INTERNATIONAL COURT REBUKES U.N. DEFAULTERS

United Nations member states that fail to pay their assessed dues to the organisation are in clear violation of international law, and the United States is currently the largest defaulter.

By Thalif Deen

November 1999

United Nations: The head of the UN's highest judicial body, in a pointed rebuke of the United States, has declared that any member state that failed to pay its assessed dues to the United Nations is in clear violation of international law.

Stephen Schwebel, president of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Hague, told the UN General Assembly that the failure by UN member states to pay their dues 'not only has the gravest effects on the life of the Organisation' but also transgressed 'the principles of free consent and good faith ... which are at the heart of international law and relations'.

Currently, the United States is both the largest single contributor to the UN's regular budget and the largest single defaulter. It has accumulated arrears amounting to nearly $1.6 billion in unpaid dues and pushed the world body to the brink of bankruptcy.

The United States accounts for 25% of the UN's annual budget of about $1.3 billion, followed by Japan (20%), Germany (9.8%), France (6.5%), Italy (5.4%) and the UK (5.1%).

Schwebel, a US national, told delegates that the financial fabric of the United Nations must be repaired by members acknowledging their obligations to pay their assessments as determined by the General Assembly under the terms of the UN charter.

He said that the 'binding character' of those assessments had been affirmed by the ICJ in 1962, when it held that 'the exercise of the power of apportionment creates the obligation ... of each member to bear that part of the expenses which is apportioned to it by the General Assembly'.

Although President Bill Clinton's administration expressed its desire to pay the outstanding US arrears, the right-wing Republican-dominated US Congress has held up payments, primarily for political reasons.

As a pre-condition for payment, Congress insisted that the United Nations cut its staff, eliminate waste and reduce its annual budget, maintaining it at zero growth. But, while UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan initiated a radical restructuring of the world body, Congress failed to keep its word.

The United States was also seeking a reduction in its assessed dues from the current 25% to 22%, and eventually to 20%, which can only be effected by the 188-member General Assembly.

Additionally, Washington also wants its current assessment for the peacekeeping budget reduced from 30% to 25%.

'I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the failure to revise the scales of assessments for UN member states could seriously damage US relationship with the United Nations,' former US Ambassador Bill Richardson warned last year.

Arguing that countries such as Germany, Japan, China and the newly-industrialised South-East Asian nations should shoulder a larger burden, the United States wants other rich nations to pick up the slack from a reduction in its assessments.

Washington 'believes very strongly' that the United Nations must end its 'unhealthy overdependence on one nation and adapt new scales of assessment for member states that accurately reflect modern economic realities'.

Addressing the UN's Administrative and Budgetary Committee in early October, the newly-appointed US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke appealed to other member states to help change the current scale of assessments.

'The United States calls on the United Nations to make its scale of assessments more equitable,' Holbrooke told delegates.

He said that the current approach to the scale was adopted some 25 years ago when there were only 147 members. 'Much has changed since then, and the time for meaningful scale reform is now.'

Holbrooke said the United States was 'proud' to have been the largest contributor to the United Nations every year since its inception 54 years ago. 'And we remain committed to paying our fair share to this organisation,' he added.

But he warned that the effort to solve the arrears issue would not get very far unless there was a change in the existing scale of assessments and a 'meaningful reform of the United Nations'. - Third World Network Features/IPS

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About the writer: Thalif Deen is a correspondent for Inter Press Service, with whose permission the above article has been reprinted.

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