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Greetings from the Global Policy Forum,
Last week we noted the US Senate's vote to make an arrears payment of $819 million to the UN, conditional on a UN reduction of the US dues assessment for both the regular budget and peacekeeping. This week, we took a closer look at the text of the bill (we intend to post the text shortly on the site) and we went through the laundry list of conditions that the UN must fulfill it is to get this payment. The bill only partially funds payment of US arrears, as we earlier noted, and UN member states are extremely unlikely to agree to the conditions. The bill insists on: a no-growth budget in current dollars, certain new audit procedures, prohibition on global conferences, procedures for exact estimates of the cost of future peacekeeping operations, the "supremacy of the United States Constitution", no UN taxes, no proposals or discussions of UN taxes, no strengthening of standby forces arrangements for UN peacekeeping, no interest fees charged for arrears, no external borrowing by the UN or its agencies, no limitation by the UN of US authority over national parks or other property (eg. UNESCO World Heritage Sites), UN agrees that "contested arrearages" of the US should not count in cutting off voting rights in the General Assembly under Article 19.
Last year the United Nations Association-USA wrote a letter to President Clinton, asking him to veto a similar bill, on grounds that it was unacceptable to impose these conditions and that arrears should be paid in full and without condition. We hope that UNA-USA will repeat its call this year. The bill undermines the UN and fools the US public into thinking that the United States government is about to pay its arrears.
The question of the role of the United States at the UN has been raised very eloquently by former UN Secretary Boutros Boutros-Ghali in his new book "Unvanquished" Mr. Boutros-Ghali was in town recently to launch his book and GPF Director Jim Paul participated in a BBC radio program with him and later also attended a lunch in the honor of the former SG. Boutros-Ghali was in excellent form, and his polite but quite acerbic analysis proved extremely refreshing. His book deserves to be widely read, for it makes clear the deep dilemmas that the UN faces, being called on to address many world crises and at the same time being denied the financial resources and authority to succeed. In both public and private comments, Boutros-Ghali underscores the hypocrisy of the great power democracies that constantly emphasize democratic political rights WITHIN the boundaries of nation states, and constantly act to minimize democracy in global institutions.
On June 28 and 29, a group of NGO representatives assembled in New York to plan for the Millennium Forum. The Forum will bring together NGOs from around the world as part of the UN's "Millennium Assembly" in the year 2000. GPF participated in this planning meeting and we proposed a "Millennium Mobilization" to demand adequate funding for the United Nations and the UN system. We are glad to report that the NGO group accepted this proposal, which will provide new levels of participation and outreach for our annual October event on UN finance. So -- mark the date on your calendar. October 23, the day before UN Day, will be a time for worldwide NGO events during the Millennium Mobilization effort.
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