The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949. The treaty was signed by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, France, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. Today there are a total of 26 countries that belong to NATO. The A to Z of NATO and Other International Security Organizations covers the Atlantic Alliance's origins, structure and organization through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and over 1,000 cross-referenced dictionary entries on its Secretaries-Generals, its Supreme Allied Commanders-Europe, plus all affiliated organizations created to enhance NATO's reach in a broader Euro-Atlantic security architecture (e.g., North Atlantic Consultative Council, Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, NATO-Russia Charter; NATO-Ukraine Charter, and NATO-Mediterranean Dialogue Partners). This book also covers other related regional organizations with security responsibilities in Europe and worldwide where they interact with NATO, either currently (e.g. ANZUS, ASEAN, European Union, Organization of African Unity, Organization of American States, Organization on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and United Nations) or in the past (e.g. CENTO, European Defence Community, SEATO, Warsaw Pact, and Western European Union).

Historical Dictionary of International Organizations in Asia and the Pacific, Second Edition covers global, international, and regional organizations in Asia and the Pacific, and encompasses both governmental and non-governmental organizations. This second edition covers the history through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, thematic topics, and major international issues affecting the region. This book is a valuable tool for anyone seeking details about international organizations in Asia and the Pacific, and the international context within which those organizations function.

The Historical Dictionary of International Organizations in Africa and the Middle East focuses on international organizations in Africa. And the Middle East. This makes sense for political, cultural, and geographical reasons. North African countries, and many located in the Sahel region, are members of not only African but also Middle Eastern international organizations due to their cultural and religious heritage as well as geographic location between Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. A limited number of global organizations are also included in this book when they have major programs focusing on Africa and/or the Middle East. This volume emphasizes intergovernmental organizations but many non-governmental organizations are also included. This is done through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, thematic topics, and major international issues affecting the region. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about this subject.

"The World Health Organization's history spans more than six decades. The past twenty years has been a particularly busy period in the organization's development, given the transition from international to global health cooperation and thus the need to adapt to major changes in its operating environment. Consequently, the WHO has been a direct part of new institutional arrangements and has shared in increased funding to provide for global health. It has also had to adapt its activities and programs in response to rival initiatives, leading to many changes--not only to the names of specific parts of the WHO but also to the nature of their activities. This second edition explores the organization's institutional complexity."--Back cover.

The Historical Dictionary of International Relations is a general guide to the theory and practice of the relations between states, and between states and other actors on the world stage. It introduces readers to the real world operations of international relations, and is thus concerned with the actual relations between states, organizations, groups and people. It also offers introductory information about the various theories, old and new, that help explain these relations, why they happen and the possible alternatives that might be available now or in the future. Moreover, some of the key thinkers of these theories are discussed. The Historical Dictionary of International Relations contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on real world operations of international relations, the actual relations between states, organizations, groups and people.. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about International Relations.

The Historical Dictionary of Arab and Islamic Organizations focuses on international and regional organizations primarily in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. With more than 300 cross-referenced entries, this volume includes both major and minor organizations. While the emphasis is on intergovernmental institutions, it also covers non-governmental organizations, key countries, movements, and prominent figures in the Arab and Islamic world. Like other dictionaries of this type, it includes an introductory essay, chronology of major events, and a select bibliography for further reading. It provides a solid starting point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the subject.

The Historical Dictionary of Inter-American Organizations covers the changing world of inter-American and international organizations that have played an important role in bilateral and multilateral efforts to solve a wide range of problems that have confronted the nations of the Western Hemisphere. The Latin American region is clearly more integrated regionally and internationally than in previous decades and is better prepared to confront a broad range of problems—trade, development, illicit drugs, terrorism and guerrilla activity, health, environment, democratization, trade, human rights, intervention, electoral assistance, peacekeeping and conflict resolutions, migration, border conflicts, corruption, and energy independence—that governments and non-governmental organizations face in the 21st century. The role of the United States in Latin America has clearly faded since the end of the Cold War and the second edition of this book fills a large void in explaining the complexities of inter-American organizations and their activities since the first edition was completed in the late 1990s. This updated second edition of Historical Dictionary of Inter-American Organizations covers the history of through a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 400 hundred cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Inter-American Organizations.

In its more than 65 years of existence, the International Monetary Fund has evolved from a small, obscure international agency, with new and uncertain responsibilities, into a powerful institution that today has assumed center stage in the international monetary system. It is a remarkable story of how an institution has developed and adapted itself to an evolving world and a changing membership in ways that perhaps no other international agency has been forced or able to do. The third edition of the Historical Dictionary of the International Monetary Fund provides a comprehensive overview of the fund, including a chronology, an introductory essay, appendixes, a bibliography, and over 300 cross-referenced dictionary entries on the organizations, significant leaders, founders, and members. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the International Monetary Fund.

Established in the aftermath of World War II, UNESCO succinctly states its peace mission as well as its peaceful resolution to peace in its Constitution—constructing the “defenses of peace” in the minds of peoples on the “intellectual and moral” grounds. For more than seven decades, UNESCO has been consistently positioning peace as its unwavering core and ultimate goal through promoting international understanding and cooperation in and across its five major sectors of competence in education, natural sciences, culture, communication and information, and social and human sciences. Historical Dictionary of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Second Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 700 cross-referenced entries on UNESCO’s initiatives, programs, projects, normative instruments, and partners over the past 76 years. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about UNESCO.

The Historical Dictionary of Human Rights and Humanitarian Organizations, Third Edition defines the core concepts of human rights and humanitarian law. It relates the major international legal agreements related to human rights and names the diverse intergovernmental organizations which are responsible for implementing and maintaining these legal declarations, charters, conventions, or treaties. It also names and describes the several international non-governmental organizations which lobby states and international organizations with respect to human rights, which carry out programs of humanitarian assistance or relief, and which have played such a significant role in the evolution of human rights and humanitarianism in the modern era. Finally, it features the names and biographical accounts of major figures in the history of human rights and humanitarianism, along with figures that are active today on these issues. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of Human Rights and Humanitarian Organizations contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on human rights concepts, major pieces of international law on human rights and humanitarian issues, major intergovernmental bodies responsible for implementing international laws on human rights and humanitarian issues, major international non-governmental organizations whose work focuses on human rights and humanitarian issues, and the names of important historical and contemporary figures who have contributed to the establishment and progress of human rights and humanitarianism.. This book is an excellent access point for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Human Rights.