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Curated playlist

United Nations General Assembly observers

  • International Criminal CourtThe International Criminal Court wants Putin arrested though Russia left its founding treaty in 2016.
  • Council of EuropeThe European flag was designed for the Council of Europe in 1955. The European Union only adopted it in the 1980s.
  • International Organization for MigrationThe International Organization for Migration began in 1951 as a temporary agency.
  • Organization for Security and Co-operation in EuropeIn 2014, the OSCE sent civilian observers into an active war for the first time. Ukraine had asked for it.
  • International Olympic CommitteeThe International Olympic Committee had only two million dollars in assets when Avery Brundage retired.
  • International Committee of the Red CrossRed Cross inspirer Henry Dunant was expelled from its committee, then shared the first Nobel Peace Prize.
  • OECDThe OECD began in 1948 as a way for war-shattered European nations to share out Marshall Plan aid.
  • Shanghai Cooperation OrganisationThe Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is home to 42 percent of the world's people.
  • South Asian Association for Regional CooperationThe South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has not held a summit since November 2014.
  • ASEANASEAN cannot force any member to change a single domestic law. Yet it links more than 680 million people.
  • Commonwealth of Independent StatesUkraine helped found the Commonwealth of Independent States but never became a member. It never ratified the Charter.
  • Eurasian Economic UnionRussia met the first call for a Eurasian union with sarcasm. Kazakhstan's president proposed it in Moscow in 1994.
  • Sovereign Military Order of MaltaThe Sovereign Military Order of Malta has no country of its own, yet it strikes its own coins, prints its own postage stamps and issues its own passports. Its full name is a mouthful: the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John…
  • European UnionThe European Union began as a pact over coal and steel. Six nations tied those war industries together in 1952.
  • Holy SeeThe Holy See lost all its territory in 1870 yet kept sending diplomats. It is not the same thing as the Vatican.

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