MAJOR INTERNATIONAL
ORGANIZATIONS

a) UNITED NATIONS

    United Nations (UN) was founded in 1945 in San Francisco. It is the organization of nations for maintenance of world peace. Its new office building is in New York (since 1976). It has its Secretary General, the General Assembly which meets in regular annual sessions, three councils (the most important is the Security Council which is responsible for international peace). The Security Council has 5 permanent members - China, France, Russia, the UK and the USA. In Hague, the Netherlands there is the International Court of Justice. The UN has 159 members (including the CR).
    Many specialized agencies belong to the UN - they work on some special field of international co-operation, e.g.

ILO (International Labour Organization)
FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization)
WHO (World Health Organization)
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
IMF (International Monetary Fund)
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
IBRD (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development)
UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund)
ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization).

b) EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES

    European Communities (EC, the Common Market) is the collective of three organizations with common membership :

    The communities try to integrate their economies, co-ordinate social developments and bring about political union of the democratic states of Europe. The EC symbol is a blue flag with 12 yellow stars gathered in a circle. The Czech Republic is a member of the Council of Ministers since 1991.

 c) NATO

    NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) was created by treaty in 1949 among Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom, the United States. Turkey, Germany and Spain joined later. There are other new members there since 1999 - the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary. The seat of NATO is in Brussels. The members develop their individual and collective capacity to resist armed attack.

FROM THE HISTORY OF NATO

    After World War II Western Europeans watched Soviet moves with increased alarm. Convinced that Western Europe needed to unite, Britain proposed a defensive alliance. In March 1948 Britain, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands, signed the Brussels Pact. In the pact, the nations pledged military aid if any member were attacked.
    After the Soviet blockade of Berlin, many American leaders accepted the idea of a defensive alliance with Europe. In April 1949 representatives of 12 nations met in Washington to form the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Signing treaty were the United States, the five Brussels Pact nations, Canada, Italy, Portugal, Denmark, Norway, and Iceland. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952 and West Germany in 1955.
    The treaty stated that an attack against one or more members would be considered an attack against them all. Each member pledged to "assist" attacked nations with such action as necessary, including armed force.
    When the treaty was sent to the Senate, the Secretary of the State, Dean Acheson, said: "We have learned our history lesson from two world wars in less than half a century. It the free nations do not stand together, they will fall one by one."
    In July the treaty passed in the Senate. This was the first military treaty with Europe since the alliance with France during the Revolutionary War.
    At the first NATO meeting in September 1949, members made plans to build a military force. They decided on a defensive force strong enough to deter (odstrašit), or discourage, the Soviets from attacking any NATO member. They hoped that American atomic weapon - NATO's "sword" - would deter the Soviets for years. However, late in September the Soviet Union announced the explosion of its own atomic bomb.
    Americans were stunned (ohromení). Most experts had thought that the Russians would not unlock the secret of the atom for years. Congress quickly voted $ 1 billion to arm the NATO nations. Some 4 months later Truman announced an American program to build a hydrogen bomb. Such a weapon was potentially 1,000 times more powerful than the atom bomb.
    In 1950 United States arms began to flow to Western Europe. The United States also sent additional troops as part of the NATO force. In December General Dwight D. Eisenhower was chosen as Supreme Commander of NATO, with headquarters in Paris. The heart of United States foreign policy was now in NATO. Truman said: "The defense of Europe is the basis for the defense of the whole free world, ourselves included."

 d) OAS

    OAS (Organization of American States) was formed in 1948. The seat is in Washington, D.C. There are 32 members of mainly American States, e.g. the USA, (not Canada), which meet to discuss various problems on the American continent.

e) OECD