Concern over the United Nations'
management and efficiency is nearly as old as the organization
itself--with the U.S. initiating its first review of the
organization only two years after its founding in 1945. I'm sure it
will surprise no one that the review found problems with
duplication, mushrooming mandates and programs, and poor
coordination.
In
the decades since, the U.S. has made repeated efforts to resolve
these problems. One successful effort was the unilateral decision
of the U.S. to reduce payments to the U.N. until it amended its
budgeting rules to permit large contributors more say in budgeting
decisions. This paved the way for consensus-based budgeting and
gave the U.S. a theoretical veto over the U.N. budget.
More
recently, the U.S. offered to pay its arrears to the U.N. if the
organization adopted specific reforms. This deal, known as the
Helms-Biden legislation, forced the U.N. to adopt--among other
reforms--results-based budgeting. It also led the U.N. to reduce
America's portion of the regular U.N. budget from 25 percent to 22
percent and the peacekeeping budget from 31 percent to 27
percent.
You
may notice a trend in U.S. efforts to reform the U.N.: frequent use
of America's financial leverage as the organization's largest
contributor. The reason for this is that America really has few
options to force reform on an unwilling organization. In the
General Assembly (which approves the budget for the organization)
each of the U.N.'s 191 members has only one vote--regardless of how
much they contribute to the organization.
The
one-vote structure inevitably creates inequities with small, poor
nations gaining far more from the U.N. than they pay for.
Obviously, most of these nations do not concur with America's
priorities on reform. On the contrary, most nations see the U.N. as
a source of patronage, jobs, financial resources, and a diplomatic
force multiplier of sorts. These nations want a bigger U.N.--not a
smaller, more efficient U.N. Given these conflicting priorities, it
is hardly surprising that progress on reform has been slow and that
progress has largely been achieved at the point of America's
checkbook.
Yet
U.S. criticism and reform efforts do have an impact. In 1997 and
2002, the U.N. announced its own reform agenda. As my fellow
panelist from the General Accounting Office discussed, the
Secretary General has made some progress on these reform agendas.
Despite this progress, the U.N. still suffers from a huge
credibility problem in America, particularly among conservatives in
Congress (who do not believe the organization is serious about
reform).
The
U.N. does itself no favors through its public relations blunders. A
case in point is the recent flap over letters from Benon Sevan,
former director of the U.N. Oil for Food program, to companies
involved in that program. These letters instructed them to treat
contracts and other information as confidential and turn them over
only after receiving U.N. approval. Although this may be intended
to ensure that Paul Volker has all the documents he needs to
conduct the U.N. investigation, it feeds into the broad perception
that the organization intends to obstruct any outside inquiry of
the Oil-for-Food scandal--including investigations by Congress and
the General Accounting Office.
The
bottom line is that the U.N.'s credibility problem can only be
overcome through greater transparency and accountability. Until
these issues are addressed, the U.N. should continue to expect
close scrutiny from the U.S. Congress and repeated attempts to use
America's purse strings to impose reform. A case in point is
Senator John Ensign's (R-NV) Oil for Food legislation that would
cut funding for the U.N. unless it cooperates with the U.S.
investigation.
Long-Term Vision
The
reform efforts I've described thus far are inadequate if the U.N.
is to fulfill its stated principles. They are the equivalent of fad
dieting--irregular attempts to fix the obvious symptoms of failure.
This is not to say that reform efforts focusing on the number of
employees, budget growth, and improved efficiency are not
important. They protect taxpayer funds and make the U.N. a more
effective organization.
However, they are not the fundamental
changes that are needed to resolve the underlying problems of the
U.N.
A
more fundamental approach to U.N. reform is required: one that
answers key questions and defines an overall vision of what the end
result of a reform process would be. Questions that need to be
asked and answered include: What is the U.N. supposed to do? Is it
doing it? Why not? What must be done to return the U.N. to first
principles? What means are available for accomplishing this goal
and what is the best option?
The
first question can be answered by looking at the U.N. Charter,
which clearly states the purposes of the organization. The U.N. was
founded to:
- maintain international peace and security,
including taking collective measures to remove threats to
peace;
- promote equal rights and
self-determination of peoples without distinction as to race, sex,
language, or religion;
- help solve problems of an economic,
social, cultural, or humanitarian character; and
- encourage "social progress and better
standards of life in larger freedom."
I
would argue that the U.N. is not doing as well as it should in
championing the principles set forth in its Charter. Consider:
- As for preventing war, there have been
nearly 300 wars since 1945 and over 22 million deaths resulting
from these wars. The
U.N. has authorized military action to counter aggression just
twice: North Korea's invasion of South Korea and Iraq's invasion of
Kuwait.
- The most urgent threat to international
peace and security today is terrorism. Yet the U.N. cannot even
agree upon a definition for terrorism--in large part because it
counts terror-sponsoring states among its membership.
- The U.N. counts the world's leading human
rights violators and repressive governments among its membership.
Worse, those members are disproportionately represented among the
53 countries elected to the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
(UNCHR)--with Libya serving as chairman last year. I doubt the
billions suffering from human rights abuses are comforted by U.N.
efforts in this regard.
- Equal rights for men and women are not
observed among many U.N. members, particularly among Muslim
nations.
- As for advancing social progress,
individual freedom, and the rule of law and improving living
standards, Freedom House reports that a majority of U.N. members
are not politically free and The Heritage Foundation and The Wall
Street Journal revealed similar results among the U.N. members in
terms of economic freedom.
Some
have called on the U.S. to withdraw from the U.N. because of these
flaws. I do not agree with this. Like it or not, other nations hold
the U.N. in high esteem and it has become a central pillar of
international relations and law. However, the U.S. would be better
served by a U.N. that more closely adheres to its founding
principles.
The
most direct method for addressing the failures of the U.N. is to
amend the Charter. I do not recommend this. Why? Consider the
process set forth in Chapter 18 of the U.N. Charter, which
states:
Amendments to the present Charter shall
come into force for all Members of the United Nations when they
have been adopted by a vote of two thirds of the members of the
General Assembly and ratified in accordance with their respective
constitutional processes by two thirds of the Members of the United
Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security
Council.
Quite simply, opening up the Charter to
amendment would be an invitation for log-rolling that would make
Congress blush. Getting at least 128 U.N. members to agree to
amendments and then getting their governments to ratify those
amendments would require decades of work and would inevitably
involve gross expansion of the U.N.'s authority, mandates, and
power. This would not be in the interests of the United States and
would inevitably aggravate the current problems of overreach,
inefficiency, and duplication.
Worse, the quid pro quo for Charter reform
would be likely to weaken America's power in the Security
Council--a situation that would undermine the ability of the U.S.
to protect its interests.
The
remaining option is to work within the existing framework. Yet what
to do and where to start? Past experience gives some clues.
One
of the success stories of U.N. reform is the rejuvenation of the
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO). This organization was deemed so irretrievably
antithetical to U.S. interests that the Reagan Administration
withdrew from it. This step, derided in many circles--especially
within the U.N.--was critical to turning the organization around.
It was so successful that President George W. Bush led the U.S. to
rejoin UNESCO nearly 20 years after the U.S. first left. Whether
this reform is lasting remains to be seen, but it is one of the few
successful examples of reform in the U.N. system.
The
U.S. should use this lesson and consider other candidates for
withdrawal. The egregious behavior of the Human Rights Commission
begs attention. Commission membership by Sudan, Cuba, China, and
numerous other human rights violators tragically undermines the
efforts of the organization and illustrates that U.N. member states
do not take this issue as seriously as they should. The United
States is faced with the sad situation of questioning if the cause
of human rights is better served by participating in the Commission
in order to champion the cause or by highlighting the complicity of
the Commission in obscuring human rights abuses by publicly
chastising the organization and refusing to lend it the credibility
of U.S. membership.
Another step that the U.S. should take is
to establish a Democracy Caucus and an Economic Freedom Caucus
within the U.N. These groups would bring together countries that
share common values on human rights, freedom of religion, equal
rights, representative government, free trade, and economic
freedom. As suggested by Kim Holmes, Assistant Secretary of State
for International Organization Affairs, there are nations that
agree with the U.S. on economic and political freedom, but who do
not vote with the U.S. on these issues due to regional loyalties
and other pressures.
However, members of the Caucus would be
seen as supporting agreed principles rather than as supporting the
U.S. Creating alternative groupings and voting blocs could serve
U.S. interests by, hopefully, countering the efforts of a few key
nations and establishing reliable allies to support efforts to
expand freedom, basic rights, and the rule of law.
Another necessity is to reform the U.N.
budget process. While the U.S. may have a technical veto due to the
consensus requirement for budgets, it frequently fails to exert its
veto due to concerns about the impact this could have on ongoing
issues in the Security Council or the General Assembly. It makes no
sense that Tuvalu--with its miniscule financial
contribution--carries the same weight in budget decisions as does
the U.S., Japan, or other large donors. The U.S. should lead an
effort to get large contributors greater influence over budget
decisions, though not necessarily by amending Article 18.
Cooperation among large donors should be sufficient to enact
change: After all, a handful of countries fund over 50 percent of
the U.N. budget.
To Reform the U.N., Reform the
Membership
In
many ways the U.N. has fallen short of the hopes of its founders,
not because of its staff, but because of its members. As discussed
above, many U.N. members do not live up to the Charter's ideals.
Unfortunately, over the years, the U.N. has regarded self-rule to
be the main prerequisite for membership--rather than whether the
proposed new member is a "peace-loving state [that is willing to]
accept the obligations contained in the present Charter and, in the
judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out
these obligations."
In
reality, some U.N. members honor the Charter principles not at all.
Yet they enjoy the privileges of U.N. membership and take that
privilege for granted. For example, under what justification does
North Korea merit U.N. membership? It is aggressive; a threat to
international peace and security; a proliferator of weapons of mass
destruction; and a repressive, undemocratic regime that brutalizes
its own citizens. North Korea does not deserve membership alongside
democratic, free countries in the U.N. that observe the founding
principles of the organization.
Similarly, why should a country that
continuously violates U.N. Security Council resolutions--such as
Iraq in the 1990s--enjoy the privileges of U.N. membership? For
that matter, why should a failed state like Somalia, which has no
effective government, retain status as a U.N. member?
The
U.N. needs to clean house by reprimanding those countries that
habitually violate U.N. principles. The U.S. should raise the issue
of ejecting from the organization the worst violators of U.N.
principles. Some may suggest that this goes against the spirit of
the U.N., but the procedures for revoking U.N. membership are set
forth in Chapter 2 of the U.N. Charter, which states:
A Member of the United Nations which has
persistently violated the Principles contained in the present
Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General
Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security
Council.
Obviously, the drafters of the Charter
envisioned the possibility of ejecting nations from the
organization.
A
two-thirds vote in the General Assembly may be difficult to
achieve--as would a Security Council recommendation for the
ejection of a member country--but the threat alone may encourage
better behavior and may shame U.N. member nations into being more
vocal and rigorous in support of freedom and human rights.
Conclusion
All
nations use the U.N. to advance their national interests. The
difference between the U.S. and other nations is that America has a
vested interest in making the U.N. work. Otherwise, those problems
normally assigned to the U.N. wind up on America's doorstep--mainly
because no other nation has the capacity to do anything about them.
America is better off with the U.N. heading up election monitoring
campaigns, monitoring ceasefires, and rebuilding wrecked nations.
Frankly, America is not very good at those tasks. That is no fault:
America has rightly focused its efforts on larger security issues,
warfare (when necessary), and preserving global security.
The
United States should not hesitate to advance its interests by
unapologetically pushing for fundamental change--even if that
course is controversial. In the end, the efforts for reform I have
outlined here are little more than insisting that the U.N. fulfill
its mission. Central to this effort are getting rid of the rotten
apples and allowing the U.N. to do its work as envisioned. I
believe that these issues must be considered and an overarching
vision set forth if reform efforts are to be consistent and
effective.
Brett D.
Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory
Affairs in the Center for International Trade and Economics at The
Heritage Foundation. He delivered these remarks at a conference
sponsored by the U.S. Department of State entitled "U.N. Reform:
Forging a Common Understanding."
Mark Falcoff, Fred Gedrich, and Alan Dowd,
"Goodbye to the U.N.," American Enterprise Online, at
http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17773/article_detail.asp
(May 5, 2004).