30 October 2026
The United Nations humanitarian office has said that more than 300,000 people in Lebanon who were displaced since early March are still unable to go home, and that the crisis there is far from over. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said continued Israeli military activity in the south makes returns very difficult even though civilians want to return. Demolitions, fires and strikes have been reported in southern Lebanon, both inside and outside the combat zone declared by Israel. Close to 970,000 people have gone back to the south, but they face damaged homes, disrupted services and thinner livelihoods. In Nabatieh Governorate, insecurity and access restrictions have disrupted the olive harvest, and in some villages farmers could pick for only two days before being stopped. The Lebanon Humanitarian Fund, run by the UN humanitarian office, has allocated 91 million dollars for displaced people, returnees, refugees and affected communities.
Still displaced:
More than 300,000
Returned to the south:
Close to 970,000
Fund allocation:
91 million dollars
Why it matters for exams: Names the Lebanon Humanitarian Fund and its 91 million dollar allocation, and fixes Nabatieh as a governorate of southern Lebanon.
Kerala PSCUPSC
In plain words
Governorate Governorate — An administrative division used in Lebanon and several West Asian countries, roughly like a province.
Background
The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, usually written ITLOS, rests on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and is the court the Convention's States Parties turn to over disputes about how that Convention is read and applied. Its bench carries 21 independent members, and the States Parties elect them by secret ballot. A State Party may put forward not more than two candidates, who must be of recognised competence in the law of the sea, and no two members of the Tribunal may be nationals of one and the same State. The bench has to reflect the world's principal legal systems and an equitable spread of geography, and no fewer than three members come from each of the five regional groups the General Assembly works with. A term lasts nine years, re-election is allowed, and the terms of a third of the members fall due every three years. The Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, in Germany, is the seat; it was picked by secret ballot on 21 August 1981 by States at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, and article 1, paragraph 2, of the Statute records that choice. Germany, the host State, built the permanent premises and gives them rent-free; they were opened on 3 July 2000, and the main courtroom also serves the Seabed Disputes Chamber.
Members of the Tribunal:
21 independent members
Term:
nine years
Candidates a State Party may nominate:
up to two candidates
Minimum from each regional group:
no fewer than three members
Share of terms expiring every three years:
one third of the members
Why it matters for exams: Twenty-one members, nine-year terms, at least three from each of the five UN regional groups, and a seat at Hamburg are the facts most often asked about this Tribunal.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
Rules on how embassies work, and on the privileges and immunities their staff enjoy, come mainly from the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. A United Nations conference on diplomatic intercourse and immunities, meeting at the Neue Hofburg in Vienna, adopted the text on 14 April 1961, and it was opened for signature in the same city four days later. Article 51 governs when the treaty began to bind, which it did on 24 April 1964; the Secretary-General registered it on 24 June 1964 under number 7310, and the text appears in volume 500 of the United Nations Treaty Series. Sixty States signed, and the depositary now records 193 Parties, which makes it one of the most widely accepted treaties anywhere. The same conference adopted two optional protocols, one on the acquisition of nationality and the other on the compulsory settlement of disputes, together with a Final Act. Austria keeps that Final Act in the archives of its foreign ministry, while the Convention and the protocols went to the United Nations Secretary-General. In the United Kingdom the Convention was given the force of law by the Diplomatic Privileges Act, whose schedule sets out the articles that apply there.
Opened for signature:
Vienna, 18 April 1961
Entry into force:
24 April 1964
Article on entry into force:
article 51
Registration number:
7310
Signatories and Parties:
Signatories : 60. Parties : 193
Treaty Series volume:
vol. 500
Why it matters for exams: Place and date of adoption at Vienna, the article that brought it into force, the registration number and the count of Parties are the usual question points on this Convention.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
West Africa's regional grouping is the Economic Community of West African States, written ECOWAS, a 15-member body set up by the treaty of Lagos with a mandate of promoting economic integration in every field of activity of its countries. Its member countries are Togo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Niger and Mali, together with Liberia, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Ghana, The Gambia, Cote d'Ivoire, Cape Verde, Burkina Faso and Benin. Collective self-sufficiency was the founding idea, and as a trading union it is meant to build one large bloc through economic cooperation; industry, transport, telecommunications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, commerce, monetary and financial questions and social as well as cultural matters are among the fields it works in. Its administrative machinery sits at Abuja in Nigeria, where the Secretariat was turned into a Commission so that the body could press on with integration. A President now heads the Commission in place of the former Executive Secretary, and with a Vice President, 12 Commissioners and an Auditor-General makes up 15 officers who are together called Statutory Appointees, each holding a four-year tenure. Among its Institutions are the ECOWAS Bank for Investment and Development, Specialised Technical Committees, a Council of Ministers, the Community Court of Justice, the Community Parliament, the Commission, and above them the Authority of Heads of States and Government. Specialised Agencies alongside them include the West African Health Organisation, the West African Monetary Agency and a regional group against money laundering, among others.
Established:
May 28 1975
Founding treaty:
treaty of Lagos
Membership:
15-member
Seat of the administrative machinery:
Abuja, Nigeria
Secretariat became a Commission:
January 2007
Tenure of Statutory Appointees:
four-year tenure
Why it matters for exams: ECOWAS has 15 member countries, was created by the treaty of Lagos, keeps its machinery at Abuja and runs through a Commission headed by a President.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
Heritage destroyed in war weakens communities long after the fighting ends, and the treaty written to answer that was adopted in 1954 under the auspices of UNESCO to shield cultural property once an armed conflict begins. It is now usually called the 1954 Hague Convention, and UNESCO describes it as the first and most comprehensive multilateral treaty given over wholly to protecting cultural heritage in peacetime as much as during an armed conflict. What it covers is broad: books and manuscripts, works of art, archaeological sites, monuments of architecture, art or history, scientific collections of any kind, and other objects of artistic or archaeological worth, whatever their origin or ownership. States Parties take preventive steps in advance, preparing inventories and planning for fire or the collapse of buildings, and arranging to move movable property to places of safety. They also undertake not to use such property in ways that expose it to destruction and not to direct acts of hostility against it. Property of very high importance can be entered on the International Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection, while important buildings and monuments may be given a distinctive emblem of the Convention to carry. Other duties include setting up special units inside the armed forces, providing places of refuge, fixing sanctions for breaches and spreading knowledge of the Convention among heritage professionals and military or law-enforcement agencies. Two Protocols sit alongside the Convention, and the Second Protocol of 1999 set up a committee to oversee the protection of cultural property once fighting begins.
Full title:
Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict
Adopted:
1954
Adopted under the auspices of:
UNESCO
Register for the most important property:
International Register of Cultural Property under Special Protection
Protocols:
two Protocols
Second Protocol:
1999
Why it matters for exams: The 1954 Hague Convention came out of UNESCO, has two Protocols, works through a distinctive emblem and a special protection register, and is the first treaty wholly devoted to cultural property in war.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
A worldwide partnership against three infectious diseases, the Global Fund works to defeat AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, and to strengthen health and community systems across more than 100 countries that these diseases hit hardest. It raises and invests more than US$4 billion a year, and calls itself the biggest multilateral funder anywhere of global health grants going to countries of low and middle income, having disbursed over US$73 billion since 2002. Money is raised on a three-year cycle rather than year by year, which the partnership says brings longer term predictability to the fight and to the health systems it supports. Its Board settles the strategy, runs the institution and clears all funding, and its seats are held by donor and implementer governments, non-governmental organisations, the private sector, private foundations and communities affected by the diseases. Countries themselves decide where and how to fight the three diseases, shaping the response to their own political, cultural and epidemiological setting. On its own figures the partnership has saved 72 million lives and cut the combined death rate from the three diseases by 65 per cent. It also reports providing 28% of all international financing for HIV programmes, 80% of that for tuberculosis and 57% of that for malaria. It is among the largest providers of health commodities, and it supports over 120 countries in bringing new health tools to scale at affordable prices.
Diseases it fights:
AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and malaria
Raised and invested each year:
more than US$4 billion a year
Disbursed to countries:
over US$73 billion
Lives saved:
72 million lives
Funding cycle:
three-year cycle
Share of international tuberculosis financing:
80% of all international financing for TB
Why it matters for exams: The Global Fund fights AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, raises money on a three-year cycle, and lets a Board drawn from governments, civil society, business and affected communities approve all its funding.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
Mineral work on the ocean floor that lies outside every country's waters is handled by the International Seabed Authority, or ISA. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted in 1982 and shortened to UNCLOS, created it as an autonomous organization, and parties to that Convention are watched by the ISA when they carry on mineral-related activities in waters beyond national jurisdiction. Its own existence began with the adoption of the 1994 Agreement, the instrument that reworked the seabed mining rules of UNCLOS, and the Authority was fully operational in 1996. Minerals gathered beyond national jurisdiction count as the common heritage of humankind under Article 136, while Article 137 bars any State from claiming sovereignty over the Area or the resources in it. Exploration contracts have been issued by the Authority since 2001, and most of those for polymetallic nodules lie in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific floor. Patches of seabed are set apart by the ISA as areas of particular environmental interest, and it keeps reserved areas as well, so that developing countries can reach mineral resources. Its Council takes the working decisions, with the Legal and Technical Commission reporting to it. The United States has joined neither UNCLOS nor the 1994 Agreement, so it sits as an observer state, holds no vote in ISA business and cannot obtain a contract. A regulatory regime for extraction is still to be adopted, which is why no exploitation contract has been issued.
Set up under:
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
Agreement that reworked the seabed mining rules:
1994 Agreement
Fully operational:
1996
Status of minerals beyond national jurisdiction:
common heritage of humankind
Provision for that status:
Article 136
Standing of the United States:
observer state
Main area of nodule contracts:
Clarion-Clipperton Zone
Why it matters for exams: The Authority was created by the law of the sea Convention, treats deep seabed minerals as the common heritage of humankind, and leaves the United States taking part only as an observer state with no vote.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
Which country's court may hear a case, which law applies to it, and whether a judgment can cross a border are the questions worked on by the Hague Conference on Private International Law, shortened to HCCH. Since 1893 it has pursued what Article 1 of its Statute calls the progressive unification of the rules of private international law. Its secretariat is the Permanent Bureau, which services the Conventions the Conference develops. Those Conventions are grouped by subject, one group covering the international protection of children, family and property relations, another covering international legal co-operation and litigation. In the first group sit child abduction, intercountry adoption and parentage, with international child support, the protection of adults, relations between former spouses, and wills, trusts and estates beside them. The second takes in legal and administrative co-operation, where the Apostille, Service and Evidence work sits, and the jurisdiction and enforcement of judgments, which holds the choice of court section and the Judgments Projects. An apostille is a single certificate by which a public document from one country is shown to be genuine in another. New multilateral instruments are developed by the Conference, which also refreshes Conventions and guidance already in place. Its reach runs past its own membership: it helps States apply the Conventions and presses for wider accession among member and non-member states.
Working since:
1893
Full name:
Hague Conference on Private International Law
Secretariat:
Permanent Bureau
One group of its Conventions:
International protection of children, family and property relations
Certificate instrument:
Apostille
Why it matters for exams: The HCCH has worked since 1893 towards the progressive unification of the rules of private international law, keeps its secretariat as the Permanent Bureau, and stands behind the Apostille and child abduction Conventions.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
Cooperation across the far north runs through the Arctic Council, which was created in 1996. Its founding paper, the Ottawa Declaration of September 19, 1996, is a joint declaration rather than a treaty, and representatives of the eight Arctic States signed it. Those Member States are Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Norway, the United States and the Russian Federation. Six organisations of Arctic Indigenous Peoples hold a standing of their own as Permanent Participants, among them the Inuit Circumpolar Council, the Saami Council and the Aleut International Association, and that category exists so that Indigenous representatives are fully consulted inside the Council. Scientific and technical work is carried on in six Working Groups that meet through the year, and Ministers may set up Task Forces drawn from Working Group experts and Member State representatives for a limited spell. Observer status is open to non-Arctic states and to intergovernmental, inter-parliamentary and non-governmental organisations, and Observers may attend Working Group meetings and join particular projects. Every two years the chairmanship passes to another of the eight Member States, which then organises meetings, coordinates joint projects and speaks for the Council outside it, while Senior Arctic Officials, the SAOs, carry the work between ministerial meetings. The Council has no power to implement or enforce the guidelines, assessments and recommendations it issues, a job that falls to individual Arctic States or to international bodies, and its mandate, as the Ottawa Declaration puts it, leaves out military security. Even so, three legally binding agreements have been negotiated under its auspices and signed by the eight Arctic States: on aeronautical and maritime search and rescue, on marine oil pollution preparedness and response, and on enhancing international Arctic scientific cooperation.
Founding document:
Ottawa Declaration
Date of that document:
September 19, 1996
Member States:
eight Arctic States
Indigenous organisations with special standing:
six Indigenous Permanent Participant organizations
Working Groups:
six Working Groups
Chairmanship rotation:
every two years
Left out of the mandate:
military security
Why it matters for exams: Eight Arctic States, the Ottawa Declaration, six Indigenous Permanent Participants, six Working Groups, a chairmanship that moves every two years and a mandate without military security are the points to hold.
Kerala PSCUPSC
Background
Customs services across the world keep a body of their own, the World Customs Organization, established in 1952 with its offices at Brussels. It describes itself as an independent intergovernmental body, and its mission, as it states, is enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of Customs administrations. The Convention behind it established a Customs Co-operation Council, the formal name the body still carries in law. Today 187 Customs administrations belong to it, and together they process approximately 98% of world trade, which gives it an unusually complete view of how goods move. Its ground covers the work customs officers do: classification of goods under the Harmonised system, origin, customs value, simpler and more harmonised procedures with trade facilitation, standards for supply chain security, standards for enforcing intellectual property rights, capacity building for reform and modernisation, and mutual administrative assistance against customs offences. Promoting customs co-operation between countries is central to it, and it helps design and carry through policies that secure supply chains, fight counterfeiting, support trade and development, and keep revenue collection efficient. A Council stands at its head, and that Council accepted the request of the European Union to join, which gave the Union rights and obligations on an interim basis close to those of Members. Full accession waits on an amendment to the founding Convention that would let economic and customs unions come in, and the Members have to ratify that amendment.
Established:
1952
Name in its founding Convention:
Customs Co-operation Council
Headquarters:
Brussels
Customs administrations represented:
187 Customs administrations
Share of world trade:
approximately 98% of world trade
Mission:
enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of Customs administrations
Standing:
independent intergovernmental body
Why it matters for exams: The World Customs Organization began as the Customs Co-operation Council, works from Brussels, and now has 187 Customs administrations that process approximately 98% of world trade.
Kerala PSCUPSCSSC