National Review: Litle American love for the U.N.

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By Brett D. Schaefer

Devotees of the United Nations are upset. The House Appropriations Committee recently approved spending “only” $3.5 billion on the U.N. and other international organizations — substantially less than the nearly $4 billion the White House had requested for FY 2013. Among the arguments raised against the committee’s decision, perhaps the least plausible is that the spending cut is “at odds with voters’ wishes.”

That’s the claim advanced by the United Nations Foundation, an independent U.N. “partner” that lobbies Congress and the president to support U.N.-backed positions and to maintain or increase U.S. funding for the U.N. American voters want Congress to fully fund the administration’s budget request for the U.N., the foundation insists. Its evidence? A poll in which more than eight in ten voters said the United States should maintain an “active role within the United Nations.”

It is hardly shocking that the U.N. Foundation would spin, to the U.N.’s advantage, a poll they commissioned to benefit the U.N. But why should U.S. policymakers pay attention to that poll rather than other, more impartial polls that show quite different results?

Gallup, for instance, which has tracked American opinion on the U.N. since 1953, notes that “Americans have never held the United Nations in particularly high esteem, with a historical average of 40% saying it is doing a good job.” In 2012 Gallup asked its standard question, “Do you think the United Nations is doing a good job or a poor job in trying to solve the problems it has to face?” Only 32 percent of Americans answered that the U.N. is doing a “good job,” compared with 61 percent who said it’s doing a “poor job.”

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This is not news. In the 34 Gallup polls that posed the question over the past 40 years, respondents who answered that the U.N. was doing a poor job outnumbered those who thought it was doing a good job, by an aggregate score of 50 to 39 percent. And a Rasmussen poll conducted this month found that 49 percent of likely U.S. voters view the U.N. “at least somewhat unfavorably” versus 42 percent who view it “at least somewhat favorably.”
The U.N. Foundation reports that over 60 percent of Americans think the U.S. should pay its U.N. “dues” in full and on time. Is this outcome really surprising, though? Most Americans are taught to honor their commitments and be personally responsible.

But what about context? The poll never explains the reasoning behind the proposal that the U.S. withhold its dues until the U.N. demonstrates improved performance, better oversight, holding peacekeepers to account for their crimes, or other reforms.

The poll does, however, “push.” In asking whether U.S. membership in UNESCO is important, it supplies the following description of the agency:

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, also known as UNESCO, focuses on education, science and culture around the world. UNESCO helps prevent conflict and build peace around the world by promoting democracy, works to eradicate poverty, and supports education for all. They promote new and innovative ways to educate children in the developing world and help people learn how to provide for themselves.

The wording includes no mention of UNESCO undermining U.S. and Israeli interests by admitting the Palestinian Authority as a member state last year — and after the U.S. told them such action would trigger a suspension of U.S. funding. There is no mention that UNESCO is largely a facilitator, rather than an implementing agency, and that many of its functions could be performed by others. Could anyone doubt that the poll results would have been very different if that information had been presented?

Moreover, Americans might be happy to express support for the U.N. or a U.N. agency in the abstract, especially when told it performs a laudable-sounding mission, but they are much less pleased with other U.N. priorities. A recent Rasmussen poll found that just 5 percent of likely U.S. voters support a proposal that a U.N. agency regulate the Internet. Fully 80 percent oppose the idea.

Since the U.N.’s founding, the U.S. has been its largest financial supporter. Americans are currently charged with paying 22 percent of the regular budget and more than 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget, although they are often disappointed by the U.N.’s inability to live up to its mission. The body’s inaction regarding Syria is but the latest example.

Fraud and mismanagement remain troublingly common. The organization’s oversight mechanisms remain inadequate, as a recent report by the U.N.’s own Joint Inspection Unit explains. Its efforts to address global problems such as terrorism, human trafficking, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction have been weak, ineffectual, or counterproductive. Indeed, the U.N. cannot even agree on a definition of terrorism.

Many Americans support the founding principles of the U.N. Who doesn’t want to prevent war, promote fundamental human rights, or contribute to higher living standards? But Americans understand as well the bitterly disappointing reality of the U.N. and how far it falls short of those ideals.

American voters expect Congress to be responsible stewards of taxpayer money, not a rubber stamp for the U.N. Our politicians should be vigilant, guarding against impropriety and waste at the U.N., and insisting that U.S. contributions to the U.N. advance U.S. interests.

— Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.

Heritage Foundation: - The History of the Bloated U.N. Budget: How the U.S. Can Rein It In

By Brett Schaefer

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Abstract: The 2012–2013 U.N. regular budget is historic because it marks the end of a decade of unprecedented growth of the U.N. budget. However, the U.N. budget process suggests that this will likely be an aberration and that irresponsible budget growth will resume shortly. Until the disconnect between financial obligations and influence over the U.N. budget process is overcome, the U.N. budget will likely continue to grow unchecked. The U.S. should seek to adjust the U.N. scale of assessment to more equitably distribute the costs of the organization among the member states, grant large contributors more influence in budgetary decisions, promote U.N. budgetary restraint by coordinating with other large contributors and, whenever necessary, enforce budget restraint by withholding U.S. contributions..”

Analysis of the history of the United Nations regular budget unequivocally confirms that the growth in the U.N. budget over the past decade has been truly extraordinary, outstripping the previous period of rapid growth in the U.N. regular budget during the mid-1970s and early 1980s. In a welcome development, the sharp increases in the regular budget over the past decade have been arrested, even slightly reversed in the 2012–2013 biennial budget. Regrettably, this does not necessarily indicate a fundamental shift in U.N. budgetary practices. On the contrary, the conditions contributing to budgetary constraint are likely to be transitory. Congress and the Administration should work together to strengthen U.S. influence and secure further U.N. budget reductions.

The U.N. Regular Budget

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration announced that the initial U.N. regular budget for 2012–2013 of $5.15 billion is $263 million lower than the final expenditures for the 2010–2011 budget and nearly $44 million lower than the 2012–2013 budget originally proposed by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. The U.S. Mission to the U.N. claimed in December that this was “only the second time in the last 50 years that the General Assembly has approved a regular budget level below the previous biennia’s final appropriation.”[1]

Although U.N. budgetary information is posted in the organization’s document system, it is difficult to find and its format is not user-friendly. The lack of comprehensive budget data presented in a consistent format in one place has inhibited research and informed policymaking. This paper rectifies this problem by presenting comprehensive data on the U.N. regular budget, compiled by the U.S. Mission to the U.N., in nominal and real terms for the entire history of the organization.

Based on U.N. regular budget data since 1946, the recently adopted 2012–2013 biennial budget is the third initial U.N. regular budget since 1960 that was lower than the final appropriation for the previous budget.[2]

The regular budget is only one of many U.N. budgets to which the U.S. contributes on a yearly basis. Indeed, it is not even the largest budget. The U.S. is assessed 22 percent of the U.N. regular budget and more than 27.1 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. The U.S. also provides additional billions in assessed and voluntary contributions to other organizations in the U.N. system each year. In FY 2010, total U.S. contributions to the U.N. system reached record levels for the third year in a row, exceeding $7.691 billion.[3] This is $1.3 billion more than the previous record of $6.347 billion in FY 2009 and $1.6 billion more than the U.S. contributed in FY 2008.

Nonetheless, instilling some budgetary constraint at the U.N., even if only on one budget, is no small feat, especially considering that the U.N. regular budget grew by an astounding 114 percent from the final appropriation of the 2000–2001 budget ($2.53 billion) to the final appropriation of the 2010–2011 budget ($5.42 billion).[4] The rate of budget growth over this period was truly extraordinary, rivaled in the biennial budget era (since 1974) by only the 166 percent increase from the final 1974–1975 appropriation of $606 million to the final 1984–1985 appropriation of $1.61 billion.

However, measuring the U.N. budget in constant dollars reveals its truly extraordinary growth over the past decade. In constant 2005 dollars, the budget grew by 72 percent from 2000–2001 to 2010–2011.[5]By comparison, the budget grew by only 36 percent from the 1974–1975 budget to the final appropriation for the 1984–1985 budget. In other words, inflation accounted for roughly three-quarters of the growth in the regular budget from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s. By contrast, the budget grew by more than 70 percent in real terms from the final 2000–2001 appropriation budget to the final 2010–2011 appropriation budget.

Thus, the increases in the regular budget over the past decade are unprecedented since the U.N. moved to a two-year regular budget in 1974–1975. In fact, when inflation is taken into account, recent increases basically double any previous budgetary decade since the U.N. moved to a biennial regular budget.

A Tale of Two Growth Spurts

As Chart 1 illustrates, the U.N. regular budget has grown rapidly since the adoption of the two-year budget in 1974, especially from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s and since the early 2000s. The relatively flat growth from the mid-1980s through the 1990s was precipitated by the U.S. policy of insisting on zero growth in the regular budget and an agreement among the U.N. member states in 1986 to approve the budget by consensus. This agreement was driven by America’s adoption of the 1985 Kassebaum–Solomon Amendment to the Foreign Relations Authorization Act for fiscal years 1986 and 1987, which withheld a portion of U.S. funding to the U.N. regular budget unless major contributors were granted increased influence over budgetary decisions.[6]

The post-2000 budget surge was facilitated by the U.S. abandoning its zero-growth policy and, later, abrogation of the consensus budget agreement.[7] The U.S. insistence on zero growth in the U.N. regular budget broke down in the early 2000s when the U.S. sought U.N. political missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The missions were expensive and opened the door to other increases in the U.N. regular budget sought by other U.N. member states in return for their support. Contrary to some claims, the Afghanistan and Iraq missions did not drive the increase in the budget over the past decade. As noted by the U.S. Mission to the U.N., the increases to other parts of the regular budget were substantial and, in dollar terms, outstripped the costs of the political missions:

In 2000–2001 the regular, two-year budget—not counting special political missions, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan—was $2.4 billion. In 2010–2011, it was $4.2 billion. That is a 75 percent increase, over a period that included a major post-9/11 economic contraction and a global recession.[8]

The cut in the U.N. regular budget for 2012–2013 is a welcome check on the unprecedented growth of the past decade. However, unless significant changes are made, the U.N. budget will likely resume growing for several reasons:

• In December 2011, the G-77, which includes more than two-thirds of the states in the General Assembly and therefore enough votes to pass the budget, sought to increase the regular budget by more than $600 million. Although temporarily defeated, they clearly support expanding the budget. The G-77 led the effort to violate the consensus-based budget agreement in 2006 and 2007.[9] If they wish to approve budget increases over the objections of the U.S. and other major donors, they may do so again.
• In the context of ongoing global financial difficulties, the U.S. was able to secure support from the other major U.N. contributors, which historically have been less interested in pressing for U.N. budget constraints when their economies were healthier. Unless the U.S. can convince them of the long-term need to restrain growth in the U.N. budget, these nations—particularly in Europe—will likely return to their historical ambivalence toward budget restraint once they recover from their current budgetary and economic woes.
• The latest U.N. regular budget, while superficially smaller than the previous budget, made no fundamental programmatic or structural adjustments—e.g., reducing permanent staff, freezing or reducing salaries and other benefits, and permanently eliminating a significant number of mandates, programs, or other activities—that would lower the baseline for future U.N. budget negotiations.[10]Despite the Secretary-General’s proposal to eliminate 44 permanent posts, the 2012–2013 budget actually increased the number of permanent posts by more than a score compared with the previous budget. The failure to arrest growth in U.N. employment, salaries, and benefits is especially problematic because personnel costs account for 74 percent of U.N. spending according to the U.N.’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ).[11] Without a significant reduction in the number of permanent U.N. posts or a significant reduction in staff compensation and related costs, real and lasting reductions in the U.N. regular budget will remain out of reach.

What the U.S. Should Do

With these factors in mind, the Obama Administration and Congress should work together to place America’s diplomats in a stronger position to hold firm on U.N. budgetary restraint and reform. Specifically, the U.S. should establish a stronger relationship between budget decisions and financial contributions by:

• Establishing a coalition of major U.N. contributors specifically dedicated to budgetary restraint and reform. Other large contributors to the U.N. budget, as exemplified by the Geneva Group,[12]often share U.S. concerns, but rarely stand firmly and consistently with the U.S. on budgetary matters. Current financial and economic pressures focused the major contributors’ attention on restraint during the 2012–2013 budget negotiations. The U.S. should try to forge this ad hoc coalition into a more permanent caucus of countries focused explicitly on budgetary restraint in addition to U.N. reform and improved management and oversight.
• Demand more influence for major contributors on U.N. budgetary decisions. Although imperfect, the easiest way to accomplish this goal would be to restore the 1986 agreement, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, that budgetary decisions must be adopted by consensus.[13] Better still, the U.S. should seek agreement among the U.N. member states that budgetary decisions, in addition to the U.N. Charter provision of approval by two-thirds of the member states, must also be approved by member states contributing at least two-thirds of the total contributions to the U.N. regular budget.
• Using America’s financial leverage. The only time the U.N. has exercised sustained budgetary restraint since 1974 is when the U.S. adhered to a policy of a zero-growth budget backed by the threat of financial withholding in the late 1980s and 1990s. This period began unraveling in the early 2000s and broke down entirely in 2006 and 2007, when a large majority of U.N. member states broke the 20-year agreement to adopt the U.N. budgetary decisions by consensus, which culminated in the adoption of the 2008–2009 regular budget over U.S. objections. The U.N. faced no repercussions for this action because the Kassebaum–Solomon Amendment had been rescinded in the 1990s. Congress should give legislative heft to U.S. budgetary positions at the U.N. by reinstating the zero-growth budget policy goal and mandating withholding if the U.N. adopts budgetary decisions over U.S. objections.
• Review and adjust the U.N. scale of assessment to more equitably distribute the costs of the organization. The bulk of the U.N. member states simply do not pay enough for growth in the U.N. regular budget to trouble them. For instance, Sierra Leone is assessed 0.001 percent of the U.N. regular budget. The U.S. is assessed 22 percent. Therefore, while Sierra Leone and the dozens of other countries with the same assessment will pay less than $26,000 this year for the U.N. regular budget, the U.S. will pay $567 million. With this in mind, it is unsurprising that the U.S. cares about the size of the U.N. regular budget, while most countries do not. The 128 countries with the lowest assessments pay less than 1.3 percent of the U.N. regular budget combined, yet those countries could approve a budget over the objections of countries paying nearly 99 percent of the budget. This disconnect between financial obligations and voting power makes it very difficult to constrain growth in the budget or enact reforms intended to improve effectiveness, accountability, and oversight without the use of financial withholding. Unless a stronger relationship between budget decisions and financial contributions is achieved, the U.S. will remain a lonely voice calling for budgetary restraint. The U.N. scale of assessment is scheduled for adjustment this fall, and the U.S. should explore options for adjusting the scale to ensure that more countries have an increased financial stake in the budget.[14]

Conclusion

For decades the U.S. has fought a difficult battle for U.N. budgetary restraint and management reform in an effort to ensure that American taxpayer dollars are not wasted. The U.S. and other major contributors deserve credit for halting the trend of unprecedented increases in the U.N. regular budget over the past decade and adopting a budget for 2012–2013 that is lower than the previous budget. However, the circumstances that led to the current climate of budget restraint are not likely to be repeated. History shows that diplomatic efforts often fall short in U.N. budget discussions unless Congress supports the efforts. The U.S. should promote U.N. budgetary restraint by coordinating with other large contributors and, when necessary, supporting its diplomatic efforts to enforce budget restraint by withholding U.S. contributions.

—Brett D. Schaefer is Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a division of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies, at The Heritage Foundation. He is editor of ConUNdrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009).

Congress Is Critical to U.N. Reform

From Brett D Schaefer published on National Review Online

The U.S. should withhold funding if the U.N. doesn’t shape up.

Even before Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) introduced the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act of 2011 (H.R. 2829), the usual suspects had lined up to attack the bill.

Jeffrey Laurenti of the Century Foundation, a former board member of the United Nations Association of the United States of America, stated, “After two years of the closest and most productive cooperation in decades at the UN between Washington and the rest of the international community, it is hard to understand why Republicans in the House of Representatives are determined to poison the well.” Peter Yeo, executive director of the United Nations Foundation, said that the bill would “severely erode America’s leadership role at the United Nations and undermine our nation’s security.” And an unnamed administration source told Politico, “This draft legislation is dated, tired, and frankly unresponsive to the positive role being played by the U.N.”

Essentially, these critics claim that U.S. policy priorities are being advanced at the U.N., and that using America’s financial contributions to press for reforms undermines those efforts. Neither assertion is consistent with the facts.

First, the U.S. is often on the losing side at the U.N. Over the 28-year period that the State Department has reported the statistic, only 31.7 percent of non-consensus votes at the U.N. have gone our way. On resolutions the State Department identified as important to U.S. interests, voting coincidence with the U.S. has averaged 38 percent since 2000. This ratio has improved since 2009, simply because the Obama administration agrees with the U.N. consensus on some issues that the Bush administration did not (such as global warming and disarmament). But the U.S. has still been in the minority on most General Assembly votes.

This lack of support is jarring, considering that the United States has been the largest financial supporter of the United Nations since the organization’s founding in 1945. Currently we are assessed 22 percent of the U.N. regular budget and more than 27 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. Indeed, U.S. contributions to the U.N. system reached a record level of $7.692 billion in fiscal year 2010 — a staggering 21 percent increase over the previous year. It was the third consecutive year in which U.S. contributions set records.

By contrast, most countries pay so little to the U.N. that they cannot get exercised about its inefficiency, waste, and corruption. For instance, Sierra Leone is assessed 0.001 percent of the U.N.’s regular budget and 0.0001 percent of the peacekeeping budget. While it and dozens of other countries pay less than $35,000 per year to these budgets, the U.S. pays billions. The 129 least-assessed countries together pay about 1 percent of the U.N. budget, and yet constitute a two-thirds majority of member nations. They can pass the U.N. budget over the objection of the U.S.

The disconnect between influence and budgetary responsibilities is pernicious. The U.N. budget has more than doubled over the past decade, as U.S. reform efforts have been ignored, undermined, or reversed. For instance, the U.N. Ethics Office’s authority was challenged early and remains under assault; the Procurement Task Force was eliminated; many U.N. organizations steadfastly refuse to provide the U.S. unfettered access to their audits or other internal documents; and the Mandate Review was abandoned because it provided a basis and methodology for eliminating mandates.

It is not a coincidence that this backsliding on and resistance to reform has coincided with the removal of the credible threat of congressional withholding over the past five years. Most notable U.N.-reform successes have one thing in common: congressional involvement backed by the threat of financial withholding. Congressional intervention led to U.N. budgetary restraint in the 1980s and 1990s. It led the U.N. to create the Office of Internal Oversight Services in 1994. It led the U.N. to reduce U.S. assessments earlier this decade. Fear of congressional action helped spur the U.N. to adopt new rules for U.N. peacekeepers and to establish the Volcker Commission to investigate the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program.

The Obama administration came into office with the mistaken belief that the lack of support for the U.S. in the U.N. was due solely to the Bush administration’s policies. They believed that paying U.S. arrears to the U.N. and adopting a new, conciliatory diplomatic approach would change things for the better.

But in fact, withholding does not prevent America from advancing its agenda in the U.N. For instance, the U.S. was able to get Security Council sanctions on Iraq, Libya, Iran, and North Korea and other countries while the U.S. was capping its contributions to U.N. peacekeeping at 25 percent.

Without doubt, withholding ruffles feathers, but other U.S. policies elicit far more resentment. As seen by the U.N. voting pattern over the past 28 years (during Republican and Democratic presidents), withholding is not the only, or even a primary, reason that the U.S. is so often in the minority. If withholding alters a few votes, that cost would be more than offset by moving key reforms forward. And withholding has been effective in increasing pressure for reforms.

Sadly, the administration is finding that U.S. generosity and cooperation result in little reciprocation at the U.N. — at least where reform and budgetary constraint is concerned. The U.N. General Assembly has opposed and undermined reform efforts and budgetary restraint despite the decision by the Obama administration to unconditionally pay our arrears to the U.N. Most recently, the U.N. decided to adopt a pay increase for approximately 4,800 staff of nearly 3 percent, even as it professed a commitment to budget austerity. The pay increase proves that U.N. talk on budget constraint is unserious. Budget austerity is impossible without constraining staff-related expenses, including pay, because they constitute about 65 percent of the U.N. budget. The Obama administration knows this, and the U.N.’s insincerity produced this rebuke from Amb. Joseph M. Torsella, U.S. representative to the United Nations for management and reform:

My government is deeply concerned by the decision of the Secretariat of the International Civil Service Commission to increase the post adjustment index in New York and strongly objects to this increase.

Such a raise is inappropriate at this time of global fiscal austerity, when member-state governments everywhere are implementing drastic austerity measures such as layoffs, service reductions, revenue increases, and reductions in pay and benefits for civil servants. While we have the highest regard for the many dedicated professionals in the U.N. system, in these difficult times we must — at a minimum — forgo salary increases. Failure to do so could well lead to more draconian approaches to budget-balancing in the future.

The “draconian” approaches hinted at by Ambassador Torsella are those included in the United Nations Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act of 2011. Among other things, the bill demands access for the Government Accountability Office to investigate and audit how the U.N. uses U.S. funds; mandates withholding contributions unless the U.N. shifts 80 percent of its regular budget from mandatory to voluntary funding; withholds U.S. funds for any U.N. organization that admits Palestine as a member state or upgrades its observer’s status; and withholds funding for the U.N. Human Rights Council, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), and U.N. peacekeeping pending reforms.

The U.N.-reform legislation will meet resistance in the Senate and from the administration, because it uses U.S. contributions to press for reforms, which is anathema to liberals. But many of the reforms, such as increased budgetary flexibility and transparency and accountability, are not partisan. Congressional patience is short, and U.N. reform is a perennial election issue. Profligacy at the U.N. will not be overlooked when Congress is being asked to implement budgetary cuts for the U.S. government. The more the U.N. resists reform, the greater the chances that Congress will force the issue.

— Brett D. Schaefer is the Jay Kingham Fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at the Heritage Foundation.

Bloomberg.com: Republican Bill to Force Major Changes at the UN

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House Republicans introduced legislation today that seeks to force major changes at the United Nations, using as leverage the threat to withhold some of the U.S.’s 22 percent contribution to the world body’s operating budget.

The bill by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, would demand that the UN let countries decide how much to pay and which programs they will support, rather than assessing payments based on a formula. It would end funding for Palestinian refugees, limit use of U.S. funds to only purposes outlined by Congress and put a hold on creating or expanding peacekeeping operations until management changes are made.

“We need a UN which will advance the noble goals for which it was founded,” Ros-Lehtinen of Florida said in a statement. “The current UN continues to be plagued by scandal, mismanagement and inaction, and its agenda is frequently hijacked by rogue regimes which protect each other while targeting free democracies like the U.S. and Israel.”

Republicans are moving against the world body at a time when the Obama administration is increasingly building its foreign policy around multilateral institutions, such as the alliance-based approach on Libya.

The bill, which has 57 co-sponsors who are all Republicans, may advance in the Republican-controlled House. It is likely to face opposition in the Senate and from President Barack Obama.

Administration Opposition

“We oppose this legislation,” said Victoria Nuland, a State Department spokeswoman, at a press briefing today. She said the measure would cut by half U.S. funding for the U.N and “dangerously weaken the UN.”

“We believe in UN reform,” she said. “We just don’t think this is the right way to go about it.”

The U.S. pays 22 percent of the UN’s regular operations budget and is assessed 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. U.S. payments totaled $3.35 billion in 2010, of which $2.67 billion was dedicated to the 16 peacekeeping operations worldwide, from South Sudan to Haiti.

“After two years of the closest and most productive cooperation in decades at the UN betweenWashington and the rest of the international community, it is hard to understand why Republicans in the House of Representatives are determined to poison the well,” Jeffrey Laurenti, a UN analyst at the Century Foundation, a New York-based research group, wrote in a blog post yesterday.

International Cooperation

Laurenti cites UN support for the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, the world body’s move to authorize limited military action in Libya at U.S. urging and its successful work in handing power over to the legitimate winner of Ivory Coast’s presidential election.

Brett Schaefer, a UN analyst at the Washington-based Heritage Foundation that supports many Republican initiatives, said that Ros-Lehtinen’s goals dovetail with the administration’s interests in seeing more UN accountability, improvements in peacekeeping and an end to policies that single out Israel for criticism.

“The real point of divergence is how do you achieve these policy goals,” Schaeffer said in a telephone interview.

Representative Howard Berman, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the bill would hurt Israel and undermine U.S. leadership.

“At a time when efforts to isolate and delegitimize Israel in the General Assembly and elsewhere are gaining steam, I can’t see how a bill that will undoubtedly weaken our influence at the UN and make it harder to counter Palestinian attempts to unilaterally declare statehood is inJerusalem’s interest, let alone our own,” Berman said in a statement.

Percentage of Contribution

If passed into law, Ros-Lehtinen’s bill would have the U.S. withhold a percentage of its contributions until at least 80 percent of the UN budget was voluntary.

The legislation also would limit the use of U.S. contributions to only the specific purposes outlined by Congress and would withhold U.S. funding for any UN agency that upgrades the status of the Palestinian observer mission or any agency that helps Palestinian refugees.

The bill would also withhold funding for the UN Human Rights Council until the State Department can certify that it doesn’t include members subject to Security Council sanctions, under Security Council-mandated investigations for human rights abuses or are state sponsors of terrorism.

Last month, Ros-Lehtinen’s committee approved an authorization bill that would cut by almost 10 percent U.S. funding for peacekeeping operations, which are assessed based on each member nation’s relative share of the global economy.

Peacekeeping Bills

U.S. law limits the peacekeeping funding to 25 percent of the cost of operations, but Congress has given an annual waiver to permit payment of the full 27 percent assessment for peacekeeping. Ros-Lehtinen wants to bring that amount down, in line with the law, the House aide said.

Ros-Lehtinen’s bill would direct the president to have his UN ambassador use the U.S. veto power in the Security Council to block the creation of new peacekeeping operations or the expansion of existing ones until reforms are made.

Groups that promote strong U.S.-UN relations, such as the Washington-based Better World Initiative, said the bill would undermine U.S. influence at the UN.

“We are hard-pressed to find a moment in history where the UN has had a greater role in promoting American interests,” said Executive Director Peter Yeo in an e-mail. The bill would “severely erode America’s leadership role at the United Nations and undermine our nation’s security.”

Tensions between the UN and the U.S. over management and funding are not new. A push for improvements in UN management came during the administration of President Bill Clinton, who signed the Helms-Biden United Nations Reform Act of 1999. It tied U.S. payments to specified steps to improve management.

In 2006, President George W. Bush’s ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said the U.S. might push to make contributions to the UN budget voluntary, as Ros-Lehtinen is doing.

To contact the reporters on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington atngaouette@bloomberg.net; Bill Varner in New York at wvarner@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net