Every September for more than fifty years, dozens of world leaders have gathered in New York to debate world peace, security and development. The forum in which they meet is a banner of multilateralism, trying to jointly solve problems of global importance: the United Nations General Assembly, the symbol of the organization. However, neither the United Nations is limited to the General Assembly, nor does the UN cease its activity the rest of the year. The General Assembly is a pillar, but not the only one, of the United Nations system, which also encompasses numerous subsidiary bodies and programs.
The Secretariat: a more bureaucratic than executive body
The United Nations system, also known as the “family”, is a set of international organizations that includes all those institutions, organizations or programs that appear in the United Nations Charter, the founding treaty of the UN, or are subsidiaries. of some of them. Article 7 of the Charter mentions six main bodies: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc), the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat. The sixth was the Trusteeship Council, a body defunct since 1994 that oversaw the decolonization process.
If the UN were a State, the Secretariat would exercise executive power, the Assembly and Councils would exercise legislative power, and the International Court of Justice would exercise judicial power. However, this comparison is not applicable: the UN has no sovereignty and therefore cannot create, execute or enforce laws. The UN is an organization at the service of the countries that comprise it, which have agreed on its mandate and its operation to carry out a series of functions and meet certain objectives. Mainly, the UN serves for States to deliberate and reach agreements, although it also has mechanisms to execute them.
For this reason, the Secretariat, headed by the Secretary General, is a rather bureaucratic and institutional body. The Secretary is appointed by the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council, and the staff of the Secretariat is also appointed in accordance with the rules of the Assembly. The Secretariat manages the daily activities of the organization and what the other bodies agree to, such as the allocation of funds and resources. It may also establish certain matters on the deliberation agenda of the Security Council, among other functions.
EITHERdeliberative bodies: General Assembly, Security Council and Ecosoc
The action of the UN takes shape in the deliberative bodies and their subsidiary bodies. There, what is decided is what the Secretariat and the international community then try to accomplish. For example, once the Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, the Secretariat has been in charge of promoting it and monitoring its implementation, and the States have been responsible for adopting it.
Article 7 of the Charter mentions three deliberative bodies: the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc). The Security Council is a forum in which decisions on global security are debated and made. This body is the most powerful of the UN: it can authorize the use of force and its resolutions are mandatory for States. In 2011, for example, it authorized the use of force against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in Libya to protect the civilian population. The Security Council has fifteen members: five permanent and with veto power (the United States, China, Russia, the United Kingdom and France), and ten rotating and elected by the General Assembly for a two-year period.
The Security Council’s mission is to guarantee peace and security in the world.
The Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) is made up of 54 countries that the General Assembly elects for a period of three years, and deliberates and makes decisions on economic, social and cultural matters. It can also carry out studies and issue recommendations to the Assembly. In addition, Ecosoc coordinates the actions of the specialized organizations that depend on it. To facilitate its work, Ecosoc meets in organic or regional commissions, such as the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, on international drug trafficking, or ECLAC, focused on economic issues in Latin America.
Finally, the General Assembly is the deliberative body on general issues in which the 193 member states of the UN have a voice and vote. It meets annually in September and makes decisions on a wide variety of issues. The General Assembly also has agenda power, as it can draw attention to matters to be discussed in the Security Council, but, in contrast, its resolutions are not binding. The Assembly is also organized into numerous commissions, such as the International Law Commission, in charge of developing and codifying it.
Subsidiary bodies and specialized agencies
If the structure of the main bodies of the United Nations is clearer, the subsidiary and specialized bodies are a sea of entities, programs and institutions with similar names and, sometimes, with difficult legal and institutional fit. These make the United Nations system a diverse and complex family.
An example is the Human Rights Council. Contrary to what its name suggests, it does not have the status of Ecosoc or the Security Council. In fact, it is not even mentioned in the United Nations Charter. The Human Rights Council is a subsidiary body of the General Assembly created in 2006 to address human rights violations and make recommendations in this regard. It replaced the former Human Rights Commission of the General Assembly, a change that sought to strengthen the promotion and protection of human rights. The name change itself to “Council” was also intended to give more legitimacy to its deliberations and recommendations within the UN.
Subsidiary bodies and specialized agencies are grouped around the main bodies. Peace missions depend on the Security Council, while the Human Rights Council depends on the General Assembly and the Social Development Commission of Ecosoc. Within them, what distinguishes subsidiary bodies from specialized agencies is the level of autonomy: while subsidiaries are commissions or committees that are part of a main body, specialized agencies are autonomous organizations in their operation and financing. These agencies are coordinated by Ecosoc or are part of the United Nations Chief Executives Board, which coordinates the activity of the entire system.
The World Health Organization (WHO), for example, is a specialized agency of the UN, but is independent of Ecosoc in its decision-making and financing. The WHO has its own deliberative body, the World Health Assembly, and is financed by its Member States and private entities. Something similar happens with the International Labor Organization (ILO), whose deliberative body includes countries, but also associations of workers and employers of each country. The ILO and the WHO pursue much more specific and specialized missions, but they are linked to the UN itself and function as small UNs within the United Nations system. Other specialized agencies with a similar operation are the FAO, dedicated to food and agriculture, UNESCO, focused on culture and education, or the World Trade Organization (WTO).
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Finally, there are other bodies that are also part of the system but are neither subsidiaries nor specialized agencies. They are known as “funds and programs.” Although they also depend on or are coordinated by Ecosoc or the General Assembly, they have a high level of autonomy and, sometimes, their relationship with the private sector and NGOs is superior, they pursue more specific missions and are not always intergovernmental forums. Their financing is also different from that of specialized agencies and the UN itself, since they do not depend on mandatory quotas from Member States, but rather on voluntary ones, which opens the door to individual and corporate donations. Humanitarian organizations such as the World Food Program (WFP), the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) or the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) fall into this category.
The international courts
International courts are organizations with jurisdiction created by treaties and conventions. The most important court of the United Nations is the International Court of Justice (ICJ), based in The Hague and charged with resolving international disputes and formulating opinions for consultation. All UN member states are part of the ICJ and must comply with its decisions. For example, the Court ruled in 2018 that Chile had no obligation to negotiate with Bolivia an agreement that would grant it access to the sea, and issued an advisory opinion in which it concluded that Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence did not violate international law. Although the ICJ is the body in charge of implementing the peaceful resolution of disputes, the main objective of the UN, it has no way of enforcing its rulings.
In addition to the ICJ there are other specialized courts in the United Nations system. States are part of them if they adhere to the treaties that create and regulate them. As with specialized agencies, these courts are linked to the United Nations system through a specific agreement, but are judicially and operationally independent. Among them are the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the Permanent Court of Arbitration or the specific International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Yugoslavia.
Another of these courts is the International Criminal Court (ICC), created in 1998 and also based in The Hague. Its mission is to prosecute and judge genocides, war crimes and crimes against humanity. To do this, it does not judge States, but rather individuals. The nature of this court is curious since it is attributed universal jurisdiction, but, unlike the ICJ, not all UN member states recognize its jurisdiction and even resist it. For example, the Philippines withdrew from the Court in 2019 due to the investigations it was carrying out into alleged murders committed within the framework of the fight against drugs initiated by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Limitations and need for reforms
The United Nations system sometimes seems too complex and without real power to fulfill its missions. Its limitations and the need to reform it have been in debates about the UN for several decades. Those who propose the need for these reforms consider that the design and functioning of the institutions is what determines their effectiveness, but there are others…