Civil society and accountability of the United Nations

Abstract

Introduction Established in 1945, the United Nations Organisation (UN) is the world's largest global governance institution. It encompasses almost universal state membership and addresses a full spectrum of issue areas. As of 2009 the UN Secretariat had 40,000 staff stationed around the world (UN 2009a). Another 120,000 persons from 116 countries were serving in 15 UN peacekeeping operations (UN 2010: 3). The regular budget of the core UN bodies (i.e. excluding related agencies and peacekeeping operations) came to US$5.2 billion in 2010, a figure that far exceeds that for any other global governance organisation examined in this book (UN 2009b). Core organs of the UN include the General Assembly (GA), the Security Council (SC), the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Secretariat. The wider UN system also comprises fifteen specialised agencies and a host of other related bodies. Civil society contributions to UN accountability often involve interrelations between the central bodies and the specialised agencies. However, for reasons of space and manageability, the present chapter focuses its attention on the core organs of the UN, rather than covering the full spectrum of related institutions. Other book-length works have considered civil society involvement in the wider UN system, albeit without a focus on accountability issues (e.g. Gordenker and Weiss 1996; Willetts 1996; Foster and Anand 1999; Joachim 2007; McKeon 2009).