"Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed." This observation can be found in the Constitution of which one of the following Organs of the United Nations?

Correct — B, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation. The sentence is the opening line of the Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO, and it is the single best-known sentence the organisation has produced. The Constitution was signed in London on 16 November 1945, in the weeks after the war ended, and came into force on 4 November 1946 with the deposit of the twentieth ratification. The line states the organisation's founding premise: because armed conflict begins in what people believe about one another, peace cannot be secured by political and economic arrangements between governments alone but has to be built through education, science and culture — through the minds the wars began in. That premise is what gives UNESCO its unusual remit, from literacy and teacher training to scientific cooperation, press freedom and the World Heritage list. Of the other three options, two are also specialized agencies or related bodies with founding instruments of their own, but their preambles are about different things, and the fourth is not a body with a constitution at all.

• (a)World Health Organisation — The WHO Constitution, signed on 22 July 1946 and in force from 7 April 1948, has its own famous preamble sentence — health as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'.
• (c)International Atomic Energy Agency — The IAEA has a Statute, approved in October 1956 and in force from July 1957, not a constitution with this preamble. It grew out of the Atoms for Peace proposal and is an autonomous body reporting to the General Assembly, not a specialized agency.
• (d)United Nations Economic and Social Council — ECOSOC is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations, created by the UN Charter itself. It has no separate constitution, so it cannot be the source of the quotation.

UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations, headquartered in Paris. Its Constitution was signed in London on 16 November 1945 by delegates of the conference convened to found it, and entered into force on 4 November 1946. It has 194 member states. Its General Conference meets every two years, its Executive Board runs between sessions, and a Director-General heads the secretariat. India has been a member since the beginning and is one of the states most frequently represented on the World Heritage list, which UNESCO administers under the 1972 World Heritage Convention.

Quotation items are answered by matching the sentence's subject to the body's purpose rather than by having memorised the text. This sentence is about the minds of men, education and the construction of peace — that is culture and learning, so it belongs to the education-and-culture agency. The same test disposes of the alternatives: a sentence about disease and well-being would be WHO, a sentence about the peaceful uses of atomic energy would be the IAEA, and ECOSOC, being an organ of the Charter, has no founding text of its own to quote from. It is also worth keeping the distinction the stem blurs. The United Nations has six principal organs — the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat. UNESCO and WHO are specialized agencies linked to the UN by agreement, each with its own membership, budget and governing conference; the IAEA is a related organisation established under its own Statute. The paper's use of 'Organs' for all four is loose, and the point is worth carrying because UPSC has tested the principal-organs list directly.

• The Preamble to the Constitution of UNESCO opens: 'Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defences of peace must be constructed.'
• The Constitution was signed in London on 16 November 1945 and entered into force on 4 November 1946, on the twentieth ratification.
• UNESCO is a specialized agency of the United Nations with 194 member states; its headquarters are in Paris.
• The six principal organs of the UN are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat.
• The WHO Constitution, signed on 22 July 1946 and in force from 7 April 1948, defines health as complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.
• The IAEA was set up under a Statute of 1956, in force from 1957, and reports to the UN General Assembly rather than being a specialized agency.

• Treating specialized agencies as organs of the United Nations; only ECOSOC among these four is a principal organ.
• Assuming the IAEA is a specialized agency. It was created by its own Statute and reports to the General Assembly.
• Confusing the year of signature, 1945, with the year the UNESCO Constitution entered into force, 1946.

Either by quoting a founding text and asking which body it belongs to, as here, or by asking which of a list is a principal organ rather than a specialized agency, or through UNESCO's heritage and creative-cities lists.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following is a principal organ of the United Nations?

  • (a)United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
  • (b)World Health Organisation
  • (c)Economic and Social Council
  • (d)International Atomic Energy Agency

  Answer(c) Economic and Social Council — it is created by the UN Charter itself, while UNESCO and WHO are specialized agencies and the IAEA is a related organisation under its own Statute.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The headquarters of UNESCO is located in which city?

  • (a)Geneva
  • (b)Vienna
  • (c)Paris
  • (d)New York

  Answer(c) Paris — WHO is at Geneva, the IAEA at Vienna and the UN Secretariat at New York.