UNESCO

UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, "United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization"). - It is one of the bodies created by the UN (United Nations Organization) in fulfillment of the obligation imposed by the Charter (art. 13, letter h) on the Assembly to promote international cooperation in the cultural and educational field.

It represents, in substance, the continuation of a lively initiative of the League of Nations, which had established in 1922, among its standing organizations, the Permanent Commission on Intellectual Cooperation, which in turn had as the body preparing its decisions and executing them the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation, with its seat in Paris (Statute of 13 Dec. 1924) and which relied, in the individual States, on the National Commissions, which coordinated within the Commission's relations the activities of the national institutes and served as a link with the governments, by which they were generally constituted. The League organization, already in its very name, insisted on its purpose, that is, intellectual cooperation, whereas UNESCO insists rather on the concept of organization. But in substance, despite certain nuances, the foundation of the two institutions is the same: the spiritual linking of peoples through science, culture, and education, not only for the purposes of the communicability of culture, but of spiritual preparation for peace among peoples, insofar as it is the sentiment of peace that serves to prepare peace. On this principle, that UNESCO's purpose is work for peace, its regulations insist, whereas the League Institute, while not forgetting this, insisted on spiritual communicability.

UNESCO was constituted (Final Act of London of 16 Nov. 1945) in the same year as the cessation of hostilities, preceded by a provisional organization that was to serve to set it in motion (cf. the Arrangement of London of the same date), as one of the specialized institutions provided for by the Charter of the United Nations (art. 57). It is well to bear in mind its purposes as defined in art. 1, no. 1: to contribute to the maintenance of peace and security by tightening through education, science, and culture the collaboration among nations so as to ensure universal respect for justice, for law, for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction of race, sex, language, and religion, which the Charter of the United Nations recognizes for all peoples. This purpose holds for all the UN organizations, but those specific to UNESCO are specified in the threefold purpose of fostering knowledge and mutual understanding among nations, of imparting a vigorous impulse to popular education and to the dissemination of culture, and of aiding the advancement and the dissemination of knowledge (art. 1, no. 2). For each of these purposes ample exemplifications are given, while it is taken care to specify (art. 1, no. 3) that there is no wish in any way to impair the development of the various cultures; on the contrary, the intention is to respect them. This, insofar as the communicability of culture is founded precisely on the diversity and the different contribution of cultures, which must become mutually communicable.

UNESCO's organization does not differ from that of the other UN organizations, to which it is bound by an agreement that determines their relations (Agreement of 14 Dec. 1946). The member States of the UN are members of UNESCO by right and leave UNESCO automatically when they cease to be members of the UN (art. 2, nos. 1 and 3). Intending, however, to link all nations, membership in the UN is not a necessary condition for belonging to UNESCO, so that States that are not members may also join it. The States participating in UNESCO were 43 in 1945; by 1951 they had become about fifty.

UNESCO's bodies are three (art. 3): 1) the General Conference (art. 4), in which the representatives of all member States participate and which in its annual assemblies determines, so to speak, the general policy of the organization; 2) the Executive Committee (art. 5), made up of 18 members appointed by the Assembly; it meets more frequently and is the vital organ of the organization from the active point of view; 3) the Secretary (art. 6), who has broad powers and is at the head of the Secretariat, which sits in Paris, in homage to France's merits for culture and to the traditions of intellectual cooperation.

Taking up again the tradition of the old intellectual cooperation, UNESCO relies in each State on the collaboration of the National Cooperation Commissions (art. 7), which are a body linking the governments, from which they emanate, with the national cultural institutions, and are organized and function in accordance with national regulations (they are nevertheless not yet constituted in all member States). An innovation introduced institutionally (art. 8) by UNESCO is the obligation imposed on the individual member States to present each year a report on the activity carried out in cooperation with UNESCO, which is submitted together with the report of the Secretary-General to the General Conference, and the one and the others are then condensed in the report that UNESCO makes to the UN.

UNESCO gives ample information about its vast activity in its bimonthly Official Bulletin, while the exchange of information is attended to by its monthly magazine the Corriere (UNESCO's publications are in French and English, many also in Spanish), which is not, however, an official publication. It is not very simple to say everything that UNESCO does, which, at its birth, took up again and expanded the initiatives already pursued by Intellectual Cooperation.

At the first General Conference (Paris 1946) it concerned itself with basic education, that is, with the cultural elevation of the more backward societies, attempting experimental solutions and personal exchanges by means of scholarships. When proposals for initiatives or cooperation came from other UN organizations, UNESCO faced them with the means at its disposal, but in 1949 it had to recognize that an order of precedence had to be given to initiatives by reason of their importance or urgency; and in 1950 it noted that it was advisable to rely on the National Commissions, appealing to their activity according to directives fixed in resolutions. In 1951 the tendency finally prevailed toward a revision of programs suited to financial possibilities. One may therefore affirm that UNESCO has not yet passed beyond the experimental phase of its activity and its functioning, that is, the equilibrium between what it can do and the indefinite possibility of doing, which derives from the vastness of its task.

Amedeo Giannini