Multilingualism is one of the foundations of the United Nations (UN) and translation of UN documents plays an important political and practical role in the functioning of the Organ isation. This paper argues that UN translation is a special ised area of translational activity and has its own characteristics and special demands necessitated and dictated by the nature of the work of the UN and international diplomacy and developed over the sixty years' history. Thus, UN's experience in translation can provide an important insight and lesson for translators, translation organ isations and translation educational institutions. This article focuses on the nature of translation at the UN as a special ised translation activity and describes and discusses some of the linguistic and institutional features of UN translation.