The Green Papers Worldwide
Roster of UNITED NATIONS (1945--)

SECRETARIES-GENERAL of the UNITED NATIONS

When the United Nations Organization was formed in 1945, it purposely mirrored the organization of its predecessor, the League of Nations: the UN General Assembly assumed the same role as the League's Assembly, made up of all Member-States of the organization; the UN Security Council was clearly the replacement for the League of Nation's own Council made up of Permanent Members (intended, in each case, to be the Great Powers of the time) and non-Permament Members chosen for limited terms; and the United Nations, like the League, would also have its own Secretariat headed by a Secretary-General. Unlike 1919, however, there was no real notion that this Secretary-General of the United Nations would, or even could, function as anything like a World "political executive" (despite claims by the UN's critics, to this very day, that this is precisely where the office is- or so these same critics fear- actually headed); the hard lessons provided by what had happened to the League of Nations between two World Wars would soon combine with the new geopolitical realities of a Cold War and its resultant Iron Curtain to keep all but the most starry-eyed of dreamers from seeing the United Nations with anything approaching the same optimism with which all too many had greeted the League of Nations at its birth. Rather, the UN was born in an atmosphere of Hope rather than Grand Expectations as was the League of Nations a quarter century before...

and the end of the Cold War as the 1980s became the 1990s did little, if anything, to at all really alter this mood...

nor has the world since the terrorist attacks against the United States on 11 September 2001 (or, for that matter, major terrorist attacks elsewhere after 9/11).

Members of the UNITED NATIONS throughout its history

(UNITED NATIONS CHARTER signed, 26 June 1945;
UN came into existence, 24 October 1945)

[Each MEMBER-STATE is listed in alphabetical order within each section of this table by the name of the given country in English as used in diplomatic circles at the time of its earliest association with the UN]

the UN Original Members which made the UN operational (the 5 so-called "Permanent Members" [*] plus a majority [24] of the remaining 46 Signatories to the UN CHARTER)
[NOTE: these 29 UN MEMBER-STATES officially date their respective memberships from 24 October 1945, the date the UNITED NATIONS formally became operational]:

the UN Original Members which ratified the UN CHARTER after 24 October 1945, the date the UNITED NATIONS formally became operational
[NOTE: these 22 UN MEMBER-STATES officially date their respective memberships from the date of deposit of their respective ratifications of the UN CHARTER, yet are no less "Original Members" than the MEMBER-STATES listed in the previous section of this table]:

*) On 21 January 1965, INDONESIA formally withdrew from the United Nations Organization; on 19 September 1966 (the date of the convening of that year's UN General Assembly), that country formally indicated that she would "resume full co-operation" with the UN. As the United Nations Charter (unlike the predecessor League of Nations Covenant) contains no provision for a Member-State giving formal notice of withdrawal in the first place, the United Nations Organization had never officially recognized INDONESIA's initial action in this regard of 1965; since, as far as the UN was- and, for that matter, still is- concerned- INDONESIA had never legally left the organization, there was no need for the UN to officially note that she had returned more than a year and a half later. "Constitutionally" speaking, then, INDONESIA's withdrawal from the UN of 1965-66 never really ever happened.