21

I stumbled upon this website: https://unnwo.org/.

The United Nations New World Order Project is a global, high-level initiative founded in 2008 to advance a new economic paradigm, a new political order, and more broadly, a new world order for humankind, which achieves the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development by 2030, and the happiness, well-being, and freedom of all life on Earth by 2050.

It appears to be branded like a United Nations web-site, but the contents sound a bit like conspiracy fodder. The first time the Wayback Machine crawled it was in 2018 (its copyright is from 2009-2020, supposedly), but it hasn't been taken down in these two years, so my doubts remain.

Is this website affiliated with the United Nations?

Improve this question
8
  • 5
    I'll note that the site doesn't appear to explicitly claim that it's associated with the UN, though it certainly seeks to give that impression. Of the stated "initiatives", "United Nations International Day of Happiness" and "Sustainable Development Goals" appear to be legit UN programs, but "Happytalism" doesn't.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Jun 1, 2020 at 0:19
  • 1
    @Oddthinking Please don't invalidate answers in edits. Whilst your edit is good as it's likely what Tesseract meant to say. The way you've gone about it causes a disconnect for users coming to the post. Additionally I'm happy I'm not an answerer here, as constant fear that my content can become invalid because a mod deems it so is not exactly desirable.
    – user36082
    Jun 2, 2020 at 0:07
  • Probably a prank, but for the past 10+ years, typing illuminati backwards “itanimulli” redirects to the NSA website.
    – user47604
    Jun 2, 2020 at 6:09
  • 1
    @DanielRHicks: they don't claim it but they use the name, the color scheme and the logo of the United Nations. They clearly want to be associated with the UN in the eyes of the casual reader.
    – Taladris
    Jun 2, 2020 at 10:29
  • @JessiePierce: Let's take it to chat.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 2, 2020 at 20:35

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
59

According to a press briefing published on the official un.org, the website is not associated with the UN:

**Unaffiliated Website

And just to note that over the weekend, I’ve been receiving a lot of questions from different journalists about a website for a something called the United Nations New World Order project. I just want to state and say this very clearly that this project and website is in no way sanctioned by the United Nations.

Improve this answer
10
  • Huh, UN uses un.org? And here I was prepared to say that any website actually run by the UN would have a .int domain, as it should :-P
    – hobbs
    Jun 1, 2020 at 19:20
  • 11
    @hobbs Why should it? I don't disagree .int is a fitting TLD, but so is .org
    – TCooper
    Jun 1, 2020 at 21:42
  • 3
    @hobbs imf.org worldbank.org oecd.org ilo.org en.unesco.org unctad.org
    – Henry
    Jun 2, 2020 at 9:15
  • 2
    Can't they order it to be taken down, because it's infringing copyright (using their logo, people mistaking it to be them) or some other legal cause?
    – vsz
    Jun 2, 2020 at 13:03
  • 3
    @eagle275 I thought so too, but it seems that it was introduced in '88, while un.org was registered in '95.
    – tim ♦
    Jun 2, 2020 at 15:19
49

(This answers addresses the original question, which was more focused on whether the site was legitimate or was just made to be fodder for conspiracy theories. The current version focuses on whether it is affiliated with the UN, and see tim's answer for a better answer to that using the official word from the UN)

It's a real website and appears to be owned by a lobbyist/activist group which is focused on getting the UN to work on certain topics, but it is not directly associated with the UN itself.

According to the WHOIS database entry for unnwo.org, the site was created in Oct. 2018 and is registered to Jayme Illien of Illien Global Public Benefit Corporation. Illien himself doesn't seem to have a convenient Wikipedia page to link, but here's his Twitter page.

Although it's possible that someone not associated with Illien registered the domain, the content and style of unnwo.org seems to line up with the corporation's website, namely a focus on getting the UN to focus on happiness, and Illien's Twitter feed once referenced a 'new world order' initiative. However, after a quick look there doesn't seem to be any specific mention of the "United Nations New World Order Project" on the company's website, nor a reference to unnwo.org on his Twitter feed, so it's still possible that the website is not associated with Jayme Illien or his company.

Regardless of whether unnwo.org is owned by Illien or someone pretending to be him, it is almost certainly not a UN website. I haven't found any actual claim by Jayme Illien to be employed by the UN, nor anywhere on Illien Global Public Benefit Corporation's website saying they were founded/are controlled by the UN. Further, none of the terms 'Illien', 'New World Order Project', or 'New Economic Paradigm Project' seem to appear on quick looks through the UN's main website, https://www.un.org. While not an exhaustive search by any means, if unnwo.org was an actual UN website or Illien a employee of the UN then such a search should have returned something.

And as a final, if minor, piece of evidence, unnwo.org uses the wrong shade of blue: the line above the 'Initiatives' header uses #4e5ed0, rather than #009edb as defined in the UN's style guide.

Improve this answer
13
  • 3
    "mainly because nobody seems to claiming it is". I think the use of "United Nations" in the title, use of the UN logo, (and light blue, and wreath) is a pretty clear claim that UNNWO and UNIDOH are part of the United Nations.
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 1, 2020 at 11:58
  • 5
    This answer would be clearer with a "No." at the top.
    – user2357112
    Jun 1, 2020 at 17:26
  • 3
    @user2357112supportsMonica this answer was posted before the question was edited to ask if it was affiliated with the UN. Before it just asked if it was a real website (to which the answer is yes, it's a real website.)
    – Cave Johnson
    Jun 1, 2020 at 19:53
  • 2
    But why would they use a word that conspiracy theorists use? They can't be unaware of how it is used. How can it not be by conspiracy theorists themselves, pretending to be someone else? New World Order (conspiracy theory).
    – Peter Mortensen
    Jun 1, 2020 at 23:57
  • 2
    I would like to remind people that the term New World Order has a number of meanings, and not all are based on conspiracy theories. I would hazard a guess (without evidence) that this usage is intended to be along the lines of its usage in the sacred texts of the Baháʼí Faith
    – Oddthinking ♦
    Jun 2, 2020 at 20:34
8

The website has now been stripped of the UN logo and most of the content it had when this question was posted. Additionally, the copyright notice at the bottom has changed from "United Nations New World Order Project" to just "New World Order Project."

The UN logo that previously appeared in the site header has now been replaced by this MS Paint-quality smiley face, whose URL is:

https://unnwo.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Screen-Shot-2020-06-08-at-1.53.39-AM.png

unnwo.org screenshot from 6-29-2020
Screenshot of unnwo.org on June 29, 2020

It seems that they've now been forced to remove the United Nations trademarks from their site. If the filename is an indication, it looks like they hastily removed the UN marks around June 8.

The previous claims in the WHOIS registration info that this site was owned by Illien Global have been removed and it is now listed as registered to "DomainsByProxy.com", which is a private registration service (that is, one that allows you to register a domain name without having your contact information available publicly on the WHOIS servers.)

Registry Registrant ID: CR342960662
Registrant Name: Registration Private
Registrant Organization: Domains By Proxy, LLC
Registrant Street: DomainsByProxy.com
Registrant Street: 14455 N. Hayden Road
Registrant City: Scottsdale
Registrant State/Province: Arizona
Registrant Postal Code: 85260
Registrant Country: US

So, especially when combined with the U.N.'s denial that the site was in any way affiliated with the UN mentioned in tim's answer and the unlikelihood that a legitimate advocacy organization would infringe on the UN's trademarks, it seems pretty clear that this site (and the associated sites it linked to) wasn't the site of any sort of legitimate advocacy organization or UN initiative.

In all likelihood, the site was set up either to promote anti-UN/New World Order conspiracy theories or to troll those who subscribe to those theories.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .