Universal Postal Union (UPU) based in Bern (Switzerland), the World Meteorological Organization (WМО) and the International Telecommunication Union (both are situated in Geneva, Switzerland). There are also such agencies as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that is based in London, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in Montreal (Canada) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) in Vienna. There are more and more agencies that address not only the global problems, but also the regional topical problems in the UN system. One of the most famous among them is the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), situatedin Amman, the capital of Jordan, and in the Gaza strip (Palestine). But the majority of the regional agencies of the UN are occupied with the economic and social problems of the whole continents and parts of the world. For example, the Economic commission for Africa (ЕCА) (Addis Ababa), the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ЕSCAP) (Bangkok) and others. The aim of these organizations is the facilitation of the socio-economic growth of the developing countries, in particular the poorest states that are 48 in the world after the list of the UN. The worsening of the ecological situation in the world considerably raises the role of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) (Nairobi), that rather persistently and sharply comes out for the protection and preservation of the natural environment of our planet. There are other international organizations in the UN system. Besides the organizations of the UN, there are quite a bit of other worldwide formations of different spheres of the activity of the society in the world. So, the World Peace Council (WPC) operates in Helsinki from 1950. It coordinates the work of the drives for peace in more than 150 countries. The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) (Prague, Czech Republic) administrates the union activities. At the same time there is the World Confederation of Labour (WCL), based in Brussels. The world scientists unite in the World Federation of Scientific Workers (WFSW)(London) and belong to the International Council of Scientific Unions — ICSU (Paris). There are a few UN-independent international ecological organizations. Among them there is rather diversified International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is based in Gland (Switzerland). IUCN publishes the world-known Red List of Threatened Species.

The activity of the international sport, religious, student and other organizations that are not the agencies of the UN grew after the Second World War. The most distinguished are the International Olympic committee (IOC) (Lausanne, Switzerland), the World Council of Churches (Geneva), the International Union of Students (Prague), the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), based in Paris. There are more and more member countries of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Its authority is constantly growing.

In the world there is also an enormous amount of international organizations official status of which is regional or subregional, but their real influence spreads all over the world. The most active regional organizations are the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union (EU). The headquarters of both of these organizations are in Brussels.

NATO is the most famous and powerful military-political alliance (bloc) in the world. This bloc is constantly growing due to the joining of the former socialistic countries. There is a largish turn of countries that would like to become members of this organization. Although it has a regional denomination, it is called North Atlantic, it acquires more and more global features. Over 1500 military bases of this alliance are placed on the territories from Greenland to the islands of Oceania.

There are still more countries that want to join another organization with the regional name the European Union. There are near 80 countries in different part of the world (Europe, Africa, Asia and others) that want to become full members of the EU. The EU was transformed from the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1993. At present the EU includes 27 countries. Today the EU produces over one third of the world gross product. Over 40 % of the world export is the export from the EU.