• An international organisation that was created in 1945

• Seeks to promote international cooperation, devoted to world peace

• Preventing war and horrors such as the Holocaust from happening again

• The U.N has 193 members

• They are committed to:

  • International peace and security in the world

  • Creating friendships between nations

  • Helping nations work together to:

    • assist poor people

    • alleviate hunger and disease

    • promote literacy

    • promote respect for peoples rights and freedoms

    • providing a central point where nations can come together to achieve their goals

Australia's role as a Member:

• Was one of the first 51 countries to become a member of the U.N when it began in 1945

• Australia is not a powerful nation by world standards

  • but the U.N has allowed Australia to have a voice in international affairs and play a role in promoting stability in the world

• U.N helps Australia protect its own economic and security interests

• From 2012-2014 Australia has had a seat on the United Nations Security Council (council's most important decision-making body)

• Australia recently played a leading role in writing a resolution that called for access to the crash site where 298 civilians lost their lives when the Malaysian airplane MH17 was shot out the sky in Ukraine

Bilateral and Multilateral Treaties

• A bilateral treaty is a treaty between Australia and one other country

• A multilateral treaty is between Australia and two or more countries.

  • developed and overseen by an international organisation such as the U.N or the International Labour Organisation.

• The commonwealth has the power to enter into treaties and contribute international negotiations

  • A minister and the cabinet make the final decisions to sign and ratify a multilateral treaty.

• Definition: Assistance in the form of money, skills and other resources transferred from one country to another, usually for humanitarian reasons.

• Purpose: To alleviate poverty and assist a community to develop a better standard of living.

• This can be achieved by providing schools, roads, water supply and medical assistance.

• Emergency aid is offered in a humanitarian crisis that threatens the health and safety of a community.

• Australia plays a role in achieving eight UN goals called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

  • Foreign aid equal to 0.5% of a country's national income must be provided, a contribution Australia is not meeting.

Peacekeeping responsibilities

• Definition: Assists countries who have been torn by conflict.

• Purpose: To achieve lasting piece.

• This can be achieved by:

  • Protecting civilians

  • Overseeing elections

  • Disarming those involves in fighting

  • Protecting and promoting human rights

  • Restoring rule of law to a region

• The three basic principles of UN peacekeeping include the consent of parties, impartiality and use of force as a measure of last resort.

• Australia has contributed to the UN's peacekeeping missions with 3500 Australians serving in peace and security operations in the world.

Responsibility to protect the environment

• Australia is involved in many international agreement that serve to protect the environment.

• Australia has a national and international responsibility to reduce its greenhouse has emissions to avert the effects of climate change.

• Australia is a member of the Kyoto protocol, an international agreement in which emissions-reduction targets were set.

Responsibility of human rights

• Definition: Human rights are entitlements that all human beings posses.

• (1945) The Universal Declaration (of Human Rights) was adopted by the United Nations and is still considered to be the basis of international human rights law.

• Some of these rights include:

  • Right to life

  • Equal before the law

  • Right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty