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发帖数: 29846 | 1 共和党主导的美国众议院将对联合国状况召开听证会，结果将影响对联合国的拨款
Republican-Controlled Congressional Committee Targets United Nations
Monday, January 24, 2011
By Patrick Goodenough
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, pictured during a briefing on Iran with former U.S. ambassador to
the United Nations John Bolton, on March 25, 2010. (Photo: Foreign Affairs
Committee Republicans)
(Editor’s note: Adds dollar figures for 2011 contributions to the U.N. in
paragraph 13.)
(CNSNews.com) – Two years after they promoted and hailed the incoming Obama
administration’s steps to revitalize the U.S. relationship with the United
Nations, engagement advocates are on the defensive this week as the new
Republican majority in the House Foreign Affairs Committee turns a spotlight
on the world body.
Committee chairwoman Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is holding a hearing Tuesday
entitled “The United Nations: Urgent Problems that Need Congressional
Action,” featuring some the U.N.’s most outspoken critics.
The Florida Republican herself would fall in that category. Ros-Lehtinen in
2007 and again in 2009 championed legislation that linked U.S. funding to
the U.N. to wide-ranging reforms.
Tuesday’s hearing will include testimony by Heritage Foundation fellow in
international regulatory affairs Brett Schaefer, who has long advocated
greater congressional vigilance in the face of U.N. waste and actions deemed
as contrary to U.S. interests; Claudia Rosett, journalist-in-residence with
the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, whose focus on the U.N. included
major investigations into corruption into the U.N.’s Iraq oil-for-food
program; and Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based U.N. Watch
, which critically monitors the U.N.’s controversial Human Rights Council (
HRC).
Also taking part is Robert Appleton, a former assistant U.S. attorney who
played a key role in uncovering and prosecuting oil-for-food corruption.
Appleton was favored to take the helm of the investigations division of the
U.N.’s primary anti-corruption body in 2008 until blocked by top U.N.
officials.
On the “pro-U.N.” side, the committee will hear from Peter Yeo, vice-
president for public policy at the United Nations Foundation, a group set up
in 1998 with a $1 billion donation to U.N. causes by CNN founder and
philanthropist Ted Turner. Its priorities include building public support
for the U.N. and advocating U.S. funding for the U.N.
United Nations, UN
Flags of member nations flying at United Nations headquarters in New York
City. (U.N. Photo by Eskinder Debebe)
With like-minded groups, the U.N. Foundation prodded the Obama
administration to pay U.S. “dues” to the U.N. in full, on time and without
preconditions; to reverse its predecessor’s policy of shunning the HRC;
and to restore funding to the U.N. Population Fund, previously withheld over
alleged links to China’s coercive “one-child” policy.
Yeo is a former senior member of staff for Ros-Lehtinen’s two Democratic
predecessors, Rep. Howard Berman and Tom Lantos. He also served in the
Clinton administration, where according to his U.N. Foundation bio “he led
the negotiations around repayment of the U.S. arrears to the United Nations.”
Rounding out Tuesday’s hearing is Mark Quarterman, director of the Program
on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, who worked at the U.N. for 12 years in various
capacities, including that of chief of staff to the U.N. undersecretary-
general for legal affairs.
Funding in the crosshairs
Funding of the U.N. is expected to feature prominently at the hearing. Ros-
Lehtinen said late last year she wanted to use “U.S. contributions to
international organizations as leverage to press for real reform of those
organizations.”
Her earlier U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act sought to make
U.S. funding conditional on the implementation of reforms throughout the U.
N. system. Provisions included the withholding of funding allocated to the
HRC.
The U.S. provides 22 percent of the U.N.’s regular operating budget, which
finances the Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council
and several other bodies, as well as more than 25 percent of the
peacekeeping budget. Member states’ contributions are assessed according to
their relative “capacity to pay,” calculated from national economic
output.
The administration’s 2011 budget request for contributions to the U.N.’s
regular budget was $516.3 million, part of an overall $1.18 billion for the
U.N. and affiliated agencies (the World Health Organization, International
Atomic Energy Agency etc.) The additional 2011 budget request for U.N.
peacekeeping operations was $2.18 billion.
Although the next biggest contributor to the regular U.N. budget, Japan, is
assessed at 16 percent, no other country comes close, including the other
four permanent Security Council members – Britain 6.6, France 6.3, China 2.
6 and Russia 1.2 percent.
Most countries pay well under one percent, but budgetary decisions are made
by the General Assembly, where the vote of the U.S. (22 percent of the
operating budget) holds no more weight than those of Venezuela (0.2 percent)
, Syria (0.016 percent) or Zimbabwe (0.008 percent).
Heritage scholar Schaefer argued recently that the new Congress should
withhold U.S. contributions to the U.N. until changes were made to remedy
the funding situation.
“If the U.N. is to be a more effective, efficient, and accountable body,
budgetary decision-making must be linked to financial responsibilities,
because the member states that pay the most have the most interest in seeing
that U.N. funds are used effectively,” he said.
“This can be done by weighting votes on budgetary decisions to give major
contributors increased influence, shifting funding for activities currently
funded under the assessed U.N. regular and peacekeeping budgets toward
voluntary funding, or spreading the financial burden across U.N. membership
more evenly.”
Advocates of moving towards a system of more voluntary funding say it would
compel U.N. agencies to demonstrate greater efficiency and transparency. U.N
. humanitarian and development programs such as the World Food Program are
already funded via voluntary donations.
Former ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told the House Foreign Affairs
Committee in 2007 that moving from assessed contributions to a voluntary
system would allow countries like the U.S. “to judge the effectiveness of
the various parts of the U.N. system, and demand results.”
“Non-responsive programs and funds can be defunded, effective agencies and
personnel can be rewarded and augmented,” he said. “Most importantly, the
crippling mentality of ‘entitlement’ that pervades the main U.N.
organization will be stripped away.” |
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