The InterDependent

Washington -- The longstanding debate in Congress over conditioning American financial support for the United Nations system on the world body’s adoption of reform measures entered a new phase when the House Foreign Affairs Committee convened a panel recently to discuss the way forward.

The briefing, titled “The United Nations: Urgent Problems That Need Congressional Action,” provided lawmakers various viewpoints on the relevance of the UN to US foreign policy and how much UN reform has increased its effectiveness so far.

The Jan. 25 meeting, called by Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Republican of Florida), the committee chairwoman, was organized ahead of its early-February organizational meeting for the 112th Congress. As a result, the session was presented as a briefing until the panel formally constitutes itself. Rep. Jean Schmidt (Republican of Ohio) chaired the briefing, since Ros-Lehtinen was away dealing with a family matter. (To watch the Webcast, go to http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/schedule.asp)

Schmidt read the chairwoman’s opening statement, which left little doubt about the direction of the committee’s UN-related work going forward. Observing that US policy toward the UN should be based on whether American interests and values are advanced at the world body and whether lawmakers are assuring the best use of taxpayer money contributed to the UN, Ros-Lehtinen’s statement said, “Unfortunately, right now, the answer … is no.”

Brendan Hoffman

Peter Yeo of the United Nations Foundation's Better World Campaign, center, speaking about the United Nations to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, with, from left, Claudia Rosett of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies; Hillel Neuer of UN Watch, Mark Quarterman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Robert Appleton, formerly of the UN procurement task force.

Ros-Lehtinen’s statement indicated that she would soon introduce legislation to condition US-UN financial contributions on “real, sweeping reform, including moving the UN regular budget to a voluntary funded basis.”

She continued, “That way, US taxpayers can pay for the UN programs and activities that advance our interests and values, and if other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it themselves.” She was particularly critical of what she described as anti-Israeli activity at the UN, reports concerning UN Development Program use of funds in North Korea and alleged UN member country efforts to undermine anticorruption activities.

Rep. Howard Berman (Democrat of California), the panel’s senior Democrat and immediate past chairman of the committee, acknowledged shortcomings in how multilateral organizations sometimes function, but he stressed that the UN is “a force multiplier” for US foreign policy priorities. Berman made it clear that he favored working with allies in the UN to push for a reform agenda there. He cited recent progress on the issue, including last year’s creation of UN Women and the Delivering as One initiative, intended to streamline and consolidate the UN system in the field. On the particularly controversial subject of the Human Rights Council, Berman argued that the US “ceded” ground to those who had discredited the previous Human Rights Commission by not joining the council in 2006, when it was created. Since becoming a member in 2009, Berman said, the US has used its voice to oppose those who seek to limit the impact of the council’s mandate. “The UN needs significant reform,” he concluded, “but we differ on how best to achieve this.”

Panelists offered differing viewpoints on the nature of the reform challenge and how much it should occupy the committee. Brett Schaefer, an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a policy institute, said that equal voting rights on the adoption of the budget means that a majority of member countries that effectively provide less than 1 percent of the organization’s budget control the decision-making process. Noting that the current UN budget was adopted over US objections, he urged Congressional initiatives that could bolster US efforts to reinstate zero no-growth budgets, program sunsets and limit and/or withdraw US financial support from the Human Rights Council, pending reform adoptions.

Another panelist, Claudia Rosett, a journalist with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, also a policy group, called for “energetic investigations” like those done in the UN oil-for-food program inquiry; she said that the UN system is “immune to censure,” arguing that a combination of diplomatic privilege and lack of transparency invites waste, fraud and abuse.

Commenting on the Human Rights Council, Hillel Neuer of UN Watch in Geneva, a nonprofit monitoring group, noted that the majority of council members do not meet basic democracy standards as measured by Freedom House, another nonprofit that advocates for democratic change and human rights. The council, Neuer said, had turned a ”blind eye” to recent human rights violations in China, Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe, for starters. The emphasis on Israel, he continued, has led to the creation of a permanent agenda item in which 6 of 10 special sessions scheduled by the council so far have focused on Israel. In addition, five fact-finding missions to the country have been mandated by the council, one of which produced the Goldstone Report, an investigation commissioned by the UN to look into possible human rights violations in the Israeli-Gaza conflict in 2009.

Taking questions from committee members, Neuer credited US representation to the council for effectively promoting a more evenhanded agenda. He also said that UN Watch had not taken a formal position on US withholding of funds or US withdrawal from the council.

Peter Yeo, executive director of the Better World Campaign (which is part of the United Nations Foundation, now merged with UNA-USA), and Mark Quarterman, senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, also spoke about how the UN benefits American interests. Recalling areas in which the UN is currently engaged, including in Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, Afghanistan and Iraq, Yeo said: “Right now, across the globe, the UN stands by America as we struggle for democracy, human rights and world prosperity. We need the UN to run smoothly because we have a stake in where the UN is headed.”

Brendan Hoffman

Howard Berman, who spoke as the senior Democrat on the panel discussing the United Nations, greeting Peter Yeo, executive director of the Better World Campaign. Berman is a former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which held the briefing.

Challenging the notion that withholding funds to the UN is the best way to promote reform, Yeo argued the contrary, saying: “Progress will not happen without strong US engagement and leadership; the US must be at the table, pressing for changes. And that means we must pay our UN dues on time, in full, and without threats of withholding our contribution. When we act otherwise, we send a strong and provocative signal that we are more interested in tearing down the UN than making it better, in going it alone rather than working with others.” (For a full transcript of Yeo’s speech, go to http://www.betterworldcampaign.org/news-room/peter-yeo-testimony-25jan20...)

Quarterman, an American who formerly worked at the UN for 12 years as a senior legal officer, referred to the UN’s work in such areas as development, humanitarian relief and peacekeeping, saying that the UN “is fundamental to US interests because of the number of transnational problems that defy unilateral or bilateral solutions.” He acknowledged Congressional frustration with international organizations but urged placing such frustration in the context of larger challenges faced by the UN.

“No one is fully satisfied with multilateralism,” Quarterman said. “It is hard, and we use it to tackle the toughest issues of the global commons, most of which touch on fundamental national interests. It requires bargaining, negotiation and compromise, and in that way is not unlike the legislative process we see in this venerable institution.”

Robert Appleton, former chairman of the United Nations procurement task force, spoke last, discussing his experience investigating allegations of fraud and corruption in various UN peacekeeping operations and overseas missions from 2006 to 2008. In his written statement, Appleton recalled having identified some 20 major fraud schemes involving “hundreds of millions in waste and more than $1 billion in tainted UN contracts.”

High-profile investigations, he contended, were subject to criticism and stonewalling as well as retaliation on behalf of member country delegations that “came to the defense of either officials who were nationals, or their companies or citizens.” Continuing hostility to the task force by UN members, he said, led to its demise before it could complete its work. Appleton was critical of UN management for how it dealt with issues like waiving privileges and immunities of staff members implicated in wrongdoing.

After the panelists spoke, committee members asked a broad range of questions, with an emphasis on trying to determine overall US financial contributions to the UN system; address politicization of the Human Rights Council; identify useful ways of pushing for UN reform; and prevent UN funds from being used as “hard currency” by governments, as in North Korea, for surreptitious purposes. In general, Republican majority committee members expressed some exasperation and impatience with the UN’s reform record; and Democrats acknowledged the need to address problems but expressed a preference for working with like-minded countries in the UN to find solutions.