History & Highlights

The UN deployed its first peacekeeping mission to send military observers to the Middle East to monitor the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. With strong U.S. support over the last seven decades, the Council has voted to deploy an additional 70 peacekeeping missions to help stabilize some of the world’s most intractable conflicts.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), established in 1957, serves as the world’s nuclear inspector. IAEA experts ensure safeguard agreements are in place, and also contributes to development goals like fighting cancer and preventing ocean acidification. Today, the IAEA is playing a crucial role in U.S.-led efforts to monitor nuclear agreements with Iran.

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed to the General Assembly that “a workable scheme should be devised for providing food aid through the UN system.” In 1961, the Assembly approved the establishment of the World Food Programme.

The UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) – commonly referred to as an international bill of rights for women – was formally adopted in 1979. Today, the UN’s HeForShe campaign is continuing that work, bringing together men and women across the globe in an international movement for gender equality.

Capping 13 years of work by the World Health Organization (WHO), smallpox was declared officially eradicated from the planet in 1980. Smallpox existed for thousands of years, claiming the lives of 300 million people during the 20th century alone. The eradication has saved an estimated $1 billion a year in vaccination and monitoring — almost three times the cost of eliminating the scourge itself.

The UN has provided electoral assistance to more than 100 countries, often at decisive moments in their history. In the 1990s, the UN organized or observed landmark elections in Cambodia, El Salvador, South Africa, Mozambique and Timor-Leste.

In 2006, member states adopted the first-ever global strategy to counter terrorism. Since then, fourteen global agreements have been negotiated under UN auspices, including treaties against hostage-taking, aircraft hijacking, terrorist bombings, terrorism financing, and nuclear terrorism.

In September 2015, the General Assembly adopted the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) or Global Goals to guide the global development agenda through 2030. During negotiations, the U.S. government engaged robustly in member state consultations, and U.S. grassroots and civil society organizations worked to feed their own ideas into the process.