UNITED NATIONS DAY - OCTOBER 24

In the spring of 1945, representatives of fifty nations gathered in San Francisco to put the final touches to a document of far-reaching consequences--the Charter of the United Nations. Enthusiastically supported by the United States, the U.N. Charter went into effect on October 24, 1945. Two years later the U.N. General Assembly adopted a U.S.-sponsored resolution declaring October 24th United Nations Day, to be commemorated annually by all member-states of the United Nations. Since 1947, U.N. Day has been observed in nations large and small around the world.

In the United States, each President, beginning with Harry Truman, has issued a proclamation asking citizens to observe U.N. Day and to reflect upon the importance of the United Nations to our national interest, as well as to each one of us. At the time of the drafting of the Charter, close to one hundred U.S. national non-governmental organizations were represented at San Francisco, giving their advice and support to the official U.S. delegation. Out of these organizations grew the United States Committee for the United Nations, a group consulted regularly by our government on matters related to the United Nations. In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Robert S. Benjamin, Chairman of United Artists Corporation, as chairman of the U.S. Committee for the United Nations and as the first National U.N. Day Chairman.

In 1964, the U.S. Committee for the United Nations merged with the American Association for the United Nations to become the United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA). UNA-USA took on the coordination and supervision of the National U.N. Day Program working closely with the National U.N. Day Chairman.

Over the years, the observance of U.N. Day in hundreds of communities all over the United States has changed significantly. In the early years, community observances tended to be symbolic events consisting of an international dinner in the town's high school or the U.N. flag flying from an official building. Today's program delves into world issues that are on the agenda of the United Nations and that affect every American citizen. The university campus, city hall, the governor's mansion have become sites for serious debates of issues before the U.N. and how to approach them through international cooperation.

The generation born after the founding of the U.N. in 1945 has come to realize that the U.N. offers no "quick fix," but is an instrument through which multilateral processes to solve global problems are made possible. The United Nations Day Program will continue to offer the opportunity to succeeding generations to acquaint themselves with the activities and accomplishments of the U.N. system in the years ahead.

UNA-USA is the national secretariat for the coordination and supervision of U.N. Day in the United States. Its chapters, divisions, affiliated organizations, colleges and universities, places of worship, and other civic groups participate in U.N. Day through countless local programs on the U.N. and the importance of a strong and cooperative U.S.-U.N. relationship.

UNA-USA produces an annual United Nations Day Program Manual (see above) offering program assistance, U.N. information, and much more to help in organizing a U.N. Day event. UNA-USA encourages members of fellow-organizations to join UNA chapters and divisions nationwide in educating Americans about the importance of a strong U.S.-U.N. relationship, with benefits for all Americans.

For more information about observing United Nations Day, contact Liz Marmanides at (212) 907-1328

Some of the crap peddled by these morons:

UNA-USA POLICY STATEMENTS AND ANALYSIS

Enhancing Peacekeeping Final Report The Preparedness Gap: Making Peace Operations Work in the 21st Century (January 2001)

"International Intervention -- Humanitarian or Otherwise?" by Jeffrey Laurenti

In recognition of UNA-USA's original contributions to the debate on international peace operations and the legitimate use of force, UNA's executive director of Policy Studies, Jeffrey Laurenti, was invited to make a presentation to an international symposium on Humanitarian Intervention and the United Nations organized by the Japan Association for United Nations Studies in Tokyo in late May 2000. In his lecture, he addresses two crucial issues in the debate over humanitarian intervention: Whether the international community has a duty to take forceful measures to protect endangered populations even over the objections of "sovereign" state authorities, and Who has the legitimate authority to decide to intervene forcefully. (May 2000)

US Reluctance and UN Revival --

The January 2000 visit to the United Nations by Senator Jesse Helms has focused heightened attention, both internationally and in the American press, on Washington's ambivalence toward the U.N. and other international institutions. The senator raised issues that were addressed, rather more analytically, in an article published a month earlier in a European policy journal, the International Spectator of Rome's Istituto Affari Internazionali. (Fall 1999)

America at Risk from Weakening International Institutions - Does the perennial battle over payment of United Nations dues reflect Washington's dissatisfaction with U.N. operations, or does it spring from something deeper? In this article it is argued that the United States -- at mid-century the world's leader in promoting the rule of law through international institutions -- at century's end has soured on the fundamental underpinning of international law, the notion of reciprocal obligations. (3/99)

NATO, the UN, and the Use of Force Policy Roundtables (3/99)

Losing America's Vote at the United Nations: Prospects and Consequences of the Application of Article 19 (June 1998)

Considerations on the Financing of an International Criminal Court (June 1998)

The New U.N. Assessment Scale: An Analysis of the Rate Revisions Adopted by the 52nd U.N. General Assembly (January 1998)

Renewing the United Nations: A Critical Assessment of the Secretary-General's "Track Two" Reform Program (July 1997)

UNA-USA 1997 National Convention Statement on the US-UN Relationship (June 1997)

Kofi Annan's U.N. Reform Measures to Do More with Less: A UNA-USA Assessment of the "Track One" Initiatives (March 1997)

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