The United Nations: Principal Organs and Related Bodies

The principal organs

• The UN Charter names six principal organs.
• They are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the Trusteeship Council.
• The Trusteeship Council has been inactive since 1994, when its last trust territory became independent.
• The Secretariat is the UN’s civil-service arm. Read UN Secretary-General and the Secretariat.
• The founding story is in United Nations: Founding, Charter and Purposes.

The General Assembly

• The General Assembly is the UN’s main deliberative body.
• Every member state gets one equal vote.
• The Security Council works very differently: five permanent members hold veto power.

The ICJ: a court for states

• The International Court of Justice settles legal disputes between states.
• It has 15 judges, each serving a nine-year term.
• It sits at the Peace Palace in The Hague.
• It also gives advisory opinions on international law when asked.
• Meet an Indian judge there in Nagendra Singh: President of the International Court of Justice.

A real case: Kulbhushan Jadhav

• In 2017, India took Pakistan to the ICJ over the treatment of Kulbhushan Jadhav, an Indian national.
• The case rested on a bilateral treaty.
• In 2019, the Court ruled 15-1 in India’s favour on a stay of execution.
• Notice what kind of case this was. It looked like one man’s fate.
• But the real dispute was between two states, India and Pakistan, over a treaty violation.
• It was not a criminal trial of an individual.

INTERPOL: a different job

• INTERPOL helps police forces cooperate across 196 member countries.
• It works mainly through Red Notices, which are alerts for wanted people.
• A Red Notice is not an arrest warrant. It only asks other countries’ police to act.
• The ICJ handles disputes between states. INTERPOL handles individual criminals.
• See INTERPOL Notices.

The IAEA’s double job

• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) promotes peaceful use of nuclear technology.
• It also monitors that countries keep their non-proliferation promises.

Specialised agencies

• Agencies like the World Health Organization and UNESCO each have a specific technical mandate.
• They run programmes. The Assembly and Council set broad policy.
• See UN Specialized Agencies: Mandates and Headquarters.

Two logics under one roof

• The Assembly follows equal votes.
• The Security Council follows the permanent-member veto.
• Two very different decision-making logics sit inside one organisation.

A deliberate compromise

• The Assembly’s equal votes honour the idea that all states are equal.
• The Council’s concentrated power reflects another reality.
• A handful of powerful states needed a bigger role to make the UN workable at its founding.

The IAEA’s inner tension

• The same agency that helps countries build nuclear capacity must check it is not misused.
• That means balancing a promoting role and a policing role at once.

UNOPS and precise labels

• UNOPS is the UN’s own infrastructure and procurement arm.
• It is a subsidiary organ. It is neither a principal organ nor a specialised agency.
• See UNOPS and UN Funds, Programmes and Subsidiary Bodies.
• Mixing up INTERPOL and the ICJ confuses state-to-state law with individual accountability.

Still no result

• The General Assembly rolled Security Council reform talks into its 81st session in September 2026.
• That is the 18th year running with no concrete outcome.
• On 21 February 2026, India’s representative said global patience had run out.
• India called any proposed “third category” of seats a delay tactic.
• India, with Brazil, Germany and Japan, backs expanding the Council from 15 to around 25-26 seats.
• The G4 plan adds six new permanent members.
• Source: All India Radio News, February 2026.
• India’s wider UN role is in India and the United Nations.