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International Women, Gender, & LGBTQ Equality and Rights

This guide provides you with a collection of resources that can help you begin your research on International Women, Gender, & LGBTQ Equality and Rights.

UN Documents

The United Nations, An Introduction

The United Nations (UN) is an international organization, founded after World War II, for the purposes of maintaining international peace and security.  The UN's 4 main goals, according to its website,  are:

  • To keep peace throughout the world,
  • To develop friendly relations among nations,
  • To promote better living standards,
  • And to act as the central location for enacting these goals

The UN is comprised of a number of different member states.  Florida International University's Green Library is one of a handful of official UN Depository Libraries and contains a number of excellent primary source materials concerning a wide variety of subjects within international relations.

The United Nations is a large and complex organization.  Like all government documents research, it is essential to first understand the structure in order to effectively research regarding a topic.  Before researching, find out which branch or committee of the United Nations would be most likely to be interested in your subject.  By first thinking about the agency interested in your subject, you can more effectively find primary source documents in the UN Depository collection. 

The Main Bodies of the UN:

 

Click here to download a chart of the United Nations' structure from the UN website. The chart below is from Wikimedia Commons.