How to cover United Nations and Its Organs For UPSC Prelims

Questions based on United Nations and Its Bodies in UPSC Civil Services Examination aim to check a candidate’s awareness about the structure, mandate, functioning of various UN Bodies as well as its specialized agencies. The different aspects related to United Nations and its constituent organs should be well prepared given the unpredictable nature of the Civil Services Prelims Exam. In today’s article, we will discuss a strategy for covering United Nations and Its Organs for the UPSC Prelims exam. But before we proceed further it is important to have a look at its history, objective, and its constituent organs.

The United Nations came into existence just after World War II. However, the foundations of the United Nations were laid long before World War II.  According to the decision of the Yalta Conference held after World War II, a conference of the United Nations (allied countries) was held in San Francisco from 25 April to 26 June 1945. The conference began to consider the UN Declaration even before the surrender of Germany. Before the surrender of Japan, on June 26, 51 countries, including India, signed a declaration. This manifesto became effective on 24 October 1945. In this declaration, the purpose and constitution of the United Nations were defined. The purpose of the creation of the United Nations (UN) was to peacefully resolve the conflicts existing in the world. It was mentioned in the manifesto that world politics should be conducted on the basis of cooperation and co-existence, putting aside force and violence;. It is indispensable to the international community and is the basis of multilateralism. It was regarded as a sign of higher development from the lower development of human beings. Values ​​like peaceful co-existence, liberty, equality, and human rights were prominent in this higher development of human beings.

United Nations Functions

Maintenance of international peace and security, protection of human rights, delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development, and upholding international law were a few of its objectives. During the time of formation, there were 51 member states present as its founding members. However this number kept on growing and it reached 193 in 2011, representing the vast majority of the world’s sovereign states.

Organs Of United Nations :

The UN has the following five organs that help to serve the objectives of the agency:

• General Assembly
• United Nations Security Council
• Economic and Social Council
• International Court of Justice
• United Nations Secretariat

Specialized Agencies of the UN:

The UN Charter stipulates that each primary organ of the United Nations can establish various specialized agencies to fulfill its duties. There are 17 specialized agencies of the UN. Agencies like ILO, IMF, WHO, WIPO, World Bank Group, and FAO are few prominent agencies that work under the ambit of principal organs of the UN.

Strategy to Cover United Nations and Its Organs:

The best way to prepare this section is to have a glance at the previous year's questions first that will give a fair assessment about the nature and types of questions in detail. These questions will also be helpful to provide a better insight into the preparation strategy too. However, the NCERT Books such as Contemporary World Politics of class 12^th can be followed for basic features, objectives, and its constitution in a nutshell. For the questions that deals with the questions related to a dynamic section or current affairs you will have to keep you updated with daily newspaper and websites. Try to prepare notes in a tabular format that will lay emphasis on certain aspects such as objectives, functions, headquarter, and some special notes pertaining to this. Newspapers like The Hindu, The Indian Express, and current affairs websites such as IAS Score (an online initiative of GS Score) could be referred for more specific details.

To minimize your efforts to a considerable extent it is advisable to download Prelims Sampoorna Fact File On UN and Its Bodies. This fact file has been released by GS Score, one of the top institutions for the preparation of the Civil Services Exam.