⚖️ What it can do
It can investigate a dispute, call on sides to settle it peacefully, order sanctions, and even authorise military action. Its decisions are the only ones that member states are required to carry out.
Setting Up the United Nations Organisation and Its Work to 1964 » How the UN Works: Assembly, Security Council and Peacekeepers
What you'll learn this session
Study time: 30 minutes
Edexcel spec: Paper 2 Section B, Breadth study B5, Key topic 3
- What the General Assembly and the Security Council do, and how each one decides
- The job of the Secretariat and the secretary-general
- How UN peacekeeping forces (the "blue helmets") work, and what they can and cannot do
- What changed and what stayed the same compared with the League of Nations
The UN Charter set up several main bodies. Three of them matter most for this lesson: the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretariat. The UN also found a new way to deal with conflicts that was not in the Charter at all: peacekeeping.
Key terms:
- General Assembly: the UN body in which every member state has one vote.
- Security Council: the UN body with the main responsibility for keeping international peace and security.
- Secretary-general: the head of the UN's staff and the organisation's chief public figure.
- Resolution: a formal decision or statement agreed by a UN body.
- Peacekeeping: sending neutral, lightly armed international forces to a trouble spot to help keep the peace after fighting has stopped.
- Blue helmets: the nickname for UN peacekeepers, who wear light blue helmets or berets.
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Unlock This CourseThe General Assembly
The Assembly is like a world parliament. All members belong to it, from the 51 founder members in 1945 to many more as new countries became independent. Each has one vote, so a small country counts the same as a Great Power. It meets every year, from September, at UN headquarters in New York.
- It can discuss any matter within the Charter and make recommendations.
- Important questions, such as those on peace and security or admitting new members, need a two-thirds majority. Other decisions need a simple majority.
- It approves the UN's budget and elects the non-permanent members of the Security Council.
The Assembly's big weakness is that its resolutions are only recommendations. Countries are not forced to obey them. It is a place where opinion is expressed, not where orders are given.
The Security Council
The Charter gave the Security Council the main job of keeping the peace. At first it had 11 members: five permanent members (the USA, the USSR, Britain, France and China) and six non-permanent members, elected by the Assembly for two years at a time.
🗳️ How it decides
Important decisions need nine votes out of eleven, and none of the five permanent members may vote against. A single veto stops the decision.
The Council was meant to be quick and powerful. But in the Cold War the USA and the USSR often used their vetoes against each other's proposals, so the Council was frequently deadlocked. In 1950 the Assembly passed the "Uniting for Peace" resolution. It said that if the Council was blocked by a veto, the Assembly could meet and recommend action itself. This gave the Assembly more of a role than the Charter first planned.
The Secretariat and the secretary-general
The Secretariat is the UN's staff of international civil servants. They run the daily work: organising meetings, writing reports, translating, and carrying out the decisions of the other bodies. Staff are supposed to serve the UN, not their own governments.
It is headed by the secretary-general, who is appointed for five years by the Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council. Because the Council recommends, the permanent members can block anyone they dislike. Article 99 of the Charter lets the secretary-general bring to the Council's attention any matter that threatens peace, which gives the post real political importance.
- Trygve Lie of Norway was the first, from 1946. The USSR refused to work with him after he backed UN action in Korea, and he resigned in 1952.
- Dag Hammarskjöld of Sweden served from 1953. He was very active in trying to settle disputes. He died in a plane crash in September 1961 while flying to talks about the Congo.
- U Thant of Burma took over in 1961.
UN peacekeeping forces
The Charter did not mention peacekeeping, and the UN had no army. The Great Powers could not agree to set up the forces the Charter had hoped for. So the UN invented a different method: member states volunteered soldiers, who were put under UN command and sent to a trouble spot.
The first big force was set up in 1956, after Britain, France and Israel attacked Egypt over the Suez Canal. Britain and France would have vetoed action in the Security Council, so the Assembly voted to create the UN Emergency Force. It supervised the ceasefire and the withdrawal of the invading troops, then stood between the Egyptian and Israeli armies. Its soldiers came from smaller countries, not from the Great Powers. A much larger UN force was sent to the Congo in 1960.
✅ What blue helmets can do
Watch ceasefires, stay between enemy forces, patrol buffer zones, report to the UN and help calm tension. They may fire only in self-defence.
❌ What they cannot do
They cannot fight to win a war, take sides, or stay where the countries involved do not agree to them being. They are too few and too lightly armed to force peace.
Three rules of peacekeeping
Peacekeepers need the consent of the countries involved, must be impartial and use force only in self-defence. This worked best when fighting had already stopped and both sides wanted a calm border.
Change and continuity: the UN and the League
Like the League, the UN had an assembly with one vote per member, a smaller council of the strongest states, and a staff led by a senior official. Both organisations had no army of their own and relied on members to act. The main changes were that the UN's assembly could decide by majority rather than needing everyone to agree, the Security Council's five permanent members held the veto, and peacekeeping gave the UN a tool the League never had.
Common mistakes
- Saying the Assembly can order countries to act. Only the Security Council can make binding decisions.
- Thinking the Council needs every member to agree. It needs nine votes, with no permanent member against.
- Saying peacekeepers are the UN's own army. They are lent by member states.
- Saying peacekeepers fight wars. They use force only in self-defence.
Exam-style question
Explain TWO causes of the Security Council's difficulty in taking action during the Cold War, in the years 1946-64. [8 marks]
Remember: one cause on its own can only score half marks, so explain both.
Model answer
One cause was the veto held by the five permanent members. Important decisions needed nine votes with no permanent member against. After 1945 the USA and the USSR became rival superpowers, and each often used its veto to block proposals backed by the other, or by the other's allies. Because one "no" was enough, the Council was often deadlocked, which is why in 1950 the Assembly passed the Uniting for Peace resolution to act when the Council could not.
A second cause was that the UN had no army of its own. The Charter expected the Great Powers to supply forces, with their chiefs of staff planning together. But the USA and the USSR distrusted each other so much that this never worked, and no UN force was ever set up in this way. So the Council could pass resolutions but had no means of enforcing them. When a force was needed, as in the Congo in 1960, soldiers had to be volunteered by member states, which took time and depended on their agreement. This limited what the Council could actually achieve.
What lifts it to the top level: each cause is backed with precise detail and the answer explains how it led to the Council being unable to act.
Exam tip
Start each paragraph with the cause, add a date or name, then finish with a sentence that links back to the question, such as "this meant the Council could not act".
Recap
- The Assembly: one vote each, two-thirds for important questions, recommendations only.
- The Security Council: five permanent members with the veto; the only body whose decisions bind members.
- The Secretariat runs the UN day to day under the secretary-general.
- Peacekeepers are volunteered by members, need consent and use force only in self-defence.