1.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
2.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
3.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
4.
United Nations
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The United Nations is an intergovernmental organization to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was established on 24 October 1945 after World War II in order to prevent another such conflict, at its founding, the UN had 51 member states, there are now 193. The headquarters of the UN is in Manhattan, New York City, further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi, and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states, the UNs mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and their respective allies. The organization participated in actions in Korea and the Congo. After the end of the Cold War, the UN took on major military, the UN has six principal organs, the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Trusteeship Council. UN System agencies include the World Bank Group, the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, UNESCO, the UNs most prominent officer is the Secretary-General, an office held by Portuguese António Guterres since 2017. Non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with ECOSOC and other agencies to participate in the UNs work, the organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001, and a number of its officers and agencies have also been awarded the prize. Other evaluations of the UNs effectiveness have been mixed, some commentators believe the organization to be an important force for peace and human development, while others have called the organization ineffective, corrupt, or biased. Following the catastrophic loss of life in the First World War, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. It incorporated Soviet suggestions, but left no role for France, four Policemen was coined to refer to four major Allied countries, United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, and China, which emerged in the Declaration by United Nations. Roosevelt first coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries, the term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration. One major change from the Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. Each Government pledges itself to cooperate with the Governments signatory hereto, the foregoing declaration may be adhered to by other nations which are, or which may be, rendering material assistance and contributions in the struggle for victory over Hitlerism. During the war, the United Nations became the term for the Allies. To join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis, at the later meetings, Lord Halifax deputized for Mr. Eden, Wellington Koo for T. V. Soong, and Mr Gromyko for Mr. Molotov. The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented, the General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN, and the facility was completed in 1952. Its site—like UN headquarters buildings in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi—is designated as international territory, the Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie, was elected as the first UN Secretary-General
5.
United Nations Secretariat
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The Secretariat is the United Nations executive arm. The Secretariat has an important role in setting the agenda for the UNs deliberative and decision making bodies of the UN, Secretary-General, who is appointed by the General Assembly, is the head of the secretariat. The mandate of the secretariat is a wide one and it can, in proper forms, take initiatives. It can put before member governments findings which will influence their actions, the United Nations Department of Political Affairs, which has a role analogous to a ministry of foreign affairs, is a part of the secretariat. So is the department of United Nations Peace Keeping Operations, the Secretariat has 44,000 international civil servants. Eligibility for civil service is based on a UN-administered examination offered worldwide, qualifications for membership include the highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity, according to the UN Charter. Staff-members are appointed by the Secretary-General alone and are assigned to the organs of the United Nations, staff members are appointed on a temporary or permanent basis, under the discretion of the Secretary-General. During staff recruitment, geographical variety is an especially prominent selection factor in order to reflect the scope of member states present in the UN. Headquartered in New York, the Secretariat functions through duty stations in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Beirut, Geneva, Nairobi, Santiago and Vienna, the most overrepresented states in the Secretariat are small, rich democracies. The Nordic states stand out, in particular, when it comes to overrepresentation, since 1984, the UN Secretariat, in order to achieve early Gender Equality, issued several five year “Action Plans, including Strategic Plans, to improve the status of women in the Secretariat. These plans, however, did not have the desired impact, in Feb 2004, gender Parity target for the secretariat was once again revised to 2015. In 2009, despite the plans, and GA resolutions, the representation of women in the UN Secretariat remained well below parity at 29.2 percent, the representation of Womens in the UN secretariat, at the D1 level, in 2000, was 30.3 percent. At the current rate of progress, it is estimated that gender parity at the D-1 to higher levels will be achieved after 102 years. At D2 level The representation of women in 2011 was 24. and that Special measures would remain in effect until the “goal of gender parity is achieved, key Secretariat offices in this area include the Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs and the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter that, in his or her opinion, may threaten international peace, the Secretariat is divided into offices and departments. On 21 March 2005, Secretary-General Kofi Annan proposed several reforms for the Secretariat and he announced his intentions to appoint a Scientific Adviser, create a peacebuilding support office, establish a cabinet-style decision-making mechanism, and strengthen the mediation function. United States Department of State – UN Division The Four Nations Initiative
6.
United Nations Security Council
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The Security Council held its first session on 17 January 1946. Like the UN as a whole, the Security Council was created following World War II to address the failings of an international organization. The Security Council consists of fifteen members, the great powers that were the victors of World War II—the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, France, Republic of China, and the United States—serve as the bodys five permanent members. These permanent members can veto any substantive Security Council resolution, including those on the admission of new member states or candidates for Secretary-General, the Security Council also has 10 non-permanent members, elected on a regional basis to serve two-year terms. The bodys presidency rotates monthly among its members, Security Council resolutions are typically enforced by UN peacekeepers, military forces voluntarily provided by member states and funded independently of the main UN budget. As of 2016,103,510 peacekeeping soldiers and 16,471 civilians are deployed on 16 peacekeeping operations and 1 special political mission. Following the catastrophic loss of life in World War I, the Paris Peace Conference established the League of Nations to maintain harmony between the nations, the earliest concrete plan for a new world organization began under the aegis of the US State Department in 1939. The term United Nations was first officially used when 26 governments signed this Declaration, by 1 March 1945,21 additional states had signed. The most contentious issue at Dumbarton and in successive talks proved to be the rights of permanent members. At the conference, H. V. Evatt of the Australian delegation pushed to further restrict the power of Security Council permanent members. Due to the fear that rejecting the strong veto would cause the conferences failure, the UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945 upon ratification of the Charter by the five then-permanent members of the Security Council and by a majority of the other 46 signatories. On 17 January 1946, the Security Council met for the first time at Church House, Westminster, in London, United Kingdom. The Security Council was largely paralysed in its early decades by the Cold War between the US and USSR and their allies, and the Council generally was only able to intervene in unrelated conflicts. Cold War divisions also paralysed the Security Councils Military Staff Committee, the committee continued to exist on paper but largely abandoned its work in the mid-1950s. By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its budget for peacekeeping. After the Cold War, the UN saw an expansion in its peacekeeping duties. Between 1988 and 2000, the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled, undersecretary-General Brian Urquhart later described the hopes raised by these successes as a false renaissance for the organization, given the more troubled missions that followed. In 1994, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the Rwandan Genocide in the face of Security Council indecision, in the late 1990s, UN-authorised international interventions took a wider variety of forms
7.
United Nations General Assembly
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The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation. The General Assembly is the deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. It has also established a number of subsidiary organs. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions and its composition, functions, powers, voting, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, other questions are decided by a straightforward majority. Each member country has one vote, apart from approval of budgetary matters, including adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace, the one state, one vote power structure potentially allows states comprising just five percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a two-thirds vote. During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for the North-South dialogue and these issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing makeup of the UN membership. In 1945, the UN had 51 members and it now has 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries. Because of their numbers, developing countries are able to determine the agenda of the Assembly, the character of its debates. For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence, the Assembly can consider the matter immediately with a view to making recommendations to Members for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security. The first session of the UN General Assembly was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, the next few annual sessions were held in different cities, the second session in New York, and the third session was in Paris. It moved to the permanent United Nations Headquarters in New York at the start of its seventh regular annual session, on 14 October 1952. In December 1988, in order to hear Yasser Arafat, the General Assembly organised its 29th session in the Palace of Nations, all 193 members states of the United Nations are members of the General Assembly. The agenda for each session is planned up to seven months in advance and this is refined into a provisional agenda 60 days before the opening of the session. Items on the agenda are numbered, the General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the community about an array of world issues. Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical matter, the General Assembly has authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget
8.
International Court of Justice
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The International Court of Justice is the primary judicial branch of the United Nations. Established in 1945 by the UN Charter, the Court began work in 1946 as the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice, the Statute of the International Court of Justice, similar to that of its predecessor, is the main constitutional document constituting and regulating the Court. The Courts workload covers a range of judicial activity. Chapter XIV of the United Nations Charter authorizes the UN Security Council to enforce Court rulings, however, such enforcement is subject to the veto power of the five permanent members of the Council, which the United States used in the Nicaragua case. The election process is set out in Articles 4–19 of the ICJ statute, elections are staggered, with five judges elected every three years to ensure continuity within the court. Should a judge die in office, the practice has generally been to elect a judge in an election to complete the term. No two judges may be nationals of the same country, according to Article 9, the membership of the Court is supposed to represent the main forms of civilization and of the principal legal systems of the world. Essentially, that has meant common law, civil law and socialist law, the exception was China, which did not have a judge on the Court from 1967 to 1985 because it did not put forward a candidate. Judicial independence is dealt with specifically in Articles 16–18, judges of the ICJ are not able to hold any other post or act as counsel. A judge can be dismissed only by a vote of the other members of the Court. Despite these provisions, the independence of ICJ judges has been questioned, judges may deliver joint judgments or give their own separate opinions. Judges may also deliver separate dissenting opinions, Article 31 of the statute sets out a procedure whereby ad hoc judges sit on contentious cases before the Court. The system allows any party to a case if it otherwise does not have one of that partys nationals sitting on the Court to select one additional person to sit as a judge on that case only. It is thus possible that as many as seventeen judges may sit on one case, the system may seem strange when compared with domestic court processes, but its purpose is to encourage states to submit cases. Although this system does not sit well with the nature of the body. Ad hoc judges usually vote in favor of the state that appointed them, generally, the Court sits as full bench, but in the last fifteen years, it has on occasion sat as a chamber. Articles 26–29 of the statute allow the Court to form smaller chambers, usually 3 or 5 judges, Two types of chambers are contemplated by Article 26, firstly, chambers for special categories of cases, and second, the formation of ad hoc chambers to hear particular disputes. In 1993, a chamber was established, under Article 26 of the ICJ statute
9.
United Nations Economic and Social Council
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The ECOSOC serves as the central forum for discussing international economic and social issues, and for formulating policy recommendations addressed to member states and the United Nations system. A number of organisations have been granted consultative status to the Council to participate in the work of the United Nations. The president is elected for a term and chosen from the small or mid-sized powers represented on the ECOSOC. His Excellency Frederick Musiiwa Makamure Shava was elected seventy-second President of the Economic, Ambassador Shava is currently the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the Republic of Zimbabwe to the United Nations in New York. The Council has 54 member states out of the 193 UN member states, UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon added, Rather than viewing growth and sustainability as competing goals on a collision course, we must see them as complementary and mutually supportive imperatives. The report concluded that Business as usual is not an option, governance of the multilateral system has historically been complex and fragmented. This has limited the capacity of the ECOSOC to influence policies in trade, finance. Reform proposals aim to enhance the relevance and contribution of the council, a major reform was approved by the 2005 World Summit on the basis of proposals submitted by secretary-general Kofi Annan. At the Summit it was decided to hold annual ministerial-level substantive reviews to assess progress in achieving internationally agreed development goals. These Annual Ministeral Reviews will be replaced by the High Level Political Forum from 2016 onwards after the new post-MDG/Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals are agreed. Subsequent proposals by the High-Level Panel Report on System-Wide Coherence in November 2006 aimed to establish a forum within the ECOSOC as a counter-model to the clubs of the G8. The Forum was to comprise 27 heads of state to meet annually and this proposal, however, was not approved by the General Assembly. The Economic and Social Council Chamber in the United Nations Conference Building was a gift from Sweden and it was conceived by Swedish architect Sven Markelius, one of the 11 architects in the international team that designed the UN headquarters. Wood from Swedish pine trees was used in the area for the railings
10.
French language
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French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages, French has evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues doïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to Frances past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, a French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French. French is a language in 29 countries, most of which are members of la francophonie. As of 2015, 40% of the population is in Europe, 35% in sub-Saharan Africa, 15% in North Africa and the Middle East, 8% in the Americas. French is the fourth-most widely spoken mother tongue in the European Union, 1/5 of Europeans who do not have French as a mother tongue speak French as a second language. As a result of French and Belgian colonialism from the 17th and 18th century onward, French was introduced to new territories in the Americas, Africa, most second-language speakers reside in Francophone Africa, in particular Gabon, Algeria, Mauritius, Senegal and Ivory Coast. In 2015, French was estimated to have 77 to 110 million native speakers, approximately 274 million people are able to speak the language. The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie estimates 700 million by 2050, in 2011, Bloomberg Businessweek ranked French the third most useful language for business, after English and Standard Mandarin Chinese. Under the Constitution of France, French has been the language of the Republic since 1992. France mandates the use of French in official government publications, public education except in specific cases, French is one of the four official languages of Switzerland and is spoken in the western part of Switzerland called Romandie, of which Geneva is the largest city. French is the language of about 23% of the Swiss population. French is also a language of Luxembourg, Monaco, and Aosta Valley, while French dialects remain spoken by minorities on the Channel Islands. A plurality of the worlds French-speaking population lives in Africa and this number does not include the people living in non-Francophone African countries who have learned French as a foreign language. Due to the rise of French in Africa, the total French-speaking population worldwide is expected to reach 700 million people in 2050, French is the fastest growing language on the continent. French is mostly a language in Africa, but it has become a first language in some urban areas, such as the region of Abidjan, Ivory Coast and in Libreville. There is not a single African French, but multiple forms that diverged through contact with various indigenous African languages, sub-Saharan Africa is the region where the French language is most likely to expand, because of the expansion of education and rapid population growth
United Kingdom
