20 Facts About The United Nations

1. The United Nations States emerged as a superpower after the Second World War.

2. The United Nations States strongly rejects offers from Mexico, Uruguay and the Vatican to mediate a dialogue between embattled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and the head of the country's opposition-controlled congress, Juan Guaido.

3. The United Nations States and other major UN contributors continue to press for budgetary and administrative reform to make the UN as efficient as possible.

4. The United Nations States is a strong supporter of the newly-created UN Democracy Fund, which will provide grants to nongovernmental organizations, governments, and international organizations to carry out democratization projects, particularly those that help develop civil society and democratic institutions.

5. The United Nations States is open to UN Security Council reform and expansion as one element of an overall agenda for UN reform.

6. The United Nations States plays a leading, active, and positive role in development.

7. The United Nations States will continue to pursue market-opening agreements that increase trade and investment.

8. The United Nations States has both the will and the flexibility to help conclude a successful Doha Round, and the President urges other leaders to direct their negotiators to demonstrate the same spirit.

9. The United Nations States is not alone in its commitment both to these ideals and to ongoing reform of UN operations.

10. The United Nations States co-founded and continues to be the leading financial supporter of the United Nations.

11. The United Nations States worked with the other members of the Security Council to establish conditions for a lasting peace in Lebanon.

12. The United Nations States contributed $1.1 billion in assessments to the peacekeeping budget in calendar year 2004; $72 million for the support of the international war crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia; and, nearly $5 million for preparatory work relating to the UN Capital Master Plan.

13. The United Nations came into effect on October 24, 1945.

14. The United Nations is funded by dues from member states and is prohibited from borrowing from financial institutions.

15. The United Nations consists of six major organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the international court of justice, and the Trusteeship Council.

16. The United Nations was an important arena for the transformation of former colonies into sovereign states.

17. The United Nations has become actively involved in postwar reconstruction and has even run transitional administrations, most notably in East Timor and Kosovo.

18. The United Nations is an international organization created to maintain international peace and promote human rights.

19. On January 10, 1920, the League of The United Nations formally comes into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations, ratified by 42 nations in 1919, takes effect.

20. The League of The United Nations was approved, and in the summer of 1919 Wilson presented the Treaty of Versailles and the Covenant of the League of Nations to the US Senate for ratification.