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"Palais des Nations" (Palace of Nations) is the seat of the European headquarters of the United Nations, known as the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG). It stands in the Ariana Park overlooking Lake Geneva and Mont Blanc beyond. The Director-General of the Geneva UN Office is Mr. Sergei A. Ordzhonikidze of the Russian Federation.
Since its opening in 1936, the Palais has been the hub of international activity in Geneva. It is the setting for some 300 conferences a year (6,500-7,000 half-day meetings - double the number held at the UN in New York), attended by about 25,000 delegates from around the world, and is the second United Nations center in the world (after the UN headquarters in New York). A new wing was added in 1973 to allow for the Palais' growing importance as an international meeting place. The United Nations' membership has increased from 51 at the signing of the UN Charter in San Francisco in 1945, to 188 as of August 2000 Ambassadors heading over 140 national permanent missions are accredited to the Geneva Office, as are many observer missions and intergovernmental organizations such as the European Union (EU), the Organization of African Unity (OAU), and the Arab League. Approximately 9,000 people are employed by the UN system in Geneva, 3,800 of them directly by UNOG. The Palais also serves as Geneva's international press center, with some 200 accredited print, radio, and television correspondents. It houses a UN philatelic museum and post office, bank, travel bureau, restaurants, and radio and TV studio facilities. The UN radio and television unit in Geneva produces radio programs on all issues dealt with by the UN, which are sent to UN headquarters in New York for worldwide dissemination; and TV news programs which are distributed directly through news agencies or co-produced with TV news organizations. Together with the UN office in New York, the Palais is also involved in a project to store the millions of conference documents on optical discs for fast computer retrieval. The Palais has a library housing more than one million books and periodicals. It was founded in 1919 thanks to a donation by John D. Rockefeller Jr., who wished that the library "serve as a center of international research and an instrument of international understanding." In 1997, the library inaugurated a Cyberspace Environment to ensure that Geneva's entire diplomatic community has access to the World Wide Web and other electronic information. The library wing also houses on its first floor a Museum of the League of Nations and International Organizations, explaining the history of the growth of international organizations. The League of Nations chose Geneva as its headquarters in 1919 and built the Palais between 1929 and 1936. After the signing of the UN Charter, which brought the United Nations into being (replacing the League), the UN took possession of the Palais as its European headquarters when the property of the League was handed over in 1946. The new wing, built between 1968 and 1973, doubled the size of the Palais - to 1,600 offices and 34 conference rooms. The Palais' largest conference room is the Assembly Hall, where the UN General Assembly meets when it holds special sessions in Geneva (e.g. the World Social Summit in 2000) and where the annual plenary meetings of the UN specialized agencies are generally held. It accommodates over 2,000 delegates, and is surrounded by a series of offices and conference rooms where committees can meet.
The Council Chamber is smaller than the Assembly Hall but just as noteworthy because of the many special political meetings that have taken place within its walls (adorned with the famous murals of Jose-Maria Sert, a gift from Spain, symbolizing human progress, the end of wars, and the establishment of peace in the world). The Conference on Disarmament traditionally holds its annual sessions in the Chamber, and other conferences that have been held there include the Conference on Indochina (1954), the Conference on Korea (1954), the Big Four Summit Conference (1955: U.S., USSR, France, UK), the signing of the Afghanistan peace accords (1988), the beginning of UN-sponsored talks to end the civil war in El Salvador (1990), meetings on the former Yugoslavia (1992), the Liberian peace talks (1993) and the Meeting of "P-5" Foreign Ministers on Iraq (1997). In June 1998, the room was the site of a meeting among the foreign ministers of the five permanent members (P-5) of the UN Security Council to forge a unified response to nuclear tests conducted by India and then Pakistan. The Council Chamber is also called the "Francisco de Vitoria Room" after the famous Spanish jurist (1486-1546) who was one of the founders of international law; De Vitoria's name was added in 1986 on the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of the Council Chamber. All the rooms in the original Palais are decorated more or less
sumptuously with gifts from different countries: tapestries, precious
woods, leather hangings, and murals. Switzerland decorated Room
VI with frescos representing mankind and Swiss history by the Zurich
painter, Carl Hugin. Switzerland also contributed four million francs
to the construction costs of the new wing, and one of its rotunda
conference rooms (Room XX) is known as the "Swiss Room."
The four large rotunda conference rooms in the newer wing each seat
up to 1,000 delegates. The newer wing is more spartan in appearance
than the original Palais, and includes a wall hanging donated in
1984 by the People's Republic of China to commemorate the 20th anniversary
of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), and on the
third floor mezzanine a sculpture given by Jan Haejy of Switzerland
as a monument to the work of UNICEF. The Palais stands in the 25-hectare (62-acre) Ariana Park among hundred-year-old cedars and cypresses and other species of trees donated over the years by different countries. The City of Geneva provided the park as a permanent site for the League of Nations. Originally the estate of the Revilliod de la Rive family of Geneva, the park was bequeathed to the City of Geneva in 1890 by Gustave Revilliod. His will contained three stipulations: that the Ariana Park be open to the public; that his tomb in the park remain undisturbed; and that peacocks remain on the property. In the gardens on the lake side of the Palais are several monuments: the "Armillary Sphere," presented by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation in memory of the founder of the League of Nations; an arrow-shaped titanium monument to the conquest of space, from the former Soviet Union; on the lawn in front of the new wing, a bronze sculpture by Edwina Sandys called "Family," of a mother and father protecting a child, in commemoration of the International Year of the Child (1979). Farther away in the park is an over-300-year-old Montbovon chalet (from GruyŠre), which was bought for 50 Swiss francs ($30) by Gustave Revilliod; built in 1668, and transported to Geneva for the national fair of 1896, it was rebuilt in its present location near the main Place des Nations entrance to the Palais, and was recently completely restored by the United Nations. The original Palais was built by a team of five architects: Flegenheimer (Switzerland), Nenot and Lefevre (France), Broggi (Italy) and Vago (Hungary), and the new wing by Beaudoin and Carlu (France), Broggi and Nervi (Italy), and Sir Basil Spence (Great Britain). On the lake side of the Palais, near the new wing, is the Villa La Pelouse which was restored in 1988 to become the headquarters of "Operation Salam" - the Office of the UN Coordinator for Humanitarian and Economic Assistance Programs relating to Afghanistan (UNOCHA). Since 1991, the Executive Secretariat of the UN Compensation Commission, dealing with claims against Iraq for damage and injury resulting from its 1990-91 invasion and occupation of Kuwait, has had its headquarters in La Pelouse. The Palais is open to the public. UNOG's Visitors' Service provides guided tours and information programs about the United Nations in Geneva.
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