United Nations

PI/1449
27 November 2002

NEW YORK, 26 November (UN Headquarters) -- The fifty-fourth volume of the Yearbook of the United Nations, covering the year 2000, has been published by the Department of Public Information (DPI). This 1,536-page reference work, which provides an overview of the activities undertaken by the United Nations to address major global challenges, is the primary comprehensive and authoritative reference work on the Organization and is widely consulted by diplomats, government officials, scholars, journalists and others with a serious interest in international and United Nations affairs.

The Yearbook is fully indexed and reproduces in their entirety the texts of, and votes on, all major General Assembly, Security Council and Economic and Social Council resolutions and decisions.

This edition comprises 52 chapters covering political and security questions, human rights, economic and social questions, legal questions, institutional, administrative and budgetary questions, and intergovernmental organizations related to the United Nations. In addition, the 2000 volume includes a special section devoted to the Organization's three-day Millennium Summit, attended by the largest-ever gathering of world leaders representing the 189 United Nations Member States.

Included is the full text of the General Assembly's United Nations Millennium Declaration, which charts a course for the Organization in the new era. The Declaration identifies key objectives in the areas of peace, security and disarmament; development and poverty eradication; environmental protection; human rights, democracy and good governance; protecting the vulnerable; meeting the special needs of Africa, and strengthening the United Nations.

The 2000 Yearbook also provides full coverage of social, political and military developments in Africa, including the major conflicts in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eritrea and Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone. It also covers the Security Council's consideration of the impact of AIDS on peace and security in Africa, as well as efforts to break the link between the illicit trade in diamonds and armed conflict on the continent.

Other important developments covered include: Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon; the continuing plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories and international efforts to break the stalemated Middle East peace process; progress of the United Nations–administered transition to independence in East Timor, and United Nations peace-building efforts in the former Yugoslavia and Tajikistan. The Yearbook also details Security Council measures in 2000 concerning the refusal of the Taliban Government in Afghanistan to turn over Osama bin Laden for trial, and Iraq's continued non-compliance with Council resolutions regarding its weapons of mass destruction programme.

The ongoing work of some 37,000 military and civilian personnel deployed in 15 United Nations missions around the world is chronicled, as are expert assessments of peace operations and recommendations to strengthen them. The Yearbook highlights the work of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees which, in its fiftieth year, was concerned with the fate of over 21 million refugees.

Social and economic concerns in the context of globalization, particularly as expressed by developing countries at major United Nations gatherings, are covered comprehensively, and information is provided on the General Assembly's two special sessions that conducted five-year reviews of the outcomes of international conferences held in 1995 on social development and on women. The Yearbook also describes the adoption of the Vienna Declaration on Crime and Justice: Meeting the Challenges of the Twenty-first Century; the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; and two Protocols on trafficking in persons and the smuggling of migrants.

In the area of human rights, the Yearbook reports the Assembly's adoption of two Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child -- on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Also described is the establishment of a Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues by the Economic and Social Council.

The volume also details the continuing efforts of the Secretary-General to enhance the Organization's effectiveness, efficiency and relevance through management reform.

Overall, the 2000 edition of the Yearbook of the United Nations presents a comprehensive view of United Nations activities and how international cooperation is working to better the lives of the world's 6 billion people.

Note: The Yearbook of the United Nations 2000 will soon be available for $150 (Sales No. E.02.I.1, ISBN 92-1-100857-3) from United Nations Publications, Two United Nations Plaza, Room DC2-853, Dept. PRES, New York, NY 10017, USA. (Tel. 800-253-9646 or 212-963-8302, fax. 212-963-3489, e-mail: publications@un.org) or from Palais des Nations, CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland. (Tel. 41-22-917-2614, fax. 41-22-917-0027, e-mail: unpubli@unog.ch; internet: http://www.un.org/publications.)

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