Welcome to PassBlue, a Web site offering original, comprehensive reporting on the United Nations. PassBlue is a play on the diplomatic passport known as “laissez-passer” (“let pass”), a blue travel document used by UN officials on missions and issued by national governments and world institutions during wartime and other periods to allow officers to travel to specific areas. The UN grounds passes are also blue; in addition, the UN issues passport-size IDs for travel on contract business.

A Security Council meeting on nonproliferation, featuring representatives of the permanent-five members as well as the German representative (back to the camera), Peter Wittig.

PassBlue reporting covers the far-ranging work of the UN, an institution with a biennial operating budget of $5.15 billion, excluding a $7.8 billion annual budget for UN Peacekeeping Operations  and other extrabudgetary expenses (including many UN agencies, totaling about $9 billion biannually). The UN employs more than 44,000 staff members worldwide in the Secretariat category alone: 15,588 in departments and offices; 2,704 in regional commissions; nearly 24,000 in peacekeeping missions; and 1,849 in war tribunals.

PassBlue articles are written by top UN journalists, who include Barbara Crossette, a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times; Irwin Arieff, a former foreign correspondent for Reuters; Helmut Volger, the editor of A Concise Encyclopedia of the United Nations; and Dulcie Leimbach, former editor of UNA’s The InterDependent and an editor/writer at The New York Times for more than two decades.

The Web site features original photography by Joe Penney and Tanya Bindra, among others. The content is focused on such topics as geopolitics in West Africa and South Asia, the Security Council, US-UN relations, human rights, population, peace and security, the secretary-general, health, humanitarian aid and UN agencies.

Through its Goings-on feature, PassBlue reports on important new appointments and personnel changes at the UN and other foreign-affairs groups as well as brief items of value on the UN.

Worldviews is a forum for voicing opinion on the UN and international matters. The Books column allows writers to expand their opinions more broadly.

A dining feature, the UN Eats, offers advices to the UN community in New York on the vital task of eating in and around the Turtle Bay neighborhood.

PassBlue’s logo is designed by John Penney, the IT manager (penney.jsp@gmail.com).

PassBlue is dedicated to the memory of Janet Leimbach, Aug. 26, 1925-May 24, 2011.

We encourage comments and contributions. To write for PassBlue, please use the contact form below to send a summary of your article and your background. To donate to PassBlue, use the form for your inquiry.

If you are interested in an internship at PassBlue, find out more on our Interns page.

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