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What the Heck is the UN?

2023-09-28 · explainer · Hank · 7:40 · watch on YouTube

Topic: World affairs (also: Global development) · mode: Explainer · tags: timely hook, calendar ritual

Prompted by John's UN trip, Hank admits he knew little about the UN and explains its founding and six organs (General Assembly, Security Council, International Court of Justice, Secretariat, Trusteeship Council, Economic and Social Council); he calls it complex and imperfect but successful at avoiding a third world war, and praises John's point that the burden of tuberculosis is a choice.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Hank thought the UN was in Europe; John's trip shows how little he knows about it

  • ★ Hank thought the UN was in Europe and was surprised that John's trip was to New York City, which made him realize he knows little about the UN. — 00:00:00 · Europe, New York City, John Green

00:00:29 — The UN's 1945 founding and the General Assembly: membership votes, budget, two-thirds rule

  • ★★★ Hank says that in 1945, after a long war everyone hated, countries got together to form the United Nations so it would never happen again. (playful) — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Hank says it has been a long time since the last world war, so good on us. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank says the UN has six organs. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank says the General Assembly includes every member state, though not every state is a member, which is contentious. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Hank says the General Assembly votes on which states can become members, which needs a two-thirds vote; some states seeking recognition are refused. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Hank says the General Assembly also sets the UN budget, deciding how money is spent and where it comes from, and tries to make peace happen. — 00:01:27

00:02:06 — The Security Council: veto powers, rotating members, binding law versus non-binding resolutions

  • ★★ Hank says the two-thirds rule makes the UN move slowly, which he thinks is by design: dealing with a whole planet, you don't want too-big mistakes. (hedged) — 00:02:06
  • ★★★ Hank says the Security Council has five permanent members with veto power, the big winners of World War II, and ten rotating members without veto. — 00:02:06
  • ★★ Hank says the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China did not exist when the Council was founded but inherited their seats because they hold the same land. — 00:02:06 · China
  • ★★★ Hank says keeping the peace gets tricky when a veto power wages war itself and can veto efforts to stop it; nobody claims it is a perfect system. (playful) — 00:02:55
  • ★★★ Hank says General Assembly resolutions are not binding: a member state that doesn't want to follow one doesn't have to. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ Hank says the enforcement of resolutions is peer pressure, which actually works in diplomacy and is a lot of what diplomacy is. — 00:03:24
  • ★★★ Hank says what the Security Council decides is international law. — 00:03:24

00:03:49 — The International Court of Justice in The Hague: disputes, judges, terms

  • ★★ Hank says states defying the Security Council can face sanctions, blockades or even military intervention. — 00:03:49
  • ★★ Hank says the International Court of Justice, which he calls The Hague, is the only organ not headquartered in New York City; it sits in The Hague in the Netherlands. — 00:03:49 · New York City
  • ★★ Hank says the International Court of Justice settles legal disputes between countries and prosecutes international law, including trying war criminals. — 00:04:18
    • check: prosecutes international law — doubtful
  • ★★ Hank says the court has 15 judges, no two from the same country, chosen by General Assembly and Security Council votes for nine-year terms. — 00:04:18

00:04:47 — Secretariat, Trusteeship Council, Economic and Social Council, UNESCO, UNHCR and the UN's complexity

  • ★★ Hank says the Secretariat is the organ that does things: it carries out what the General Assembly decides, such as international aid and peacekeeping missions. — 00:04:47
  • ★★ Hank says the Trusteeship Council is the least important organ because it finished its job and no longer exists. — 00:04:47
  • ★★ Hank says the Economic and Social Council has become the catch-all for things that need doing, from women's rights to naming geographical features. — 00:05:17
  • ★ Hank says UNESCO sits inside it and decides World Heritage Sites, which sounds like a fun job. — 00:05:17
  • ★★ Hank says UN bodies are administered differently: the UNHCR, for example, is run by both the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council. — 00:05:46
  • ★★ Hank says five of the six main organs are in New York City, but many UN bodies are based elsewhere. — 00:06:15 · New York City
  • ★★ Hank says the UN is wildly complex and only really makes sense to insiders or people who have studied it. — 00:06:15

00:06:44 — The UN's success at not repeating World War II; John's UN point that TB deaths are a choice, with charts of falling deaths

  • ★★★ Hank says the UN is weird and complicated but has vital goals, does much work, and has so far achieved its main goal of not repeating World War II, a big win. — 00:06:44
  • ★★★ Hank finds it amazing that John was on the UN stage and said what needed saying: the continued burden of tuberculosis is a choice we are making. — 00:06:44 · John Green, tuberculosis
  • ★★★ Hank says we can make different choices because we already have, showing charts of world deaths by age since 1950, polio burden since 1980 and TB death rates since 1990. — 00:07:13 · tuberculosis
  • ★★★ Hank likes the TB chart less than the others, but says it shows we are still in the middle of the story and don't have to live with the world as it is. — 00:07:13 · tuberculosis

In the description and comments

  • ★★ The description congratulates humanity on not repeating World War II for 78 years and begs it to keep it up. (playful) — video description
  • ★ The description says Hank made this explainer out of curiosity on the second day of Pizzamas, and that Pizzamas continues. — video description · Pizzamas

Humor (significant)

  • The founders name it the United Nations but have no intention of uniting the nations. — 00:00:29

    “Except, of course, we will not unite the nations, nor will we have it actually be a goal to unite the nations.”

  • The five veto powers are World War II's big winners who put themselves in charge. — 00:02:06

    “It's what I like to call the red, white, and blue flag club plus China.”

  • Hank voices a veto power that wants to wage war while keeping the peace. — 00:02:55

    “I can veto anything that you would try to do to stop me from doing the war that I'm doing now.”

  • The court is called The Hague because it sits in The Hague, a city whose name oddly starts with "the". — 00:03:49

    “It's a weird way to name a city with the first”

  • War criminals tried at The Hague are described with mock understatement. — 00:04:18

    “So like those very chill folks who did whole-ass war crimes, they get tried at the Hague.”

  • ICJ judges serve nine-year terms, a jab at lifetime judicial appointments. — 00:04:18

    “because having lifetime appointments for judges would be silly, right? Right?”

  • The fourth organ shares its name with the famous racehorse Secretariat. — 00:04:18

    “Fourth organ, the Secretariat, which is not a horse. It is a horse.”

  • Hank measures the gap between the two world wars against Beyonce's solo career. — 00:06:44

    “is less time than Beyonce has been a solo performer”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: United Nations

Also: People: Beyoncé

Organizations: International Court of Justice · UNESCO · UNHCR · United Nations Economic and Social Council · United Nations General Assembly · United Nations peacekeeping · United Nations Secretariat · United Nations Security Council · United Nations Trusteeship Council

Concepts: economic sanctions · humanitarian intervention · international law · peer pressure · polio · Supermajority · tuberculosis · World Heritage Site

Places: China · Europe · Netherlands · New York City · Russia · The Hague

Events: World War I · World War II

Only in the description or credits: Pizzamas

Also centred on United Nations: John Goes ... to the UNITED NATIONS?

Replies to

  • continues · John Goes ... to the UNITED NATIONS? — “It's really amazing to me that you were on that stage and that you took your chance to say the thing that needed to be said”

Later videos replying to this one

Part of an exchange of 3 videos, 2023-09-27 – 2023-09-29.