Meeting Our U.N. Obligations

Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum (R-Kan.) has agreed that the time has come to modify her amendment that cut American support for the United Nations and its specialized agencies to force the international organization to accept new fiscal disciplines. The United Nations has agreed to accept reforms that give a greater voice in budget matters to the nations that pay the most.

The senator is now doing the right thing. Her amendment forced the United States into a violation of treaty obligations, yet another setback in the struggle to establish a global system based on the rule of law. But she can at least have the satisfaction of seeing a result that brings more discipline to the U.N. budget process.

Congress is moving ahead with her to eliminate the punishing Kassebaum amendment. Under its provisions, a ceiling was imposed on American contributions at 20% of total budgets--substantially below the U.S. fair share based on the gross national product. Now the more equitable 25% share will be restored. Or will it?

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has acted formally to restore the proper share. But the actual funds have not been forthcoming. No money has been voted to cover arrears for past and present years when the United States did not meet its assessed share, and even in the authorization for next year the funding falls more than $100 million short of meeting these treaty obligations.

This will please those who have long since written off the United Nations and its specialized agencies. They delight in repeating the stories of organizational extravagances, of outrageous statements against the United States from inexperienced Third World zealots, of the posturing and pettiness that are unworthy of the charter.

But those who belittle and devalue the world organization do a disservice to the national interests of the United States. For--despite its failures, despite its disappointments--the United Nations provides the most effective international instrument for advancing the kind of world that Americans have championed since the U.N. Charter was written. The organization’s dispute-resolution ability has contained hostilities in the Middle East, Cyprus, Africa and the subcontinent of Asia. Its economic agencies have equipped the new nations with the vital information, guidelines and resources to get on with their development as part of a global stabilization in which every nation has a stake. The specialized agencies facilitate, as no other body can, the complex interrelationships of an increasingly interdependent world, including agricultural development where there is hunger, coordination of postal and telecommunication and transport connections, and defenses against disease.

The funds that have been withheld during the dispute, and that are to be withheld from next year’s budget under the authorization legislation, are a trivial part of the federal budget. But they are significant elements of the modest budgets of the world organization. Withholding these funds can cripple the international organizations, including the World Health Organization at the very moment that it is trying to mobilize a global defense against the AIDS epidemic. It is not enough to bury the Kassebaum amendment. The unpaid assessments need to be paid. And there needs to be a new commitment to respect the nation’s treaty obligations.