United Nations Department of Safety and Security - UNDSS

The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization established 24 October 1945 to promote international co-operation. A replacement for the ineffective League of Nations, the organization was created following the Second World War to prevent another such conflict. At its founding, the UN had 51 member states; there are now 193. The headquarters of the United Nations is in Manhattan, New York City, and enjoys extraterritoriality. Further main offices are situated in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. Its objectives include maintaining international peace and security, promoting human rights, fostering social and economic development, protecting the environment, and providing humanitarian aid in cases of famine, natural disaster, and armed conflict.

Structure of the United Nations

The United Nations' system is based on five principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice.A sixth principal organ, the Trusteeship Council, suspended operations in 1994, upon the independence of Palau, the last remaining UN trustee territory.Four of the five principal organs are located at the main UN Headquarters in New York City.The International Court of Justice is located in The Hague, while other major agencies are based in the UN offices at Geneva,Vienna,and Nairobi.Other UN institutions are located throughout the world. The six official languages of the United Nations, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.On the basis of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, the UN and its agencies are immune from the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding the UN's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries.

Below the six organs sit, in the words of the author Linda Fasulo, "an amazing collection of entities and organizations, some of which are actually older than the UN itself and operate with almost complete independence from it".These include specialized agencies, research and training institutions, programmes and funds, and other UN entities.The United Nations obey the Noblemaire principle, which is binding on any organisation that belongs to the united nations system. This principle calls for salaries that will draw and keep citizens of countries where salaries are highest, and also calls for equal pay for work of equal value independent of the employee's nationality. Staff salaries are subject to an internal tax that is administered by the UN organizations.

UNDSS is an element of the United Nations Security Management System (UNSMS), which is an UN system-wide approach to security. It encompasses policies, guidelines, processes, and security personnel aimed at managing security risks to the UN system in order to enable UN system activities worldwide. The UNSMS is composed of all UN system organizations grouped under the IASMN.