UNESCO

UNESCO's stated purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations through education, science, and culture, thereby advancing universal respect for justice, the rule of law, human rights, and fundamental freedoms without distinction based on race, sex, language, or religion.[2] The organization seeks to strengthen ties between nations and societies and to mobilize the public so that people can access quality education, live in culturally diverse environments characterized by dialogue, benefit from scientific advances, and enjoy freedom of expression.[3]

The functions prescribed in the 1945 Constitution are broad in scope. They include advancing mutual knowledge and understanding through mass communication; supporting popular education and the spread of culture; promoting equality of educational opportunity without distinctions based on race, sex, or economic or social status; and conserving and protecting the world's heritage of books, works of art, and monuments of history and science. The Constitution also calls for international exchanges of people, publications, and objects of artistic and scientific interest, and for promoting the free flow of ideas across borders.[9]

UNESCO's programs contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015. The organization also provides a framework for drafting, adopting, and reviewing international instruments and bodies, among them the World Heritage Convention, the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, and the Convention against Discrimination in Education.[10][11] Its activities span literacy and education programs, media and Internet freedom, ocean management, environmental and cultural preservation, Holocaust education, water-resource management, climate-change monitoring, and tsunami early-warning systems.[11]

In the natural sciences, UNESCO advances research, cooperation, knowledge-sharing, capacity-building, and technical assistance for sustainable development, drawing on networks that include biosphere reserves, Global Geoparks, and natural World Heritage sites.[10] It is described as the only organization within the UN system with a mandate for the basic sciences, covering multilateral cooperation to train specialists from developing countries in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology.[4] In education, UNESCO similarly holds the only comprehensive UN-system mandate, leading the Global Education 2030 Agenda through Sustainable Development Goal 4, with gender equality as an underlying principle.[12]

UNESCO emerged directly from the wreckage of the Second World War. The conference that created the organization was convened by the United Kingdom and France in London and ran from November 1 to 16, 1945; a contemporary account records that delegates from 44 countries gathered to draft the Constitution.[4][9] The Constitution was adopted on November 16. It reflected a diagnosis of war's causes as fundamentally intellectual and moral: ignorance of other peoples' ways of life, the spread of prejudice, and the propagation of doctrines of racial inequality had contributed to the catastrophe of two world wars.[4][2]

The Constitution entered into force on November 4, 1946, after 20 states deposited instruments of acceptance with the British government.[4] An agreement concluded on December 14, 1946, formally recognized UNESCO as a specialized agency of the United Nations, though the organization retains its own constitution, governance structure, budget, and programs and remains autonomous within the broader UN system.[13][11] UNESCO's first General Conference was held in Paris from November 19 to December 10, 1946, with representatives from 30 governments entitled to vote.[14]

The United States authorized its participation through House Joint Resolution 305, signed by President Harry Truman on July 30, 1946. Truman described UNESCO as an instrument for bringing education, science, learning, the creative arts, film, radio, and print into the service of peace. The legislation created a 100-person National Commission to serve as an advisory body to the Department of State.[15]

The constitutional preamble links peace not to political arrangements among governments alone, but to what it calls the intellectual and moral solidarity of humanity. It argues that a peace founded exclusively on political and economic accords cannot secure the "unanimous, lasting and sincere support of the peoples of the world" and that such support must instead be built through the spread of education, science, and culture.[2][4] The Constitution explicitly prohibits UNESCO from intervening in matters essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of its member states.[9]

UNESCO is governed by three principal bodies: the General Conference, the Executive Board, and the Secretariat.[1] The General Conference includes representatives of all member countries and meets every two years to determine UNESCO's main lines of work, programs, and budget; each member state holds one vote.[11] The 58-member Executive Board meets twice a year and supervises implementation of the General Conference's program.[11]

The Secretariat is headed by the Director-General, who prepares the program and budget, makes proposals to the General Conference, organizes the Secretariat, and appoints staff.[11] The Director-General is nominated by the Executive Board and appointed by the General Conference.[9] UNESCO's Constitution also envisions that each member state establish arrangements — preferably a national commission — linking governmental and educational, scientific, and cultural bodies to UNESCO's work.[9]

UNESCO maintains more than 50 field offices worldwide in addition to its Paris headquarters.[3] Its permanent headquarters building at Place de Fontenoy was designed by architects Marcel Breuer, Pier-Luigi Nervi, and Bernard Zehrfuss and inaugurated in 1958; from 1946 to 1958, the Secretariat operated from the Majestic Hotel at 17 Avenue Kleber.[14] The organization's principal program sectors are education; the natural sciences; the social and human sciences; culture; and communication and information.[11]

Among UNESCO's most visible programs is the World Heritage framework, which seeks to encourage the identification, protection, and preservation of cultural and natural heritage considered to have outstanding universal value. This work is embodied in the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972. The convention is universal in application, and World Heritage sites are understood to belong to all peoples regardless of the territory in which they are located; 196 countries adhere to it.[16]

The World Heritage List encompasses sites that demonstrate the richness and interpenetration of human cultures. Former Director-General Irina Bokova argued that heritage sites — including mosques, synagogues, and monuments — challenge extremist claims that "pure cultures" exist and should be imposed on others, making heritage preservation an active instrument against radicalization.[17]

UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, founded in 1995, raises global awareness of the preservation of and access to unique and irreplaceable documentary heritage. The register has included hundreds of items endorsed by UNESCO's Director-General.[18] UNESCO's culture work more broadly includes safeguarding cultural and natural heritage, supporting creativity and cultural sectors, and addressing challenges including climate change, inequality, the digital divide, emergencies, and conflict.[10]

In communication and information, UNESCO promotes freedom of expression, media independence, pluralism, universal access to information, inclusive knowledge societies, and the ethical use of emerging technologies.[10] UNESCO's 1956 General Conference in New Delhi committed the organization to a major project on the mutual appreciation of Eastern and Western cultural values, designed to promote peaceful cooperation through meetings, seminars, study grants, and travel scholarships.[19]

By 1959, UNESCO had conducted studies of different cultures dating to 1947, organized international seminars, convened meetings of national cultural-relations officials in 1956 and 1958, published a handbook of cultural agreements and a catalogue of translations, supported exhibitions and art albums, and sponsored translations from less widely known languages. The Index Translationum was reported to list more than 150,000 translations published worldwide each year.[19] UNESCO also undertook a multi-volume History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Humanity, intended to emphasize the interdependence of peoples and cultures and examine exchanges created by trade, war, travel, and migration.[19]

In its early decades, UNESCO developed what it described as a "fundamental-education" strategy, addressing illiteracy through local living conditions rather than literacy alone. A 1946 report prepared with contributions from 33 international experts linked education to food, housing, children's welfare, health, and employment, and proposed research on language, reading materials, audiovisual aids, financing, and teacher preparation.[13] A regional fundamental-education center opened at Patzcuaro, Mexico, in May 1951. Its first class had 52 students from nine Latin American and Caribbean countries, while nearby villages served as laboratories for studying village life, designing education programs, producing teaching materials, and testing them locally. The first class graduated in November 1952.[13]

UNESCO has recognized several milestones of Jewish civilization through its international programs, even as its political decisions have generated acute controversy within the Jewish world.

In 2013, Yad Vashem's Pages of Testimony Memorial Repository became the first Israeli collection included in UNESCO's Memory of the World Register.[18] The Pages of Testimony are one-page forms recording victims' names, biographical details, and, when available, photographs; Yad Vashem describes them as symbolic "tombstones" created to restore the personal identities and brief life stories of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices.[18] At the time of the register's inclusion, the database contained 2.6 million names and stories, while Yad Vashem had compiled the identities of 4.2 million Holocaust victims.[5] As of November 2025, the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names contained five million names.[18]

UNESCO also recognized the Aleppo Codex for inclusion in its International Memory of the World Register. The codex is believed to be the world's oldest surviving copy of the Hebrew Bible, written in northern Israel around 930 CE; it is displayed permanently at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, though approximately 200 of its original 500 pages are missing.[6]

In July 2003, UNESCO designated the White City of Tel Aviv a World Heritage site, based on the area's concentration of early International Style buildings, the coherence and homogeneous character of its urban pattern, its representation of European modernist styles, and the combination of Patrick Geddes's urban plan with modern architecture that retained many authentic features.[7]

The relationship between the World Jewish Congress and UNESCO through much of the postwar period was one of active cooperation. From 1953 through 1959, the two organizations worked together on matters including education rights, teaching about race, the East-West cultural project, social science, and the publication of Leon Roth's work Jewish Thought as a Factor in Civilisation. An August 1959 World Jewish Congress resolution expressed satisfaction with the development of that cooperation and called for its intensification around the value of cultural diversity.[19]

On October 23, 2007, UNESCO's General Conference unanimously adopted a resolution calling for Holocaust remembrance to be promoted through education and for all forms of Holocaust denial to be combated.[20] The resolution was drafted by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and submitted by a group including Israel, the United States, Russia, Australia, and Canada, with 72 additional states lending their support.[20] It called on UNESCO's Director-General to consult the UN Secretary-General about UNESCO's role in Holocaust-remembrance education and denial prevention, and encouraged the inclusion of the Holocaust in educational curricula, research, and conferences worldwide.[20]

UNESCO and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum subsequently convened International Conferences on Education and the Holocaust in 2015 and 2017, enabling educational leaders and experts to design and implement projects suited to their national contexts.[21] Those first two conferences produced 19 educational initiatives in 17 countries that reached almost 19,000 people, including Holocaust-education curricula, international conferences for educators, and exhibitions on the Holocaust and genocide.[22] A third joint workshop took place in Washington, D.C., from February 13 to 17, 2023, with 37 education stakeholders from Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Ecuador, Greece, India, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Serbia, and the United Arab Emirates participating.[22] The program aimed to formalize Holocaust and genocide education through curriculum development, educational materials, capacity-building initiatives, and cultural projects.[22]

The Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls is recognized as a holy site of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam with major symbolic importance. Its 220 historic monuments include the Dome of the Rock, the Western Wall, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[23]

Israel joined UNESCO on September 16, 1949, and participated in the organization for nearly seven decades before formally departing.[8] The relationship was marked by genuine areas of cooperation but also by recurring political friction rooted in UNESCO's treatment of Israeli and Jewish historical claims to Jerusalem and the land of Israel.

The tensions were not new. A 1975 World Jewish Congress resolution recorded a serious dispute with UNESCO over resolutions adopted at the organization's 18th General Conference. The Congress said those measures accused Israel of altering and defiling Jerusalem's historic character, withheld assistance from Israel in education, science, and culture, and denied Israel's request for inclusion in UNESCO's European Regional Group.[24] The Congress characterized the measures as politically motivated and urged their rescission, while reaffirming its belief in UNESCO's ideals and noting that some governments and parliaments had withdrawn or reduced financial contributions in protest.[24]

In the 2010s, the conflict intensified sharply. A 2015 UNESCO Executive Board resolution on Jerusalem — initiated by the Palestinian Authority and sponsored by six Arab countries — was adopted by a vote of 26 to 6, with 25 abstentions. It condemned Israel regarding the Temple Mount and reaffirmed an earlier decision identifying Rachel's Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs as Muslim sites. The American Jewish Committee characterized the measure as rewriting history and undermining UNESCO's broader mission.[25]

In April 2016, UNESCO's Executive Board adopted a Jerusalem-related resolution that, according to CAMERA, referred to the Temple Mount only as "al-Aksa Mosque/al-Haram al Sharif" and called the plaza by the Western Wall "al-Buraq Plaza," while including only parenthetical references to the Western Wall Plaza. CAMERA reported that the resolution passed with 33 countries supporting it and six opposing it.[26] Later in 2016, another measure concerning Jerusalem's holy sites was approved at the committee stage by 24 votes to six, with 26 abstentions; Israeli officials argued that its terminology ignored or diminished Jewish historical ties to the sites.[27]

In May 2017, UNESCO's Executive Board ratified a further resolution on "Occupied Palestine" that referred to Israel as "the occupying power" in Jerusalem and stated that Israeli measures altering or purporting to alter the character and status of the city were "null and void and must be rescinded forthwith." The resolution passed with 22 votes in favor, 23 abstentions, 10 opposed, and three representatives absent.[28]

In July 2017, UNESCO designated the old city of Hebron — including the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs — as an endangered World Heritage site in Palestinian territory. Israeli officials criticized the designation as a deliberate attempt to diminish Jewish and Israeli connections to the area, describing the site as significant to Jews, Christians, and Muslims and as the tomb of Abraham. U.S. officials expressed concern that Palestinian Authority-backed UNESCO resolutions minimized or ignored Jewish historical and religious connections to Hebron, the Temple Mount, and the Western Wall.[29]

Following the Hebron vote, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel would cut one million dollars in payments to the United Nations, redirecting the money toward a museum of Jewish heritage in Kiryat Arba and Hebron. On October 12, 2017, Netanyahu instructed Israel's Foreign Ministry to prepare for Israel's withdrawal from UNESCO.[30] Netanyahu announced that Israel would follow the United States in leaving, citing UNESCO's persistent bias, repeated condemnation of Israel, and alleged erasure of the Jewish connection to Jerusalem.[8]

Israel formally left UNESCO at midnight Paris time on January 1, 2019, after 69 years of membership.[8] The withdrawal notice itself became a minor diplomatic incident: Israel's UNESCO envoy, attempting to submit the paperwork during the year-end holiday closure, brought a box of chocolates to the organization's Paris offices, could not find anyone authorized to sign for the document, and ultimately emailed the notice to Director-General Audrey Azoulay. Azoulay responded: "I regret this deeply," adding that she believed states could best overcome their differences within UNESCO rather than outside it.[31]

The United States has had its own turbulent relationship with UNESCO, one closely entangled with Israeli and Palestinian membership questions.

On October 31, 2011, UNESCO's General Conference admitted Palestine by a vote of 107 in favor, 14 against, and 52 abstentions; membership became effective on November 23, 2011, after Palestine notified UNESCO that it had signed and ratified the Constitution.[11] The United States opposed the admission, describing the decision as regrettable, premature, and damaging to efforts to achieve a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace.[32] Palestine's membership triggered longstanding statutory restrictions requiring the United States to stop contributing to UNESCO; the State Department said the United States would nevertheless retain its membership and seek to preserve its influence.[32]

Following Palestine's admission, the United States stopped making contributions to the organization, including a scheduled $60 million payment in November 2011. The U.S. contribution had represented approximately 22 percent of UNESCO's budget, and the State Department warned that falling more than two years into arrears could eliminate a member state's vote in the General Conference.[33]

In 2017, the United States announced it would withdraw from UNESCO altogether, citing mounting arrears, the need for fundamental organizational reform, and what it described as UNESCO's continuing anti-Israel bias. That withdrawal took effect on December 31, 2018, while the United States sought to remain engaged as a nonmember observer.[34]

The United States subsequently rejoined UNESCO, only to announce a second withdrawal on July 22, 2025. The State Department stated that UNESCO's admission of the State of Palestine was highly problematic and had contributed to anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization, and also criticized UNESCO's focus on what it called divisive social and cultural causes and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Under Article II(6) of the UNESCO Constitution, that withdrawal is scheduled to take effect on December 31, 2026; the United States remains a full member until that date.[35]

From an Israeli and Jewish perspective, UNESCO's most sustained controversies concern its treatment of Jewish historical and religious connections to Jerusalem and other sites in the land of Israel. Israel and Jewish organizations have characterized resolutions spanning from the 1970s through 2015–2017 as politically motivated and as diminishing or erasing the Jewish people's documented ties to their ancestral homeland.[24][25]

The 2016 and 2017 Jerusalem resolutions are particularly contested. Israeli officials and CAMERA argued that the use of Arabic designations for the Temple Mount and Western Wall area diminished Jewish historical ties to sites at the heart of Judaism.[26][27] Supporters presented the resolutions as measures concerning Palestinian rights and the legal status of territory under occupation. The relevant votes included substantial numbers of abstentions, including 26 at the committee stage in 2016 and 23 in the May 2017 vote.[27][28]

The World Heritage Committee's decisions concerning Jerusalem's Old City and Walls add another layer of complexity. The Old City was inscribed on the World Heritage List at Jordan's request in 1981 and on the List of World Heritage in Danger in 1982. A subsequent decision retained it on the danger list while stating that the decision did not affect relevant United Nations resolutions concerning Jerusalem's legal status.[36] UNESCO's site description also acknowledges Jerusalem's significance to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam and identifies 220 historic monuments.[23]

The characterization of these resolutions as historical erasure is a documented position of Israeli officials and Jewish organizations, while the resolutions' sponsors frame them in terms of Palestinian rights and sovereignty. UNESCO's voting outcomes do not by themselves settle those underlying political and historical disputes.