The Union of International Associations is a non-profit non-governmental organization researching, under UN mandate, the global civil society and publishing information on international organizations, international meetings, world problems, etc. Headquarters are in Brussels, Belgium. It was founded in 1907 by Henri La Fontaine, the 1913 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Paul Otlet, a founding father of what is now called information science.
Its stated goals (taken from its website) include:
- Contribution to a universal order based on principles of human dignity, solidarity of peoples and freedom of communication;
- Facilitation of the development and efficiency of non-governmental networks in every field of human activity, especially non-profit and voluntary associations, considered to be essential components of contemporary society;
- Collection, research and dissemination of information on international bodies, both governmental and non-governmental, their interrelationships, their meetings, and problems and strategies they are dealing with;
- Experimentation with more meaningful and action-oriented ways of presenting such information to enable these initiatives to develop and counterbalance each other creatively, and as a catalyst for the emergence of new forms of associative activity and transnational co-operation;
- Promotion of research on the legal, administrative and other problems common to these international associations, especially in their contacts with governmental bodies.
Famous quotes containing the words union of, union and/or associations:
“You can no more keep a martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived.”
—Bernard Devoto (1897–1955)
“Some are petitioning the State to dissolve the Union, to disregard the requisitions of the President. Why do they not dissolve it themselves,—the union between themselves and the State,—and refuse to pay their quota into its treasury? Do not they stand in the same relation to the State that the State does to the Union? And have not the same reasons prevented the State from resisting the Union which have prevented them from resisting the State?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Wild as it was, it was hard for me to get rid of the associations of the settlements. Any steady and monotonous sound, to which I did not distinctly attend, passed for a sound of human industry.... Our minds anywhere, when left to themselves, are always thus busily drawing conclusions from false premises.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)