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121-491: Comprising members of many different tribes and tribal confederations, such as the Āl Bū Muḥammad, Ferayghāt, Shaghanbah, Ahwaris had developed a culture centered on the marshes' natural resources and unique from other Arabs. Many of the marshes' inhabitants were displaced when the wetlands were drained during and after the 1991 uprisings in Iraq . The draining of the marshes caused a significant decline in bioproductivity; following

242-479: A dibin . Houses had entrances at both ends and a screen in the middle; one end was used as a dwelling and the other end (sometimes extended with a sitra , a long reed structure) was used to shelter animals in bad weather. A raba was a higher-status dwelling, distinguished by a north-facing entrance, which also served as a guesthouse where there was no mudhif . Traditional boats (the mashoof and tarada ) were used as transport: Ahwaris would drive buffalo through

363-674: A "systemic failure". In 2010, the organization suffered the worst loss of life in its history, when 101 personnel died in the Haiti earthquake . Acting under the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 in 2011, NATO countries intervened in the First Libyan Civil War . The Millennium Summit was held in 2000 to discuss the UN's role in the 21st century. The three-day meeting was

484-521: A British colonial administrator, Stuart Edwin Hedgecock, and his wife. Gertrude Bell also visited the area. T. E. Lawrence had passed through in 1916, stopping at Basra and Ezra's Tomb (Al-Azair), and recorded that the Marsh Arabs were "wonderfully hard [...] but merry, and full of talk. They are in the water all their lives, and seem hardly to notice it." The way of life of the Marsh Arabs

605-621: A UN official, negotiated an armistice to the resulting conflict , with the Security Council deciding that “an armistice shall be established in all sectors of Palestine”. On 7 November 1956, the first UN peacekeeping force was established to end the Suez Crisis ; however, the UN was unable to intervene against the Soviet Union's simultaneous invasion of Hungary , following the country's revolution . On 14 July 1960,

726-472: A comprehensive study on the Madan based on research and observation obtained while living with Madan tribes. These observations outline how the Madan diverge from other Shia communities. Films about Marsh Arabs: A 2011 study showed that Marsh Arabs have a high concentration of Y-chromosomal Haplogroup J-M267 and mtDNA haplogroup J having the highest concentration, with haplogroups H , U and T following,

847-481: A conference and initialised the drafting of the UN Charter , which was adopted on 25 June 1945. The charter took effect on 24 October 1945, when the UN began operations. The UN's objectives, as outlined by its charter, include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights , delivering humanitarian aid , promoting sustainable development , and upholding international law . At its founding,

968-547: A few thousand of the nearly half million Marsh Arabs remain in the area in Maysan Governorate , Dhi Qar Governorate and Basra Governorate . Most of the rest that can be accounted for are refugees living in other Shi'i areas in Iraq , or have emigrated to Iran , and many do not wish to return to their former home and lifestyle, which despite its independence was characterised by extreme poverty and hardship. A report by

1089-416: A million in the 1950s, have dwindled to as few as 20,000 in Iraq. Only 1,600 of them were estimated to still be living on traditional dibins in their homeland by 2003. The AMAR International Charitable Foundation described the event as "an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe of monumental proportions with regional and global implications." Besides the general UN-imposed Gulf war sanctions , there

1210-1013: A myriad of autonomous, separately administered funds, programmes, research and training institutes, and other subsidiary bodies . Each of these entities have their own area of work, governance structure, and budgets such as the World Trade Organization (or the WTO) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (or the IAEA), operate independently of the UN but maintain formal partnership agreements. The UN performs much of its humanitarian work through these institutions, such as preventing famine and malnutrition (the World Food Programme ), protecting vulnerable and displaced people (the UNHCR ), and combating

1331-555: A patchwork of lakes had appeared in northern areas. There was flooding in southern areas which had previously been dry since the early 1990s. There has been some corresponding recolonization by the natural marsh vegetation since that time, and return of some species of fish and birds. However, recovery of the Central Marshes has been much slower compared to the Huwaizah and Hammar Marshes; the most severely damaged sections of

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1452-547: A permanent member to block adoption of a resolution, though not debate. The ten temporary seats are held for two-year terms, with five members elected each year by the General Assembly on a regional basis . The presidency of the Security Council rotates alphabetically each month. The UN Secretariat carries out the day-to-day duties required to operate and maintain the UN system. It is composed of tens of thousands of international civil servants worldwide and headed by

1573-606: A plane crash . Months later he was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize . In 1964, Hammarskjöld's successor, U Thant , deployed the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus , which would become one of the UN's longest-running peacekeeping missions. With the spread of decolonization in the 1960s, the UN's membership shot up due to an influx of newly independent nations. In 1960 alone, 17 new states joined

1694-533: A substantial rate of recovery. The permanent wetlands now cover more than 50% of 1970s levels, with a remarkable regrowth of the Hammar and Hawizeh Marshes and some recovery of the Central Marshes . Efforts to restore the marshes have led to signs of their gradual revivification as water is restored to the former desert , but the whole ecosystem may take far longer to restore than it took to destroy. Only

1815-445: A two-thirds majority of those present and voting is required. All other questions are decided by a majority vote. Each member has one vote. Apart from the approval of budgetary matters, resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security that are under consideration by the Security Council. Draft resolutions can be forwarded to

1936-889: A wide variety of complex tasks. The UN comprises six principal operational organizations: the General Assembly , the Security Council , the Economic and Social Council , the International Court of Justice , the UN Secretariat , and the Trusteeship Council , although the Trusteeship Council has been suspended since 1994. The UN System includes a multitude of specialized agencies , funds, and programmes, including

2057-1033: A wide variety of topics. These include the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues , which advises UN agencies on issues relating to indigenous peoples , the United Nations Forum on Forests , which coordinates and promotes sustainable forest management, the United Nations Statistical Commission , which co-ordinates information-gathering efforts between agencies, and the Commission on Sustainable Development , which co-ordinates efforts between UN agencies and NGOs working towards sustainable development . ECOSOC may also grant consultative status to non-governmental organizations. as of April 2021 almost 5,600 organizations have this status. The UN Charter stipulates that each primary organ of

2178-549: Is a diplomatic and political international organization with the intended purpose of maintaining international peace and security , developing friendly relations among nations, achieving international cooperation, and serving as a center for coordinating the actions of member nations. It is widely recognised as the world's largest international organization. The UN is headquartered in New York City , in international territory with certain privileges extraterritorial to

2299-467: Is defined in the UN Charter as the organization's chief administrative officer. Article 99 of the charter states that the secretary-general can bring to the Security Council's attention "any matter which in their opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security", a phrase that secretaries-general since Trygve Lie have interpreted as giving the position broad scope for action on

2420-557: Is to weaken the military forces of the enemy", a provision potentially violated by the Ba'athist government as part of their campaign against the insurgents which had taken refuge in the marshlands. However, Iraq is not a signatory on the treaty Since water flowed unfiltered into the Gulf through the newly dug canal system, The Kuwait Regional Convention for Co-operation on the Protection of

2541-540: The 2003 invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of the Saddam Hussein regime, water flow to the marshes was restored and the ecosystem has begun to recover. The origins of Marsh Arabs are still a matter of some dispute. British colonial ethnographers found it difficult to classify some of Ahwaris' social customs and speculated that they might have originated in India . They may have descended from Zuṭṭ , who moved to

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2662-758: The Ba'athist government of Saddam Hussein ( Shi'ites in particular), and a low-level insurgency had developed against the drainage and resettlement projects, led by Sheik Abdul Kerim Mahud al-Muhammadawi of the Al bu Muhammad under the nom de guerre Abu Hatim. After the First Gulf War (1991), the Iraqi government revived a program to divert the flow of the Tigris River and the Euphrates River away from

2783-478: The Ba'athist government. During the 1970s, the expansion of irrigation projects had begun to disrupt the flow of water to the marshes; by the early 1980s, it was evident that these had significantly affected water levels. Part of the Hammar Marsh was also drained in 1985 during efforts to prepare the area for oil exploration . By the mid-1980s, the marshes had become a refuge for people persecuted by

2904-725: The Basra reed-warbler and marbled teal , along with several other species of non-breeding birds. It was feared that the Levant darter ( Anhinga rufa chantrei ), a subspecies of the African darter , and the maxwelli subspecies of the smooth-coated otter had disappeared entirely, but small and threatened populations remain of both. It is also feared that the Bunn's short-tailed bandicoot rat ( Nesokia bunnii , syn. Erythronesokia bunnii ), which had only been described from specimens obtained in

3025-655: The Battle of Mogadishu . The UN mission to Bosnia faced worldwide ridicule for its indecisive and confused mission in the face of ethnic cleansing. In 1994, the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda failed to intervene in the Rwandan genocide amidst indecision in the Security Council. From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, international interventions authorized by the UN took a wider variety of forms. The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 authorised

3146-528: The Four Power Declaration on General Security which aimed for the creation "at the earliest possible date of a general international organization". This was the first public announcement that a new international organization was being contemplated to replace the League of Nations. The Tehran Conference followed shortly afterwards at which Roosevelt, Churchill and Joseph Stalin , the leader of

3267-540: The Group of 77 under the leadership of Algeria, which briefly became a dominant power at the UN. On 10 November 1975, a bloc comprising the Soviet Union and Third World nations passed a resolution , over strenuous American and Israeli opposition, declaring Zionism to be a form of racism . The resolution was repealed on 16 December 1991, shortly after the end of the Cold War. With an increasing Third World presence and

3388-594: The Hawizeh , Central , and Hammar marshes, were drained at different times for different reasons. In the 1990s, the marshes were drained for political motives, namely to force the Marsh Arabs out of the area and to punish them for their role in the 1991 uprising against Saddam Hussein's government. However, the government's stated reasoning was to reclaim land for agriculture and exterminate breeding grounds for mosquitoes. The displacement of more than 200,000 of

3509-472: The ICJ Statute , which forms an integral part of the UN Charter, and non-members may also become parties. The ICJ's rulings are binding upon parties and, along with its advisory opinions, serve as sources of international law . The court is composed of 15 judges appointed to nine-year terms by the General Assembly. Every sitting judge must be from a different nation. The Economic and Social Council (or

3630-499: The Marsh Arabs , or Ahwaris, who grew rice and grazed buffalo on the natural vegetation. At times, the marshes have also served as a refuge for escaped rebels, such as during the Zanj Rebellion . The former British Mandate administrators (Iraq became independent in 1932) were the first to attempt to drain the marshes, motivated by their role as a breeding ground for mosquitoes and lack of apparent economic value, as well as

3751-591: The NATO -led Kosovo Force beginning in 1999. The UN mission in the Sierra Leone Civil War was supplemented by a British military intervention . The invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 was overseen by NATO. In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq despite failing to pass a UN Security Council resolution for authorization, prompting a new round of questioning of the UN's effectiveness. Under

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3872-820: The Paris Peace Conference . The League of Nations was approved and started operations, but the United States never joined. On 10 January 1920, the League of Nations formally came into being when the Covenant of the League of Nations , ratified by 42 nations in 1919, took effect. The League Council acted as an executive body directing the Assembly's business. It began with four permanent members—the United Kingdom , France , Italy , and Japan . After some limited successes and failures during

3993-568: The United States Agency for International Development noted that while some Ahwaris had chosen to return to their traditional activities in the marshes, especially the Hammar Marshes, within a short time of reflooding, they were without clean drinking water, sanitation, health care or education facilities. In addition, it is still uncertain if the marshes will completely recover, given increased levels of water extraction from

4114-753: The White House in December 1941 for the Arcadia Conference . Roosevelt is considered a founder of the UN, and coined the term United Nations to describe the Allied countries . Churchill accepted it, noting its use by Lord Byron . The text of the Declaration by United Nations was drafted on 29 December 1941, by Roosevelt, Churchill, and Harry Hopkins . It incorporated Soviet suggestions but included no role for France. One major change from

4235-646: The World Bank Group , the World Health Organization , the World Food Programme , UNESCO , and UNICEF . Additionally, non-governmental organizations may be granted consultative status with the Economic and Social Council and other agencies. The UN's chief administrative officer is the secretary-general , currently António Guterres , who is a Portuguese politician and diplomat. He began his first five-year term on 1 January 2017 and

4356-453: The binni or bunni , Mesopotamichthys sharpeyi ), was practised using spears and datura poison, but large-scale fishing using nets was until recent times regarded as a dishonourable profession by Ahwaris and was mostly carried out by a separate low-status tribe known as the Berbera . By the early 1990s, however, up to 60% of the total amount of fish caught in Iraq's inland waters came from

4477-406: The secretary-general , who is assisted by the deputy secretary-general . The Secretariat's duties include providing information and facilities needed by UN bodies for their meetings and carrying out tasks as directed by the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and other UN bodies. The secretary-general acts as the spokesperson and leader of the UN. The position

4598-571: The wetlands into a desert , forcing the residents out of their settlements in the region. Villages in the marshes were attacked and burnt down and there were reports of the water being deliberately poisoned. The majority of Ahwaris were displaced either to areas adjacent to the drained marshes, abandoning their traditional lifestyle in favour of conventional agriculture, to towns and camps in other areas of Iraq or to Iranian refugee camps. Only 1,600 of them were estimated to still be living on traditional dibins by 2003. The western Hammar Marshes and

4719-702: The 1920s, the League proved ineffective in the 1930s, as it failed to act against the Japanese invasion of Manchuria in 1933. Forty nations voted for Japan to withdraw from Manchuria but Japan voted against it and walked out of the League instead of withdrawing from Manchuria. It also failed to act against the Second Italo-Ethiopian War , after the appeal for international intervention by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I at Geneva in 1936 went with no avail, including when calls for economic sanctions against Italy failed. Italy and other nations left

4840-679: The Ahwaris, and the associated state-sponsored campaign of violence against them, has led the United States and others to describe the draining of the marshes as ecocide , ethnic cleansing , or genocide. The draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes has been described by the United Nations as a "tragic human and environmental catastrophe" on par with the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and by other observers as one of

4961-700: The Atlantic Charter was the addition of a provision for religious freedom , which Stalin approved after Roosevelt insisted. Roosevelt's idea of the " Four Powers ", refers to the four major Allied countries, the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China , emerged in the Declaration by the United Nations. On New Year's Day 1942, Roosevelt, Churchill, the Soviet Union's former Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov , and

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5082-490: The Central Marshes attributed the increased salinity and decreased water quality to the limitation of the water source to only the Euphrates, a smaller seasonal fluctuation in water inflow and outflow, and inputs of contaminated water from farms and villages. 31°02′24″N 47°01′30″E  /  31.04000°N 47.02500°E  / 31.04000; 47.02500 United Nations The United Nations ( UN )

5203-506: The Central Marshes, is extinct. A study by the Wetland Ecosystem Research Group at Royal Holloway, University of London concluded that thousands of fish and waterfowl died as the waters receded, and that the central Qurnah marshes 'essentially no longer exist as an ecosystem'. According to a 2001 United Nations Environmental Programme report, the projects resulted in: The water diversion plan, which

5324-562: The Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council : the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the Soviet Union and China — and by a majority of the other 46 nations. The first meetings of the General Assembly , with 51 nations represented, and the Security Council took place in London beginning in January 1946. Debates began at once, covering topical issues such as

5445-428: The Chinese Premier T. V. Soong signed the " Declaration by United Nations ", and the next day the representatives of twenty-two other nations added their signatures. During the war, the United Nations became the official term for the Allies. In order to join, countries had to sign the Declaration and declare war on the Axis powers . The October 1943 Moscow Conference resulted in the Moscow Declarations , including

5566-428: The ECOSOC) assists the General Assembly in promoting international economic and social co-operation and development. It was established to serve as the UN's primary forum for global issues and is the largest and most complex UN body. The ECOSOC's functions include gathering data, conducting studies and advising and making recommendations to member states. Its work is carried out primarily by subsidiary bodies focused on

5687-420: The General Assembly by its six main committees: As well as by the following two committees: The Security Council is charged with maintaining peace and security among nations. While other organs of the UN can only make recommendations to member states, the Security Council has the power to make binding decisions that member states have agreed to carry out, under the terms of Charter Article 25. The decisions of

5808-422: The League. When war broke out in 1939 , the League effectively closed down. The first step towards the establishment of the United Nations was the Inter-Allied Conference in London that led to the Declaration of St James's Palace on 12 June 1941. By August 1941, American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill had drafted the Atlantic Charter ; which defined goals for

5929-516: The Marine Environment from Pollution could be used to compensate Iraq's neighbours for the increase in marine pollution , but it does not protect the Ahwaris for the loss of their marshlands. Following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq , many embankments and drainage works were dismantled under the newly formed administration, and the marshes began to refill. Some of this dismantling was done by local Marsh Arabs acting on their own. The Central Marshes showed little recovery through 2003, but by early 2004

6050-461: The Marsh Arabs and the ancient Sumerians due to shared agricultural practices, methods of house-building and location. There is, however, no written record of the marsh tribes until the ninth century and the Sumerians lost their distinct ethnic identity by around 1800 BCE, some 2700 years before. Links to Sumerian genetics can likely be traced back to the Arabization and assimilation of indigenous Mesopotamians. Others, however, have noted that much of

6171-647: The Maysan province (2003–2004) in his 2006 book, The Prince of the Marshes (also published under the title Occupational Hazards ). In 2011, Sam Kubba published The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs: The Ma'dan, Their Culture and the Environment . The Iraqi Marshlands and the Marsh Arabs details the rich cultural legacy and lifestyle that survives today only as a fragmented cultural inheritance. In German, there are Sigrid Westphal-Hellbusch und Heinz Westphal, Die Ma'dan: Kultur und Geschichte der Marschenbewohner im Süd-Iraq (Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1962). Sigrid Westphal Hellbusch and her husband Heinz Westphal wrote

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6292-407: The Qurnah or Central Marshes had become completely desiccated, while the eastern Hawizeh Marshes had dramatically shrunk. The Marsh Arabs, who numbered about half a million in the 1950s, have dwindled to as few as 20,000 in Iraq, according to the United Nations . As of 2003, an estimated 80,000 to 120,000 have fled to refugee camps in Iran. However, following the Multi-National Force overthrow of

6413-403: The Saddam Hussein regime, water flow to the marshes was restored and the ecosystem has begun to recover, and many have returned to their native lands. The Observer 's Middle East correspondent Shyam Bhatia who spent two weeks with the Marsh Arabs in 1993 wrote the first eyewitness account of Iraqi army tactics at the time of draining the marshes, bombing Marsh villages and then sowing mines in

6534-465: The Scottish naturalist, travelled with Thesiger through the marshes in 1956 and published an account of their travels in his 1957 book A Reed Shaken by the Wind (later republished under the title People of the Reeds ). The journalist and travel writer Gavin Young followed in Thesiger's footsteps, writing Return to the Marshes: Life with the Marsh Arabs of Iraq (1977; reissued 2009). The first extensive scholarly ethnographic account of Marsh Arab life

6655-427: The Soviet Union, and the signing of the Korean Armistice Agreement on 27 July 1953. On 29 November 1947, the General Assembly approved resolution 181 , a proposal to partition Palestine into two state, with Jerusalem placed under a special international regime. The plan failed and a civil war broke out in Palestine, that led to the creation of the state of Israel afterward. Two years later, Ralph Bunche ,

6776-400: The Soviet Union, before all the issues were resolved. By 1 March 1945, 21 additional states had signed the Declaration by the United Nations. After months of planning, the UN Conference on International Organization opened in San Francisco on 25 April 1945. It was attended by 50 nations' governments and a number of non-governmental organizations. The delegations of the Big Four chaired

6897-451: The Soviet Union, met and discussed the idea of a post-war international organization. The new international organisation was formulated and negotiated amongst the delegations from the Allied Big Four at the Dumbarton Oaks Conference from 21 September to 7 October 1944. They agreed on proposals for the aims, structure and functioning of the new organization. It took the conference at Yalta in February 1945, and further negotiations with

7018-455: The Tigris and Euphrates. Many of the resettled Marsh Arabs have gained representation through the Hezbollah Movement in Iraq ; others have become followers of Muqtada al-Sadr 's movement, through which they gained political control of Maysan Governorate . Political instability and local feuds, aggravated by the poverty of the dispossessed Marsh Arab population, remain a serious problem. Rory Stewart observed that throughout history, Ahwaris were

7139-499: The UN authorized a US-led coalition that repulsed Iraq's invasion of Kuwait . Brian Urquhart , the under-secretary-general of the UN from 1971 to 1985, later described the hopes raised by these successes as a "false renaissance" for the organization, given the more troubled missions that followed. Beginning in the last decades of the Cold War , critics of the UN condemned the organization for perceived mismanagement and corruption. In 1984, American President Ronald Reagan withdrew

7260-412: The UN established the United Nations Operation in the Congo (or UNOC), the largest military force of its early decades, to bring order to Katanga , restoring it to the control of the Democratic Republic of the Congo by 11 May 1964. While travelling to meet rebel leader Moise Tshombe during the conflict, Dag Hammarskjöld , often named as one of the UN's most effective secretaries-general, died in

7381-562: The UN had 51 member states ; as of 2024 , it has 193 sovereign states , nearly all of the world's recognized sovereign states. The UN's mission to preserve world peace was complicated in its initial decades due in part to Cold War tensions that existed between the United States and Soviet Union and their respective allies. Its mission has included the provision of primarily unarmed military observers and lightly armed troops charged with primarily monitoring, reporting and confidence-building roles. UN membership grew significantly following

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7502-430: The UN itself and operate with almost complete independence from it". These include specialized agencies, research and training institutions, programmes and funds and other UN entities. All organizations in the UN system obey the Noblemaire principle , which calls for salaries that will attract and retain citizens of countries where compensation is highest, and which ensures equal pay for work of equal value regardless of

7623-446: The UN's focus on promoting development, peacekeeping, human rights and global security. The Sustainable Development Goals (or SDGs) were launched in 2015 to succeed the Millennium Development Goals. In addition to addressing global challenges, the UN has sought to improve its accountability and democratic legitimacy by engaging more with civil society and fostering a global constituency. In an effort to enhance transparency, in 2016

7744-405: The UN's primary mandate was peacekeeping , the division between the United States and the Soviet Union often paralysed the organization; generally allowing it to intervene only in conflicts distant from the Cold War . Two notable exceptions were a Security Council resolution on 7 July 1950 authorizing a US-led coalition to repel the North Korean invasion of South Korea , passed in the absence of

7865-420: The UN, 16 of them from Africa. On 25 October 1971, with opposition from the United States, but with the support of many Third World nations, the People's Republic of China was given the Chinese seat on the Security Council in place of the Republic of China (also known as Taiwan). The vote was widely seen as a sign of waning American influence in the organization. Third World nations organized themselves into

7986-580: The United Nations can establish various specialized agencies to fulfill its duties. Specialized agencies are autonomous organizations working with the United Nations and each other through the coordinating machinery of the Economic and Social Council. Each was integrated into the UN system through an agreement with the UN under UN Charter article 57. There are fifteen specialized agencies, which perform functions as diverse as facilitating international travel, preventing and addressing pandemics, and promoting economic development. The United Nations system includes

8107-421: The United States' funding from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (or UNESCO) over allegations of mismanagement, followed by the United Kingdom and Singapore. Boutros Boutros-Ghali , the secretary-general from 1992 to 1996, initiated a reform of the Secretariat, somewhat reducing the size of the organisation. His successor, Kofi Annan , initiated further management reforms in

8228-436: The United States, and the UN has other offices in Geneva , Nairobi , Vienna , and The Hague , where the International Court of Justice is headquartered at the Peace Palace . The UN was established after World War II with the aim of preventing future world wars , and succeeded the League of Nations , which was characterized as being ineffective. On 25 April 1945, 50 nations assembled in San Francisco , California, for

8349-403: The area, led by Sheik Abdul Kerim Mahud al-Muhammadawi of the Al bu Muhammad under the nom de guerre Abu Hatim. During the 1970s, the expansion of irrigation projects had begun to disrupt the flow of water to the marshes. However, after the First Gulf War (1991), the Iraqi government aggressively revived a program to divert the flow of the Tigris River and the Euphrates River away from

8470-510: The assembly gathers at annual sessions at the General Assembly Hall , but emergency sessions can be summoned. The assembly is led by a president , elected by the member states on a rotating regional basis, and 21 vice-presidents. The first session convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London and comprised representatives of 51 nations. When the General Assembly decides on seminal questions such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters,

8591-412: The basis of the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations , the UN and its agencies are immune from the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding the UN's impartiality with regard to host and member countries. Below the six organs are, in the words of the author Linda Fasulo, "an amazing collection of entities and organizations, some of which are actually older than

8712-649: The body's former headquarters in the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands , making it the only principal organ not based in New York City. The ICJ's main function is adjudicating disputes among nations. Examples of issues they have heard include war crimes, violations of state sovereignty and ethnic cleansing. The court can also be called upon by other UN organs to provide advisory opinions on matters of international law. All UN member states are parties to

8833-622: The century prior to the UN's creation, several international organizations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross were formed to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife. During World War I , several major leaders, especially U.S. President Woodrow Wilson , advocated for a world body to guarantee peace. The winners of the war, the Allies , met to decide on formal peace terms at

8954-402: The coarseness of sack-cloth, was the only covering of the latter. This, when labour required it, was thrown aside, and discovered forms most admirably adapted to their laborious avocations; indeed, any of the boatmen would have made an excellent model for an Hercules; and one in particular, with uncombed hair and shaggy beard, struck us all with the resemblance he bore to statues of that deity." Of

9075-474: The community; A number of families also claimed descent from Muhammad , adopting the title of sayyid . Ahwaris carried out the majority of their devotions in private as there were no places of worship within the Marshes; some were known to visit Ezra's Tomb , one of the few religious sites of any kind in the area. As with most tribes of southern Iraq, the main authority was the tribal shaikh . To this day,

9196-592: The council are known as United Nations Security Council resolutions . The Security Council is made up of fifteen member states: five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) and ten non-permanent members (currently Algeria , Ecuador , Guyana , Japan , Malta , Mozambique , the Republic of Korea , Sierra Leone , Slovenia and Switzerland ). The five permanent members hold veto power over UN resolutions, allowing

9317-539: The culture of Ahwaris is shared with the desert bedouin who came to the area after the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate . The marshes had for some time been considered a refuge for elements persecuted by the government of Saddam Hussein , as in past centuries they had been a refuge for escaped slaves and serfs , such as during the Zanj Rebellion . By the mid-1980s, a low-level insurgency against Ba'athist drainage and resettlement projects had developed in

9438-399: The desert tribes. Most Marsh Arabs lived in arched reed houses considerably smaller than a mudhif . The typical dwelling was usually a little more than two meters wide, about six meters long, and a little less than three meters high, and was either constructed at the waterside or on an artificial island of reeds called a kibasha ; a more permanent island of layered reeds and mud was called

9559-504: The earliest modern traveler to write about Mesopotamia and probably the first to introduce the word Madi , which he spelled "Maedi," to the Western world. Young also mentions George Keppel, 6th Earl of Albemarle (1799–1891) as having spent time with the Madan in 1824 and reported in detail on the marsh inhabitants. Of the men Keppel wrote, "The Arab boatmen were as hardy and muscular-looking fellows as ever I saw. One loose brown shirt, of

9680-883: The eighth secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon , the UN intervened with peacekeepers in crises such as the War in Darfur in Sudan and the Kivu conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and sent observers and chemical weapons inspectors to the Syrian Civil War . In 2013, an internal review of UN actions in the final battles of the Sri Lankan Civil War in 2009 concluded that the organization had suffered

9801-500: The employee's nationality. In practice, the International Civil Service Commission , which governs the conditions of UN personnel, takes reference to the highest-paying national civil service. Staff salaries are subject to an internal tax that is administered by the UN organizations. The General Assembly is the primary deliberative assembly of the UN. Composed of all UN member states ,

9922-540: The face of threats from the US to withhold its UN dues. Though the UN Charter had been written primarily to prevent aggression by one nation against another, in the early 1990s the UN faced several simultaneous, serious crises within Somalia, Haiti, Mozambique, and the nations that previously made up Yugoslavia. The UN mission in Somalia was widely viewed as a failure after the United States' withdrawal following casualties in

10043-504: The failure of UN mediation in conflicts in the Middle East , Vietnam , and Kashmir , the UN increasingly shifted its attention to its secondary goals of economic development and cultural exchange. By the 1970s, the UN budget for social and economic development was far greater than its peacekeeping budget. After the Cold War, the UN saw a radical expansion in its peacekeeping duties, taking on more missions in five years than it had in

10164-659: The five principal organs are located at the main UN Headquarters in New York City, while the International Court of Justice is seated in The Hague . Most other major agencies are based in the UN offices at Geneva , Vienna , and Nairobi , and additional UN institutions are located throughout the world. The six official languages of the UN, used in intergovernmental meetings and documents, are Arabic , Chinese , English , French , Russian and Spanish . On

10285-481: The largest gathering of world leaders in history, and it culminated in the adoption by all member states of the Millennium Development Goals (or MDGs), a commitment to achieve international development in areas such as poverty reduction , gender equality and public health . Progress towards these goals, which were to be met by 2015, was ultimately uneven. The 2005 World Summit reaffirmed

10406-727: The loss of two-thirds of the Central Marshes by as early as 1993. A further canal, the Prosperity Canal, was constructed to prevent any overflow into the marsh from the main channel of the Tigris as it ran southwards from Qalat Saleh . By the late 1990s, the Central Marsh had become completely desiccated, suffering the most severe damage of the three main areas of wetland. By 2000, the United Nations Environment Programme estimated that 90% of

10527-523: The marshes in retribution for a failed Shia uprising . This was done primarily to eliminate the food sources of the Marsh Arabs and to prevent any remaining militiamen from taking refuge in the marshes, the Badr Brigades and other militias having used them as cover. The plan, which was accompanied by a series of propaganda articles by the Iraqi regime directed against the Ma'dan, systematically converted

10648-534: The marshes small communities of Mandaic -speaking Mandaeans (often working as boat builders and craftsmen) live alongside them and they number a couple hundred. The inhabitants' have a long association with Arab tribes within Persia. Wilfred Thesiger mentioned that the Marsh Arabs who had performed the Hajj and those of them had visited Mashhad (thereby earning the title Zair ) were considered highly respected within

10769-540: The marshes were torched, water was deliberately poisoned, and villagers' vehicles were attacked by government helicopters. Several thousand Marsh Arabs were killed. The majority of the Ahwaris were displaced either to areas adjacent to the drained marshes, abandoning their traditional lifestyle in favour of conventional agriculture, or to towns and camps in other areas of Iraq. An estimated 80,000 to 120,000 fled to refugee camps in Iran. The Marsh Arabs, who numbered about half

10890-602: The marshes. Ahwaris speak South Mesopotamian Arabic and traditionally wore a variant of normal Arab dress: for males, a thawb ("long shirt"; in recent times, occasionally with a Western-style jacket over the top) and a keffiyeh ("headcloth") worn twisted around the head in a turban , as few could afford an ʻiqāl . The society of the Marsh Arabs was divided into two main groups by occupation. One group bred and raised water buffaloes while others cultivated crops such as rice , barley , wheat and pearl millet ; they also kept some sheep and cattle . Rice cultivation

11011-444: The marshes. In the later twentieth century, a third main occupation entered Marsh Arab life; the weaving of reed mats on a commercial scale. Though they often earned far more than workers in agriculture , weavers were looked down upon by both Ahwaris and farmers alike: however, financial concerns meant that it gradually gained acceptance as a respectable profession. The majority of Marsh Arabs are Twelver Shiʿi Muslims, though in

11132-487: The marshes. The marshes had served as a base for a Shi’a insurrection against Saddam Hussein 's Sunni-led Ba'athist regime, so Hussein drained the marshes largely to deny their use by insurgents and to punish the Ahwaris for their participation in the uprising. The flow southwards from the distributary streams of the Tigris was blocked by large embankments and discharged into the Al-Amarah or Glory Canal , resulting in

11253-563: The marshlands had disappeared. The Central Marshes stretched between Nasiriyah , Al-'Uzair (Ezra's Tomb) and Al-Qurnah and were mainly fed by the Tigris and its distributaries. They were characterised by tall qasab reeds but included a number of freshwater lakes , of which the largest were the Haur az-Zikri and Umm al-Binni (literally "mother of binni ", the latter being a species of barbel ). The marshes support breeding populations of

11374-461: The organization are five principal organs established by the UN Charter: the General Assembly , the Security Council , the Economic and Social Council , the International Court of Justice and the UN Secretariat . A sixth principal organ, the Trusteeship Council , suspended its operations on 1 November 1994 upon the independence of Palau ; the last remaining UN trustee territory. Four of

11495-506: The organization held its first public debate between candidates for secretary-general. On 1 January 2017, Portuguese diplomat António Guterres , who had previously served as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees , became the ninth secretary-general. Guterres has highlighted several key goals for his administration, including an emphasis on diplomacy for preventing conflicts, more effective peacekeeping efforts, and streamlining

11616-482: The organization to be more responsive and versatile to international needs. On 13 June 2019, the UN signed a Strategic Partnership Framework with the World Economic Forum in order to "jointly accelerate" the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development . The United Nations is part of the broader UN System, which includes an extensive network of institutions and entities. Central to

11737-412: The pawn of many rulers and became expert dissimulators. The tribal chiefs are outwardly submissive and work with the coalition and Iraqi officials. Behind the scenes, the tribes engage in smuggling and other activities. The term Maʻdān was used disparagingly by desert tribes to refer to those inhabiting the Iraqi river basins, as well as by those who farmed in the river basins to refer to the population of

11858-524: The plenary meetings. Previously, Churchill had urged Roosevelt to restore France to its status of a major power after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. The drafting of the Charter of the United Nations was completed over the following two months, and it was signed on 26 June 1945 by the representatives of the 50 countries. The UN officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, upon ratification of

11979-553: The post, but over the years it has become accepted that the position shall be held for one or two terms of five years. The current secretary-general is António Guterres of Portugal, who replaced Ban Ki-moon in 2017. The International Court of Justice (or ICJ), sometimes known as the World Court, is the primary judicial organ of the UN. It is the successor to the Permanent Court of International Justice and occupies

12100-653: The post-war world. At the subsequent meeting of the Inter-Allied Council in London on 24 September 1941, the eight governments in exile of countries under Axis occupation , together with the Soviet Union and representatives of the Free French Forces , unanimously adopted adherence to the common principles of policy set forth by Britain and the United States. Roosevelt and Churchill met at

12221-652: The potential use of the water for irrigation. Prepared in 1951, The Haigh Report outlined a series of sluices, embankments and canals on the lower ends of the Tigris and Euphrates that would drain water for agriculture. These notably included the Main Outfall Drain (MOD), a large canal also referred to as the Third River, and the Nasiriyah Drainage Pump Station . Neither were completed under British rule: they were later revived by

12342-560: The presence of Russian troops in Iranian Azerbaijan and British forces in Greece . British diplomat Gladwyn Jebb served as interim secretary-general. The General Assembly selected New York City as the site for the headquarters of the UN. Construction began on 14 September 1948 and the facility was completed on 9 October 1952. The Norwegian Foreign Minister, Trygve Lie , was the first elected UN secretary-general . Though

12463-532: The previous four decades. Between 1988 and 2000, the number of adopted Security Council resolutions more than doubled, and the peacekeeping budget increased by more than tenfold. The UN negotiated an end to the Salvadoran Civil War , launched a successful peacekeeping mission in Namibia , and oversaw democratic elections in post- apartheid South Africa and post- Khmer Rouge Cambodia. In 1991,

12584-467: The reedbeds during the season of low water to create channels, which would then be kept open by constant use, for the boats. The marsh environment meant that certain diseases, such as schistosomiasis and malaria , were endemic; Ahwari agriculture and homes were also vulnerable to periodic droughts and flooding. Pietro Della Valle (1586–1652) is cited in Gavin Young 's Return to the Marshes as

12705-615: The region of lower Iraq in the 8th and 9th centuries and followed similar customs and traditions. Some scholars such as Ali al-Wardi have claimed they are descended from the Nabataeans of Iraq , the Aramaic-speaking people who inhabited Lower Mesopotamia in the Middle Ages , and some of their clans even follow their ancestry to Islamized Mandaeans . Other scholars have proposed historical and genetic links between

12826-459: The shaikh of a Marsh Arab group will collect a tribute from his tribe in order to maintain the mudhif , the tribal guesthouse, which acts as the political , social , judicial and religious centre of Marsh Arabic life. The mudhif is used as a place to settle disputes, to carry out diplomacy with other tribes and as a gathering point for religious and other celebrations. It is also the place where visitors are offered hospitality . Although

12947-678: The study included 143 Marsh Arab samples. According to this study, Marsh Arabs have the following haplogroups. Draining of the Mesopotamian Marshes#Gulf War draining The Mesopotamian Marshes were drained in Iraq and to a smaller degree in Iran between the 1950s and 1990s to clear large areas of the marshes in the Tigris-Euphrates river system . The marshes formerly covered an area of around 20,000 km (7,700 sq mi). The main sub-marshes,

13068-490: The tribal shaykh was the principal figure, each Ahwari village (which may have contained members of several different tribes) would also follow the authority of the hereditary qalit "headman" of a tribe's particular section. Blood feuds , which could only be settled by the qalit , were a feature of Marsh Arab life, in common with that of the Arab bedouin . Many of the Marsh Arabs' codes of behaviour were similar to those of

13189-465: The water before retreating. Bhatia's extensive reportage won him the title of International Reporter of the Year, although exclusive film footage of the time he spent in the area has never been screened. With the breaching of dikes by local communities subsequent to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the ending of a four-year drought that same year, the process has been reversed and the marshes have experienced

13310-431: The water quality and salinity is much worse than in the pre-drained marshes: water salinity has soared to 15,000 parts per million (ppm) in some areas, up from 300 to 500 ppm in the 1980s. This increased salinity has hindered the reintroduction of native plant and fish species and has had major detrimental effects on buffalo herding and fishing in the marshes, the chief economic activities of the Marsh Arabs. 2010 research in

13431-413: The wetlands did not show any signs of regeneration by 2006. By 2008, 75% of the marshes had been restored, including most of the Central Marshes. However, the wetlands have since shrunk to 58% of their pre-drainage area and are projected to drop below 50% as a result of Turkish and Iranian damming of the Tigris and Euphrates, which the UN reports has reduced the combined volume of the rivers by 60%. Further,

13552-416: The widespread decolonization in the 1960s. Since then, 80 former colonies have gained independence, including 11 trust territories that had been monitored by the Trusteeship Council . By the 1970s, the UN's budget for economic and social development programmes vastly exceeded its spending on peacekeeping . After the end of the Cold War in 1991, the UN shifted and expanded its field operations, undertaking

13673-456: The women Keppel observed, "They came to our boat with the frankness of innocence and there was a freedom in their manners, bordering perhaps on the masculine; nevertheless their fine features and well-turned limbs produced a tout ensemble of beauty, not to be surpassed perhaps in the brilliant assemblies of civilized life." Another account of Ahwaris in English was jointly published in 1927 by

13794-404: The world stage. The office has evolved into a dual role of an administrator of the UN organization and a diplomat and mediator addressing disputes between member states and finding consensus to global issues . The secretary-general is appointed by the General Assembly, after being recommended by the Security Council, where the permanent members have veto power. There are no specific criteria for

13915-529: The worst environmental disasters of the 20th century. Since the time of Sumer , agriculture in Mesopotamia involved major melioration , including drainage and building of irrigation canals. After the collapse of the Mesopotamian civilization and the Arab conquest the territory was derelict, which resulted in the restoration of the original wetland conditions. The wetlands were gradually populated by

14036-535: Was Marsh Dwellers of the Euphrates Delta (1962), by Iraqi anthropologist S. M. Salim . An ethnoarchaeological study of the material culture of the Marsh Arabs has been published by Edward L. Ochsenschlager: Iraq's Marsh Arabs in the Garden of Eden ( University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology , 2004). Rory Stewart described the Marsh Arabs and his experiences as deputy governor in

14157-452: Was accompanied by a series of propaganda articles by the Iraqi regime directed against the Ahwaris, systematically converted the wetlands into a desert , forcing the residents out of their settlements in the region. The western Hammar Marshes and the Qurnah or Central Marshes became completely desiccated, while the eastern Hawizeh Marshes dramatically shrank. Furthermore, villages in

14278-522: Was especially important; it was carried out in small plots cleared in April and sown in mid-May. Cultivation seasons were marked by the rising and setting of certain stars, such as the Pleiades and Sirius . Some Ahwari branches were nomadic pastoralists , erecting temporary dwellings and moving buffaloes around the marshes according to the season. Some fishing, especially of species of barbel (notably

14399-461: Was later described by the explorer Wilfred Thesiger in his classic The Marsh Arabs (1964). Thesiger lived with the Marsh Arabs for months at a time over a seven-year period (1951–1958), building excellent relationships with virtually all he met, and recording the details of day-to-day life in various regions of the marshes. Many of the areas that he visited have since been drained. Gavin Maxwell ,

14520-628: Was no specific legal recourse for those displaced by the drainage projects, or prosecution of those involved. Article 2.c of the Genocide Convention (to which Iraq had acceded in 1951 ) forbids "deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part." Additionally, the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868 says that "the only legitimate object which States should endeavour to accomplish during war

14641-447: Was re-elected on 8 June 2021. The organization is financed by assessed and voluntary contributions from its member states. The UN, its officers, and its agencies have won multiple Nobel Peace Prizes , although other evaluations of its effectiveness have been contentious. Some commentators believe the organization to be a leader in peace and human development, while others have criticized it for ineffectiveness, bias, and corruption . In

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