United Nations and other international organizations

Abstract

Although most of the documents covered in this column were published in 1994, the year we are completing as we read this is 1995. 1995 was set aside by the United-Nations as a Year of Tolerance, in addition to being the time for the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the year the United Nations was founded. We look back on all the good that organization has done throughout those years and look forward with the hope that countries will increase their support for it in the future to help promote a lasting peace on the planet. Both 1994 and 1995 saw some significant events for the European Union as well as groundwork laid for four more countries to accede into the Union Austria, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. This bodes well for the future of the organization, along with the continuing lessening of restrictions between country borders and continuing movement toward monetary union. The dominant themes in international documents for 1994 centered on development, the newly emerging Eastern European states and Asia, education and literacy, cities and their problems, and population issues. Mention should be made also of the large number of international documents that are now becoming available in electronic format, either online or on CD-ROM. Only two are abstracted in this year's column, but the practice is definitely increasing. It will be interesting to follow this development in the months and years to come. The Index to international Statistics (Congressional Information Service, Inc.) provides addresses of the international governmental organizations' (IGOs') headquarters and United States distributors. The columnists wish to express appreciation to Paula Hinton (PH), Social Science Reference Librarian, Walter Royal Davis Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599 and Mary Gay Anderson (MGA), University of Florida Library, 241 Library West, Gainesville, Florida 32611, for their contributions. © 1995.