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Organization Releases ‘Yearbook of the United Nations’, Covering Global Activities in 2011

The United Nations today released the sixty-fifth volume of the Yearbook of the United Nations, covering the Organization’s global activities in 2011.

The Yearbook, as Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon states in the Foreword to the volume, serves “not just as a tool to engage public understanding of our work, but also as a reference by which future generations, which we are obligated to protect and empower, may judge the success of our collective efforts”.

With its comprehensive coverage of political and security matters, human rights issues, economic and social questions, legal concerns, and institutional, administrative and budgetary proceedings, the Yearbook of the United Nations stands as the authoritative reference work on the activities of the Organization.

Fully indexed, the 33-chapter, 1,541–page Yearbook includes all major General Assembly, Security Council and Economic and Social Council resolutions and decisions, uniquely placing them in a narrative context of United Nations consideration, deliberation and action.  In preparing the work, the Yearbook editorial team researched and drew information from over 10,000 United Nations official documents pertaining to all aspects of the work of the Organization.

This most recent volume recounts how in 2011 — the year in which world population passed the 7 billion threshold — the United Nations responded to large-scale humanitarian crises amid political and social turmoil, especially in North Africa and the Middle East.  Along with setting forth the many United Nations contributions worldwide to maintaining peace, supporting national elections, protecting human rights, upholding international law and delivering aid to those affected by natural disasters and other emergencies, the 2011 Yearbook articulates how the Organization addressed such issues as sustainable development and poverty eradication; climate change; HIV/AIDS and non-communicable diseases; youth; desertification, land degradation and drought; and nuclear safety and security.  It also details the completion by the Human Rights Council of the first cycle of the universal periodic review of the human rights record of all 193 Member States.

All previous volumes of the Yearbook collection, dating to the 1946–47 edition, can be accessed in full online on the Yearbook website: http://unyearbook.un.org.

The Yearbook Express, also available on the website, features chapter introductions to selected Yearbooks in all six United Nations official languages.  The Twitter account @UNYearbook provides an historical perspective on current United Nations activities and concerns.

The Yearbook of the United Nations 2011, volume 65, xvii + 1,541 pp., Sales No. E.13.I.4 H, ISBN: 978-92-1-101277-4, eISBN: 978-92-1-057510-2, can be obtained through bookstores worldwide and ordered from United Nations Publications, PO Box 960, Herndon, Virginia 20172, United States of America, or from https://unp.un.org.

For information media. Not an official record.