Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jun 17 2005 (IPS) — In a direct rebuff to the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, the House of Representatives Friday voted 221-184 to automatically suspend half of U.S. contributions to the United Nations unless it immediately implements a sweeping list of some 39 specific reform measures.

The bill, which was opposed by Democrats and a handful of moderate Republicans, is considered unlikely to be enacted into law as written, both because of the administration’s opposition and the fact that it lacks a sponsor in the Senate which is expected to produce its own legislation for U.N. reform later this summer.

But, as testimony to anti-U.N. anger and the inability of Bush himself to rein in the increasingly right-wing Republican leadership in Congress, approval of the bill, authored by the outgoing chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Henry Hyde, was particularly remarkable.

As the two-day debate began Thursday, the White House issued a statement warning that the bill would "distract from and undermine our efforts" to achieve reforms at the U.N., while Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns called the legislation "unacceptable."

"It would depreciate the credibility of the United States as one of the leading members of the United Nations," he said. "It would diminish our effectiveness and would not allow us to play the leading role that we need to play on reform."

But, coming relatively late in the game, the administration’s warnings moved virtually no Republican lawmakers who claimed only threats to withhold half of Washington’s roughly 450 million in annual assessed contributions would force the world body to implement sweeping changes.

"We have had enough waivers, enough resolutions, enough statements," declared Hyde. "It’s time we had some teeth in reform."

Among the most important changes were some that have been endorsed by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, including the creation of stronger oversight mechanisms for both the secretariat and for U.N. peacekeeping operations and closure of some programmes that are either obsolete or redundant.

But other reforms are considerably more controversial and will almost certainly be opposed by many, if not virtually all of the U.N.’s 190 other member-states. The bill, for example, would require the U.N. to fund most of its programmes through voluntary contributions, rather than mandatory dues, thus enabling countries, including the U.S., to pick and choose those programmes it wished to support.

It also called for changes that would give those governments, like the U.S., that pay more assessed contributions to be given greater weight in budgeting decisions. Both reforms could require changes to the U.N. Charter.

In addition to the 39 reforms required by the Hyde bill, several more conditions that almost certainly would never pass muster in the U.N. General Assembly or by any reading of the U.N. Charter were added as amendments.

One amendment requires that no permanent member of the U.N. Security Council pay more than five times more than any other in assessed dues. The United States currently pays 22 percent of assessed dues, while China pays only about one percent.

Another amendment requires that any member-state found to commit genocide lose its U.N. membership. Under the Charter, there is no provision for member-states to lose their membership under any circumstances.

But the most objectionable part of the bill to many critics was its use of the threat of withholding badly needed funds for an already-overstretched organisation.

"Withholding our dues to the U.N. is the absolute wrong approach for U.S. policy," noted Don Kraus, executive vice president for Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS), formerly the World Federalist Association.

"The Hyde bill hurts the chances of effective U.N. reform – which everyone agrees is needed – and exacerbates America’s isolation in the world community. Congress should stop its ‘all stick and no carrot’ approach and renew its commitment to effective diplomacy."

Even former House Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, a former leader of the House’s right-wing forces, spoke out this week against Hyde’s approach.

"As an expression of the level of anger many Americans feel (towards the U.N.), (withholding dues) is an understandable approach," he said of the bill during a press conference in which he and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell released a bipartisan report on U.N. reform. "But as a general rule, you withhold funds as a last option, not as the first."

That bill was also opposed by eight former U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Bush’s last U.N. ambassador, John Danforth, and even Ronald Reagan’s fire-breathing U.N. envoy, Jeane Kirkpatrick. They called the Hyde bill "counterproductive."

"It would create resentment, build animosity and actually strengthen opponents of reform," the eight wrote in a letter published in several newspapers and journals by the U.N. Foundation’s Better World Campaign.

"It would place in jeopardy the reform initiatives most important to U.S. interests. The fact is reforms cost money and withholding dues impairs the U.N.’s ability to make the changes needed."

That was also the argument mounted by Democrats and a few Republicans during the two-day debate that preceded Friday’s vote.

"It contravenes the U.N. Charter and undercuts current law," noted Republican Rep. Jim Leach. "Prior withholding tactics have embarrassed the United States and weakened rather than strengthened (diplomacy) …It would all but require the (United States) to declare financial war on the United Nations."

Leach and a handful of other Republican moderates joined Democrats in voting for a substitute to the Hyde bill that would have given the secretary of state the discretion on whether to suspend dues and by how much. The substitute, however, was defeated 190-216.

Washington has withheld U.N. dues in the past, but with only limited success, according to Ann Florini, an analyst from the Brookings Institution. In the mid-1980s, it suspended dues pending certain budgetary reforms, some of which were eventually approved. But, according to her, diplomacy has worked at least as well.

"Threats to withhold dues have left a lasting bitterness among the other member countries," she said, noting that under the U.N. Charter, assessed dues are a legal obligation. "Indeed, in Cold War days, when the Soviet Union failed to pay its share, the U.S. argued adamantly that member-states are legally obliged to pay their assessed dues."