[Senate Hearing 106-777]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 106-777
=======================================================================
THE FUTURE OF U.S.-U.N. RELATIONS
A Dialogue Between the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and
the U.N. Security Council
=======================================================================
Visit of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to the United
Nations
January 20-21, 2000
Address Before the U.N. Security Council
by Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman
Field Hearing:
Implementation of U.N. Reforms
Visit of the U.N. Security Council
to the U.S. Senate
March 30, 2000
Remarks Welcoming the U.N. Security Council
by Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman
Roundtable Discussion with Members
of the U.N. Security Council
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Relations
Available via the World Wide Web: http//www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
senate
62-154 2000
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN RELATIONS
JESSE HELMS, North Carolina, Chairman
RICHARD G. LUGAR, Indiana JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland
GORDON H. SMITH, Oregon CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut
ROD GRAMS, Minnesota JOHN F. KERRY, Massachusetts
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming PAUL D. WELLSTONE, Minnesota
JOHN ASHCROFT, Missouri BARBARA BOXER, California
BILL FRIST, Tennessee ROBERT G. TORRICELLI, New Jersey
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island
Stephen E. Biegun, Staff Director
Edwin K. Hall, Minority Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
----------
Address by Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman, U.S. Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations, Before the United Nations Security Council, January
20, 2000
Page
Text of Chairman Helms' Address.................................. 1
----------
Field Hearing on Implementation of United Nations Reform
Bolton, Hon. John, Vice President, American Enterprise Institute,
Former Assistant Secretary of State For International
Organization Affairs, Washington, DC........................... 43
Prepared statement........................................... 45
Cooper, Michael, President, Bar Association of New York.......... 13
Holbrooke, Ambassador Richard C., United States Permanent
Representative to the United Nations........................... 17
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Luck, Edward C., Executive Director, Center for the Study of
International Organization, New York University School of Law
and the Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University, New
York, NY....................................................... 50
Prepared statement........................................... 53
Warner, Hon. John, A U.S. Senator from the Commonwealth of
Virginia....................................................... 39
an informal discussion among members of the committee and hon. donald
hays, joseph connor, and john ruggie
Transcript of the discussion..................................... 67
appendix
Responses to Additional Questions Submitted for the Record
by Members of the Committee
Questions Submitted to the U.N. Secretariat
From Senator Helms........................................... 81
From Senator Grams........................................... 88
Questions Submitted to Ambassador Holbrooke
From Senator Helms........................................... 89
From Senator Grams........................................... 90
Questions Submitted to Donald Hays
From Senator Helms........................................... 92
(iii)
Responses to Additional Questions Submitted for the Record
by Members of the Committee--Continued
Questions Submitted to John R. Bolton
From Senator Helms........................................... 95
From Senator Grams........................................... 101
Additional Material Submitted by John R. Bolton
Statement Submitted to the Committee on International
Relations, U.S. House of Representatives, April 9, 1997.... 104
----------
Welcoming Remarks by Hon. Jesse Helms, Delivered in the Old Senate
Chamber of the U.S. Capitol
Text of Chairman Helms' Welcoming Remarks........................ 113
Roundtable Discussion With Members of the United Nations Security
Council: Critical Issues Before the United Nations
opening statements of united nations participants
His Excellency Arnoldo M. Listre, Permanent Representative of
Argentina...................................................... 153
His Excellency Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, Permanent Representative
of the People's Republic of Bangladesh and March President,
United Nations Security Council................................ 119
His Excellency Robert R. Fowler, Permanent Representative of
Canada......................................................... 134
His Excellency Wang Yingfan, Permanent Representative of China... 129
His Excellency Jean-David Levitte, Permanent Representative of
France......................................................... 150
Her Excellency Mignonette Patricia Durrant, Permanent
Representative of Jamaica...................................... 147
His Excellency Agam Hasmy, Permanent Representative of Malaysia.. 151
His Excellency Moctar Ouane, Permanent Representative of the
Republic of Mali............................................... 135
His Excellency Martin Andjaba, Permanent Representative of the
Republic of Namibia............................................ 126
His Excellency Arnold Peter Van Walsum, Permanent Representative
of the Netherlands............................................. 127
His Excellency Sergey V. Lavrov, Permanent Representative of the
Russian Federation............................................. 148
His Excellency Said Ben Mustapha, Permanent Representative of
Tunisia........................................................ 141
His Excellency Volodymyr Y. Yel'chenko, Permanent Representative
of Ukraine..................................................... 131
His Excellency Sir Jeremy Quentin Greenstock, Permanent
Representative of the United Kingdom........................... 122
Hon. Richard Holbrooke, United States Representative To the
United Nations................................................. 141
opening statements of united states senators
Hon. Jesse Helms, U.S. Senator from North Carolina............... 116
Hon. Joseph R. Biden, Jr., U.S. Senator from Delaware............ 118
Hon. Rod Grams, U.S. Senator from Minnesota...................... 120
Hon. Barbara Boxer, U.S. Senator from California................. 124
Hon. Paul D. Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota.............. 128
Hon. Paul S. Sarbanes, U.S. Senator from Maryland................ 132
Hon. John Warner, U.S. Senator from Virginia..................... 136
Hon. Carl S. Levin, U.S. Senator from Michigan................... 139
Hon. Gordon H. Smith, U.S. Senator from Oregon................... 145
Hon. Bill Frist, U.S. Senator from Tennessee..................... 145
ADDRESS BY SENATOR JESSE HELMS, CHAIRMAN,
U.S. SENATE COMMITTEE ON
FOREIGN RELATIONS,
BEFORE THE UNITED NATIONS
SECURITY COUNCIL
----------
JANUARY 20, 2000
Mr. President, Distinguished Ambassadors, Ladies and
Gentlemen, I genuinely appreciate your welcoming me here this
morning. You are distinguished world leaders and it is my hope
that there can begin, this day, a pattern of understanding and
friendship between you who serve your respective countries in
the United Nations and those of us who serve not only in the
United States Government but also the millions of Americans
whom we represent and serve.
Our Ambassador Holbrooke is an earnest gentleman whom I
respect, and I hope you will enjoy his friendship as I do. He
has an enormous amount of foreign service in his background. He
is an able diplomat and a genuine friend to whom I am most
grateful for his role and that of the Honorable Irwin Belk, my
longtime friend, in arranging my visit with you today.
All that said, it may very well be that some of the things
I feel obliged to say will not meet with your immediate
approval, if at all. It is not my intent to offend you and I
hope I will not.
It is my intent to extend to you my hand of friendship and
convey the hope that in the days to come, and in retrospect, we
can join in a mutual respect that will enable all of us to work
together in an atmosphere of friendship and hope--the hope to
do everything we can to achieve peace in the world.
Having said all that, I am aware that you have interpreters
who translate the proceedings of this body into a half dozen
different languages. They have an interesting challenge today.
As some of you may have detected, I don't have a Yankee accent.
(I hope you have a translator here who can speak Southern--
someone who can translate words like ``y'all'' and ``I do
declare.'')
It may be that one other language barrier will need to be
overcome this morning. I am not a diplomat, and as such, I am
not fully conversant with the elegant and rarefied language of
the diplomatic trade. I am an elected official, with something
of a reputation for saying what I mean and meaning what I say.
So I trust you will forgive me if I come across as a bit more
blunt than those you are accustomed to hearing in this chamber.
I am told that this is the first time that a United States
Senator has addressed the U.N. Security Council. I sincerely
hope it will not be the last. It is important that this body
have greater contact with the elected representatives of the
American people, and that we have greater contact with you.
In this spirit, tomorrow I will be joined here at the U.N.
by several other members of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. Together, we will meet with UN officials and
representatives of some of your governments, and will hold a
Committee ``Field Hearing'' to discuss U.N. reform and the
prospects for improved U.S.-U.N. relations.
This will mark another first. Never before has the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee ventured as a group from Washington
to visit an international institution. I hope it will be an
enlightening experience for all of us, and that you will accept
this visit as a sign of our desire for a new beginning in the
U.S.-U.N. relationship.
I hope--I intend--that my presence here today will presage
future annual visits by the Security Council, who will come to
Washington as official guests of the United States Senate and
the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee which I chair.
I trust that your representatives will feel free to be as
candid in Washington as I will try to be here today so that
there will be hands of friendship extended in an atmosphere of
understanding.
If we are to have such a new beginning, we must endeavor to
understand each other better. And that is why I will share with
you some of what I am hearing from the American people about
the United Nations.
Now I am confident you have seen the public opinion polls,
commissioned by U.N. supporters, suggesting that the U.N.
enjoys the support of the American public. I would caution that
you not put too much confidence in those polls. Since I was
first elected to the Senate in 1972, I have run for re-election
four times. Each time, the pollsters have confidently predicted
my defeat. Each time, I am happy to confide, they have been
wrong. I am pleased that, thus far, I have never won a poll or
lost an election.
So, as those of you who represent democratic nations well
know, public opinion polls can be constructed to tell you
anything the poll takers want you to hear.
Let me share with you what the American people tell me.
Since I became chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, I
have received literally thousands of letters from Americans all
across the country expressing their deep frustration with this
institution.
They know instinctively that the U.N. lives and breathes on
the hard-earned money of the American taxpayers. And yet they
have heard comments here in New York constantly calling the
United States a ``deadbeat.''
They have heard U.N. officials declaring absurdly that
countries like Fiji and Bangladesh are carrying America's
burden in peacekeeping.
They see the majority of the U.N. members routinely voting
against America in the General Assembly.
They have read the reports of the raucous cheering of the
U.N. delegates in Rome, when U.S. efforts to amend the
International Criminal Court treaty to protect American
soldiers were defeated.
They read in the newspapers that, despite all the human
rights abuses taking place in dictatorships across the globe, a
U.N. ``Special Rapporteur'' decided his most pressing task was
to investigate human rights violations in the U.S.--and found
our human rights record wanting.
The American people hear all this; they resent it, and they
have grown increasingly frustrated with what they feel is a
lack of gratitude.
Now I won't delve into every point of frustration, but
let's touch for just a moment on one--the ``deadbeat'' charge.
Before coming here, I asked the United States General
Accounting Office to assess just how much the American
taxpayers contributed to the United Nations in 1999. Here is
what the GAO reported to me:
Last year, the American people contributed a total of more
than $1.4 billion dollars to the U.N. system in assessments and
voluntary contributions. That's pretty generous, but it's only
the tip of the iceberg. The American taxpayers also spent an
additional eight billion, seven hundred and seventy nine
million dollars from the United States' military budget to
support various U.N. resolutions and peacekeeping operations
around the world. Let me repeat that figure: eight billion,
seven hundred and seventy nine million dollars.
That means that last year (1999) alone, the American people
have furnished precisely ten billion, one hundred and seventy
nine million dollars to support the work of the United Nations.
No other nation on earth comes even close to matching that
singular investment.
So you can see why many Americans reject the suggestion
that theirs is a ``deadbeat'' nation.
Now, I grant you, the money we spend on the U.N. is not
charity. To the contrary, it is an investment--an investment
from which the American people rightly expect a return. They
expect a reformed U.N. that works more efficiently, and which
respects the sovereignty of the United States.
That is why in the 1980s, Congress began withholding a
fraction of our arrears as pressure for reform. And
Congressional pressure resulted in some worthwhile reforms,
such as the creation of an independent U.N. Inspector General
and the adoption of consensus budgeting practices. But still,
the arrears accumulated as the U.N. resisted more comprehensive
reforms.
When the distinguished Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was
elected, some of us in the Senate decided to try to establish a
working relationship. The result is the Helms-Biden law, which
President Clinton finally signed into law this past November.
The product of three years of arduous negotiations and hard-
fought compromises, it was approved by the U.S. Senate by an
overwhelming 98-1 margin. You should read that vote as a
virtually unanimous mandate for a new relationship with a
reformed United Nations.
Now I am aware that this law does not sit well with some
here at the U.N. Some do not like to have reforms dictated by
the U.S. Congress. Some have even suggested that the U.N.
should reject these reforms.
But let me suggest a few things to consider: First, as the
figures I have cited clearly demonstrate, the United States is
the single largest investor in the United Nations. Under the
U.S. Constitution, we in Congress are the sole guardians of the
American taxpayers' money. (It is our solemn duty to see that
it is wisely invested.) So as the representatives of the U.N.'s
largest investors--the American people--we have not only a
right, but a responsibility, to insist on specific reforms in
exchange for their investment.
Second, I ask you to consider the alternative. The
alternative would have been to continue to let the U.S.-U.N.
relationship spiral out of control. You would have taken
retaliatory measures, such as revoking America's vote in the
General Assembly. Congress would likely have responded with
retaliatory measures against the U.N. And the end result, I
believe, would have been a breach in U.S.-U.N. relations that
would have served the interests of no one.
Now some here may contend that the Clinton Administration
should have fought to pay the arrears without conditions. I
assure you, had they done so, they would have lost.
Eighty years ago, Woodrow Wilson failed to secure
Congressional support for U.S. entry into the League of
Nations. This administration obviously learned from President
Wilson's mistakes.
Wilson probably could have achieved ratification of the
League of Nations if he had worked with Congress. One of my
predecessors as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, Henry Cabot Lodge, asked for 14 conditions to the
treaty establishing the League of Nations, few of which would
have raised an eyebrow today. These included language to insure
that the United States remain the sole judge of its own
internal affairs; that the League not restrict any individual
rights of U.S. citizens; that the Congress retain sole
authority for the deployment of U.S. forces through the league,
and so on.
But President Wilson indignantly refused to compromise with
Senator Lodge. He shouted, ``Never, never!'', adding, ``I'll
never consent to adopting any policy with which that impossible
man is so prominently identified!'' What happened? President
Wilson lost. The final vote in the Senate was 38 to 53, and
League of Nations withered on the vine.
Ambassador Holbrooke and Secretary of State Albright
understood from the beginning that the United Nations could not
long survive without the support of the American people--and
their elected representatives in Congress. Thanks to the
efforts of leaders like Ambassador Holbrooke and Secretary
Albright, the present Administration in Washington did not
repeat President Wilson's fatal mistakes.
In any event, Congress has written a check to the United
Nations for $926 million, payable upon the implementation of
previously agreed-upon common-sense reforms. Now the choice is
up to the U.N. I suggest that if the U.N. were to reject this
compromise, it would mark the beginning of the end of U.S.
support for the United Nations.
I don't want that to happen. I want the American people to
value a United Nations that recognizes and respects their
interests, and for the United Nations to value the significant
contributions of the American people. Let's be crystal clear
and totally honest with each other: all of us want a more
effective United Nations. But if the United Nations is to be
``effective'' it must be an institution that is needed by the
great democratic powers of the world.
Most Americans do not regard the United Nations as an end
in and of itself--they see it as just one part of America's
diplomatic arsenal. To the extent that the U.N. is effective,
the American people will support it. To the extent that it
becomes ineffective--or worse, a burden--the American people
will cast it aside.
The American people want the U.N. to serve the purpose for
which it was designed: they want it to help sovereign states
coordinate collective action by ``coalitions of the willing,''
(where the political will for such action exists); they want it
to provide a forum where diplomats can meet and keep open
channels of communication in times of crisis; they want it to
provide to the peoples of the world important services, such as
peacekeeping, weapons inspections and humanitarian relief.
This is important work. It is the core of what the U.N. can
offer to the United States and the world. If, in the coming
century, the U.N. focuses on doing these core tasks well, it
can thrive and will earn and deserve the support of the
American people. But if the U.N. seeks to move beyond these
core tasks, if it seeks to impose the U.N.'s power and
authority over nation-states, I guarantee that the United
Nations will meet stiff resistance from the American people.
As matters now stand, many Americans sense that the U.N.
has greater ambitions than simply being an efficient deliverer
of humanitarian aid, a more effective peacekeeper, a better
weapons inspector, and a more effective tool of great power
diplomacy. They see the U.N. aspiring to establish itself as
the central authority of a new international order of global
laws and global governance. This is an international order the
American people will not countenance.
The U.N. must respect national sovereignty. The U.N. serves
nation-states, not the other way around. This principle is
central to the legitimacy and ultimate survival of the United
Nations, and it is a principle that must be protected.
The Secretary General recently delivered an address on
sovereignty to the General Assembly, in which he declared that
``the last right of states cannot and must not be the right to
enslave, persecute or torture their own citizens.'' The peoples
of the world, he said, have ``rights beyond borders.''
I wholeheartedly agree.
What the Secretary General calls ``rights beyond borders,''
we in America call ``inalienable rights.'' We are endowed with
those ``inalienable rights,'' as Thomas Jefferson proclaimed in
our Declaration of Independence, not by kings or despots, but
by our Creator.
The sovereignty of nations must be respected. But nations
derive their sovereignty--their legitimacy--from the consent of
the governed. Thus, it follows, that nations can lose their
legitimacy when they rule without the consent of the governed;
they deservedly discard their sovereignty by brutally
oppressing their people.
Slobodan Milosevic cannot claim sovereignty over Kosovo
when he has murdered Kosovars and piled their bodies into mass
graves. Neither can Fidel Castro claim that it is his sovereign
right to oppress his people. Nor can Saddam Hussein defend his
oppression of the Iraqi people by hiding behind phony claims of
sovereignty.
And when the oppressed peoples of the world cry out for
help, the free peoples of the world have a fundamental right to
respond.
As we watch the U.N. struggle with this question at the
turn of the millennium, many Americans are left exceedingly
puzzled. Intervening in cases of widespread oppression and
massive human rights abuses is not a new concept for the United
States. The American people have a long history of coming to
the aid of those struggling for freedom. In the United States,
during the 1980s, we called this policy the ``Reagan
Doctrine.''
In some cases, America has assisted freedom fighters around
the world who were seeking to overthrow corrupt regimes. We
have provided weaponry, training, and intelligence. In other
cases, the United States has intervened directly. In still
other cases, such as in Central and Eastern Europe, we
supported peaceful opposition movements with moral, financial
and covert forms of support. In each case, however, it was
America's clear intention to help bring down Communist regimes
that were oppressing their peoples--and thereby replace
dictators with democratic governments.
The dramatic expansion of freedom in the last decade of the
20th century is a direct result of these policies.
In none of these cases, however, did the United States ask
for, or receive, the approval of the United Nations to
``legitimize'' its actions.
It is a fanciful notion that free peoples need to seek the
approval of an international body (some of whose members are
totalitarian dictatorships) to lend support to nations
struggling to break the chains of tyranny and claim their
inalienable, God-given rights.
The United Nations has no power to grant or decline
legitimacy to such actions. They are inherently legitimate.
What the United Nations can do is help. The Security
Council can, where appropriate, be an instrument to facilitate
action by ``coalitions of the willing,'' implement sanctions
regimes, and provide logistical support to states undertaking
collective action.
But complete candor is imperative: The Security Council has
an exceedingly mixed record in being such a facilitator. In the
case of Iraq's aggression against Kuwait in the early 1990s, it
performed admirably; in the more recent case of Kosovo, it was
paralyzed. The U.N. peacekeeping mission in Bosnia was a
disaster, and its failure to protect the Bosnian people from
Serb genocide is well documented in a recent U.N. report.
And, despite its initial success in repelling Iraqi
aggression, in the years since the Gulf War, the Security
Council has utterly failed to stop Saddam Hussein's drive to
build instruments of mass murder. It has allowed him to play a
repeated game of expelling UNSCOM inspection teams which
included Americans, and has left Saddam completely free for the
past year to fashion nuclear and chemical weapons of mass
destruction.
I am here to plead that from now on we all must work
together, to learn from past mistakes, and to make the Security
Council a more efficient and effective tool for international
peace and security. But candor compels that I reiterate this
warning: the American people will never accept the claims of
the United Nations to be the ``sole source of legitimacy on the
use of force'' in the world.
But, some may respond: the U.S. Senate ratified the U.N.
Charter fifty years ago. Yes, but in doing so we did not cede
one syllable of American sovereignty to the United Nations.
Under our system, when international treaties are ratified,
they simply become domestic U.S. law. As such, they carry no
greater or lesser weight than any other domestic U.S. law.
Treaty obligations can be superseded by a simple act of
Congress. This was the intentional design of our founding
fathers, who cautioned against entering into ``entangling
alliances.''
Thus, when the United States joins a treaty organization,
it holds no legal authority over us. We abide by our treaty
obligations because they are the domestic law of our land, and
because our elected leaders have judged that the agreement
serves our national interest. But no treaty or law can ever
supersede the one document that all Americans hold sacred: The
U.S. Constitution.
The American people do not want the United Nations to
become an ``entangling alliance.'' That is why Americans look
with alarm at U.N. claims to a monopoly on international moral
legitimacy. They see this as a threat to the God-given freedoms
of the American people, a claim of political authority over
America and its elected leaders without their consent.
The effort to establish a United Nations International
Criminal Court is a case-in-point. Consider: the Rome Treaty
purports to hold American citizens under its jurisdiction--even
when the United States has neither signed nor ratified the
treaty. In other words, it claims sovereign authority over
American citizens without their consent. How can the nations of
the world imagine for one instant that Americans will stand by
and allow such a power-grab to take place?
The Court's supporters argue that Americans should be
willing to sacrifice some of their sovereignty for the noble
cause of international justice. International law did not
defeat Hitler, nor did it win the Cold War. What stopped the
Nazi march across Europe, and the Communist march across the
world, was the principled projection of power by the world's
great democracies. And that principled projection of force is
the only thing that will ensure the peace and security of the
world in the future.
More often than not, ``international law'' has been used as
a make-believe justification for hindering the march of
freedom. When Ronald Reagan sent American servicemen into
harm's way to liberate Grenada from the hands of a communist
dictatorship, the U.N. General Assembly responded by voting to
condemn the action of the elected President of the United
States as a violation of international law--and, I am obliged
to add, they did so by a larger majority than when Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan was condemned by the same General
Assembly!
Similarly, the U.S. effort to overthrow Nicaragua's
Communist dictatorship (by supporting Nicaragua's freedom
fighters and mining Nicaragua's harbors) was declared by the
World Court as a violation of international law.
Most recently, we learn that the chief prosecutor of the
Yugoslav War Crimes Tribunal has compiled a report on possible
NATO war crimes during the Kosovo campaign. At first, the
prosecutor declared that it is fully within the scope of her
authority to indict NATO pilots and commanders. When news of
her report leaked, she back pedaled.
She realized, I am sure, that any attempt to indict NATO
commanders would be the death knell for the International
Criminal Court. But the very fact that she explored this
possibility at all brings to light all that is wrong with this
brave new world of global justice, which proposes a system in
which independent prosecutors and judges, answerable to no
state or institution, have unfettered power to sit in judgment
of the foreign policy decisions of Western democracies.
No U.N. institution--not the Security Council, not the
Yugoslav tribunal, not a future ICC--is competent to judge the
foreign policy and national security decisions of the United
States. American courts routinely refuse cases where they are
asked to sit in judgment of our government's national security
decisions, stating that they are not competent to judge such
decisions. If we do not submit our national security decisions
to the judgment of a Court of the United States, why would
Americans submit them to the judgment of an International
Criminal Court, a continent away, comprised of mostly foreign
judges elected by an international body made up of the
membership of the U.N. General Assembly?
Americans distrust concepts like the International Criminal
Court, and claims by the U.N. to be the ``sole source of
legitimacy'' for the use of force, because Americans have a
profound distrust of accumulated power. Our founding fathers
created a government founded on a system of checks and
balances, and dispersal of power.
In his 1962 classic, Capitalism and Freedom, the Nobel-
prize winning economist Milton Friedman rightly declared:
[G]overnment power must be dispersed. If government
is to exercise power, better in the county than in the
state, better in the state than in Washington.
[Because] if I do not like what my local community
does, I can move to another local community . . . [and]
if I do not like what my state does, I can move to
another. [But] if I do not like what Washington
imposes, I have few alternatives in this world of
jealous nations.
Forty years later, as the U.N. seeks to impose its utopian
vision of ``international law'' on Americans, we can add this
question: Where do we go when we don't like the ``laws'' of the
world?
Today, while our friends in Europe concede more and more
power upwards to supra-national institutions like the European
Union, Americans are heading in precisely the opposite
direction.
America is in a process of reducing centralized power by
taking more and more authority that had been amassed by the
Federal government in Washington and referring it to the
individual states where it rightly belongs.
This is why Americans reject the idea of a sovereign United
Nations that presumes to be the source of legitimacy for the
United States Government's policies, foreign or domestic. There
is only one source of legitimacy of the American government's
policies--and that is the consent of the American people.
If the United Nations is to survive into the 21st century,
it must recognize its limitations. The demands of the United
States have not changed much since Henry Cabot Lodge laid out
his conditions for joining the League of Nations 80 years ago:
Americans want to ensure that the United States of America
remains the sole judge of its own internal affairs, that the
United Nations is not allowed to restrict the individual rights
of U.S. citizens, and that the United States retains sole
authority over the deployment of United States forces around
the world.
This is what Americans ask of the United Nations; it is
what Americans expect of the United Nations. A United Nations
that focuses on helping sovereign states work together is worth
keeping; a United Nations that insists on trying to impose a
utopian vision on America and the world will collapse under its
own weight.
If the United Nations respects the sovereign rights of the
American people, and serves them as an effective tool of
diplomacy, it will earn and deserve their respect and support.
But a United Nations that seeks to impose its presumed
authority on the American people without their consent begs for
confrontation and, I want to be candid, eventual U.S.
withdrawal.
Thank you very much.
FIELD HEARING ON IMPLEMENTATION OF UNITED NATIONS REFORM
______
FRIDAY, JANUARY 21, 2000
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
New York, NY.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:15 p.m. at the
offices of the Bar Association of New York, 42 West 44th
Street, Grand Hall, New York, New York, Hon. Jesse A. Helms,
chairman of the committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Helms, Hagel, Grams, Biden, and Feingold.
Also Present: Senator Warner.
The Chairman. It is a little strange for a southerner to
say this in New York City, but the committee will come to
order, and we are glad to hear from the president of this
distinguished organization, Mr. Michael Cooper, who is
president of the Association of the Bar. Mr. Cooper.
STATEMENT OF MICHAEL COOPER, PRESIDENT, BAR ASSOCIATION OF NEW
YORK
Mr. Cooper. Thank you, Senator Helms. It is a great honor
for us to have you and the other distinguished members of the
committee on Foreign Relations here today, and also to have as
our guests delegates to the United Nations and other members of
the diplomatic community.
This is the first time in the 130 years of this association
that a committee of the U.S. Senate has met here. We are
honored that you are meeting here today, and we believe it is
singularly appropriate that you do so, because the association
has long had a concern with the United Nations and its
relations with the United States as a member Nation.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, sir. I believe you said it is 138
years?
Mr. Cooper. 130 years, 1870.
The Chairman. I believe Strom Thurmond was here at the last
one. [Laughter.]
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much, sir.
This field hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee will
come to order today, as I say, and our purpose today is to
examine prospects for improving the United Nations' financial
position.
Now, never before, as indicated, has this committee, the
Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate, visited as a
group an international institution, and I hope the Senators
will consider it enlightening, and that the United Nations will
regard this visit as a sign of our desire for a new beginning
in the U.S.-U.N. relationship. And, while on that point, our
first witness is going to be the distinguished Ambassador to
the United Nations, Mr. Richard Holbrooke; and I want to
commend him and all the members of his staff who have worked so
diligently, and many long hours, and they do not pay overtime,
to make this a good meeting.
We have two panels to explore the U.N.'s reform efforts and
American interest at the United Nations. First, the U.S.
Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Mr. Holbrooke,
will testify and respond to inquiries, aided by his assistant
for management and reform, Ambassador Donald Hays, who has been
squiring me around for the last 48 hours.
On the second panel we will have John Bolton, a long-time
friend of ours, Senior Vice President of the American
Enterprise Institute and former Assistant Secretary of State
for International Organization Affairs; and Edward Luck,
Executive Director of the Center for the Study of International
Organizations, affiliated with the New York University Law
School and Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School.
They will discuss the U.N.'s proper role and peacekeeping
activities, and later, after the formal hearing, and we recess,
we will hear from the Under Secretary General for Management,
Joseph Connor, and the Special Advisor to the Secretary
General, John Ruggie.
Now, before Ambassador Holbrooke begins, I turn to my good
friend, cohort, and the distinguished Ranking Member of the
Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Biden of Delaware.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Helms follows:]
Prepared Statement of Chairman Helms
I want to thank the President of the Association of the
Bar, Michael Cooper, for providing this stately room for a
hearing.
This Field Hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee will
come to order and our purpose today is to examine prospects for
improving the United Nations financial position.
The American taxpayers feel that the U.N. lives and
breathes on the hard-earned money of working Americans.
They resent comments made here in New York suggesting that
the United States is a ``deadbeat.'' They are aware that the
majority of the U.N. members routinely vote against the U.S.
position in the General Assembly.
They read and hear in the news that, despite all the human
rights abuses taking place in dictatorships across the globe, a
U.N. ``Special Rapporteur'' sometime back decided that the most
important task on his agenda was to investigate human rights
violations in the U.S. He did an investigation of sorts and
confirmed a feeling that he had to begin with--that the U.S.
Human rights record was found wanting.
The American people have heard all of this and they have
grown increasingly irritated.
As for the ``deadbeat'' charge, I asked the General
Accounting Office to assess just how much the American
taxpayers contributed to the United Nations in 1999 (last
year). The GAO reported to me that in 1999, the American people
contributed a total of more than $1.4 billion dollars to the
U.N. system in assessments and voluntary contributions.
The American taxpayers spent an additional eight billion,
seven hundred and seventy nine million dollars from the U.S.
military budget to support various U.N. resolutions and
peacekeeping operations around the world. So, last year (1999)
alone, the American people furnished Ten Billion, One Hundred
and Seventy Nine Million Dollars to support the work of the
United Nations. No other nation on earth comes anywhere close
to matching that amount paid to the U.N.
When the distinguished Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was
first elected, several of us on this Committee decided to try
to establish a working relationship, the result being the
Helms-Biden law, which the President finally got around to
signing into law this past November.
The product of three years of negotiations and hard-fought
compromises, it was approved by the U.S. Senate by a 98-1
margin. Congress has written a check to the United Nations for
$926 million, payable upon the implementation of previously
agreed-upon common-sense reforms.
So, we will address three subjects at this hearing. First,
we will hear how reforms required by the Helms-Biden law are
being implemented, including most notably, a sweeping
readjustment of the scale of member nations financial
contributions, in the spirit of burden-sharing.
Second, we will look at how reform can be carried forward
in the regular course of business at the U.N. reforms need to
be sustained by constant monitoring and the measurement of
success throughout the U.N. system. Redundancy in that system
must be reined in; for instance, in Guatemala, there are 18
different U.N. programs in operation.
Third, with reforms launched and arrears paid, we can then
turn to the subject of promoting U.S. interests on policy
matters at the U.N.
Never before has the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as
a group, visited an international institution. I hope Senators
will consider it enlightening, and that the U.N. will regard
this visit as a sign of our desire for a new beginning in the
U.S.-U.N. relationship.
We have scheduled two panels to explore U.N. reform efforts
and American interests at the U.N. First, the U.S. Permanent
Representative to the U.N., Richard Holbrooke, will testify and
respond to queries aided by his assistant for management and
reform, Ambassador Donald Hays.
On the second panel, we will hear from John Bolton, Senior
Vice President of the American Enterprise Institute and former
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization
Affairs--and from Edward Luck, Executive Director of the Center
for the Study of International Organization, affiliated with
the New York University Law School and Princeton's Woodrow
Wilson School. They will discuss the U.N.'s proper role and
peacekeeping activities with them.
Later, after the formal hearing recesses, we will hear from
the Under-Secretary General for Management, Joseph Connor, and
the Special Advisor to the Secretary General, John Ruggie.
Before Ambassador Holbrooke testifies, I turn to the
distinguished ranking member, Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Well, Mr. Chairman, I thank you. I thought
the president was going to move your admission to the New York
Bar. Having attended law school in the State of New York, I
always thought I would be spending more time here than in my
home State, and it turned out, fortunately for the bar, I went
home, but it is an honor to be here.
Let me just say that as a lawyer and member of the bar I
consider this one of the most distinguished and honored
organizations in the country, and I appreciate the opportunity
to be here.
But Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you. You and I have
worked long and hard, with your leadership, to breach an
impasse that began to, I think, impact on the security
interests of the United States of America, and that is the
impasse reached over whether we could reach an accommodation on
funding requirements of the United States to the U.N.
The fact that I was pushing that idea for a long time came
as no surprise, and was not, quite frankly, of much relevance.
The fact that you decided that this was an important
undertaking was incredibly relevant, because you have and do
represent and are the most respected and outspoken voice in the
Senate on matters that reflect a more conservative point of
view.
The United Nations has never been the darling of certain
sectors of our political environment, and your leadership has
been significant. It is a term that is overused, but I do think
that it is a start, not merely because it is the first time in
130-plus years there has been a committee to ever hold a
hearing here, but I think--I have been in the U.S. Senate--you
and I came the same day, on the same year, were sworn in at the
same time, 1972.
I imagine we have had field hearings somewhere else, but if
we have I do not know where, and I do not remember having any
in this city, and your discussion and frank appraisal of your
point of view with the U.N. Security Council yesterday, I think
quite frankly benefited everyone.
You and I, as we both know, as close friends, we may
disagree on how much of a threat to our sovereignty the United
Nations is--I think it is not a threat at all. I understand
your point of view. We disagreed on a number of things. I did
not think we should have as many conditions, and you did not
think we should have as much money, but we worked it out.
We worked it out, and hopefully this is the beginning of a
new chapter in U.S.-U.N. relations. But I just want to say for
the record it is because of your willingness to take the steps
you have taken, and they have been significant, and I will end
where I began. When I saw you this morning for the first time
since Christmas, and I said, this was vintage Jesse Helms.
By that, I mean that you did not trim your sails at all in
terms of what your ideological point of view was, but what you
did was, you commanded the stage and you changed the dialog and
you changed the form, and that is what I meant by vintage Jesse
Helms, and for that I thank you. I can think of no two people
who are more independent and move to the sound of their own
drummers more than you and the Ambassador before us, who I
consider a very close personal friend.
The idea that--I think you are becoming the--I used to say
that Strom Thurmond and I were the ultimate odd couple in the
Senate, because we like each other so much. Well, I think they
are going to start talking about Holbrooke and Helms, or Helms
and Holbrooke as the ultimate odd couple, but I am glad you are
both in the positions you are in, and I want to again thank you
and thank the bar for your hospitality today.
The Chairman. Well said, Joe.
Now, Mr. Ambassador, it is up to you, and thank you for all
you have done.
STATEMENT OF AMBASSADOR RICHARD C. HOLBROOKE, UNITED STATES
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS, ACCOMPANIED BY
HON. DONALD HAYS, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS FOR
UNITED NATIONS MANAGEMENT AND REFORM, NEW YORK, N.Y.
Ambassador Holbrooke. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Biden, Senator Warner, Senator Hagel, Senator Grams, Senator
Feingold. I want to welcome you to my home town. I look forward
to visiting yours next month, Mr. Chairman, and then after that
we can compare who has the better restaurants and nicer hotels,
but I am glad that you are back in the city. I hope I am not
revealing--
Senator Biden. You did not say compare hospitality. You may
lose on that one.
Ambassador Holbrooke [continuing]. I will lose that, but I
hope I am not betraying a confidence when I say, welcome back
to the city you spent your honeymoon in, with your wife and
your daughters. [Laughter.]
I think the audience misunderstood me. I understand that
you spent your honeymoon with your wife, but she is back here
with you today, and that is what I meant. [Laughter.]
The Chairman. I am glad about both times, to tell you the
truth.
Ambassador Holbrooke. So I also want to especially pay
tribute to the fact that not just one but the two most
important committee chairman dealing with our national security
are here today, and my special appreciation, as always, to
Senator Warner, who presented me to your committee for
confirmation, and whose friendship and advice I treasure
profoundly.
I am accompanied today by, as you so kindly put it, most of
our team, but particularly, sitting right behind me, Ambassador
Don Hays, one of the really strongest experts in management in
the State Department who your and Senator Grams' speedy
confirmation has permitted us to make great inroads on the
management issue.
I would also like to note that Assistant Secretary of State
Barbara Larkin is here with us from Washington, who you all
know so well, and behind me are a very considerable number of
Ambassadors from the U.N. who, apparently having enjoyed the
remarkable lunch we just had, decided to come downtown to keep
going.
I have a prepared statement, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Ambassador, let us have the visiting
Ambassadors stand, if they will. Will the General Assembly of
the United Nations be in order. [Laughter.] [Applause.]
Ambassador Holbrooke. So I see all continents are
represented back there, and I am just delighted.
Mr. Chairman, I have a prepared statement which I would
like to submit for the record and then just make a few general
remarks, if I might.
The Chairman. Very well.
Ambassador Holbrooke. You just used the phrase, a new
beginning, Senator Biden just used the phrase, a new chapter,
and here we are in the first month of a new century. Yesterday,
in this remarkable and unprecedented meeting with the Security
Council, at least four or five Ambassadors publicly used the
word historic, so if they did, let me at least quote them and
say that I think that we did something remarkable here and,
like Senator Biden, I want to thank you for leading the
committee here.
For the benefit of the audience, I should also say that a
very large number of Senators on this committee who could not
be here called and asked to be remembered. They all understood
the importance of this event.
And I would like to put into the record my own feelings
about the last 2 days. First of all, a special tribute to Irwin
Belk from North Carolina, a public member of the U.S.
delegation of the General Assembly, who is from North Carolina,
and who has played an indispensable role in making this happen,
and will be our host tonight at another unprecedented event, a
reception in honor of the committee and the Security Council, a
joint reception dinner.
Second, simply to try to clarify what I think is happening
here--and I say I think, Mr. Chairman, because it is a work in
progress--if you look back over the history of the United
Nations since the end of the cold war, we can already see three
distinct phases. In the first phase, from the fall of the
Berlin Wall through the next 3 or 4 years, I think there was an
overextension of U.N. peacekeeping without its mandates being
clearly defined. It got overextended. It ran into horrendous
problems in three places very quickly, sequentially, Somalia in
1993, Rwanda in 1994, and Bosnia in 1992 to 1995.
That catastrophe, which cost countless lives, millions of
lives lost on two continents, a tremendous amount of money,
also led to the inevitable departure of the incumbent Secretary
General of the U.N. at the time, a withdrawal from peacekeeping
by the United Nations, a withdrawal of the United States from
involvement with the United Nations, which your committee
reflected, and which was symbolized to me by a very personal
incident.
When the Dayton peace talks began in November 1995, the
U.N. called us up and asked if they could have a representative
present, and it took me just about 1 nanosecond to tell them
they were not welcome at Dayton. We did not want the U.N. at
Dayton, they did not deserve to be there, they would have
mucked it up, and we went on and did the Dayton peace
agreements without the U.N.; it was a pretty low point.
That was phase 1, and phase 2. Phase 1, an involvement
which was not thought out, phase 2, a withdrawal.
We are now clearly in a third phase, a phase in which,
under your leadership, the United States has made available to
the U.N. $926 million toward the arrears, while continuing to
make tremendous contributions in other areas. We were always,
even at the height of the arrears crisis, which is now well
behind us, we were always the largest contributor to the U.N.
We were never a dead-beat. I noticed you mentioned that
yesterday. I want to assure you that no member of the State
Department ever used that phrase. Many of your colleagues
brought it up with me last fall. It may have been used by some
private citizen, or some outside observer, but we were never
dead-beats. We were the largest contributor even when we were
in arrears.
But you and Senator Biden and your colleagues solved that,
and put on it some benchmarks which are controversial, but let
us look at the record. We have already fulfilled three of them,
three big ones. Some of the others are quite--we had already
fulfilled.
Secretary Albright and I have worked very hard to work with
the Congress on this issue. She has worked in capitals and I
have worked in New York on these issues.
Senator Grams and his staff have been in constant touch
with Ambassador Hays and myself on every detail, and as a
result of this I think the United States position at the U.N.
was already improving prior to your arrival in New York
yesterday.
Now, it is too early to tell the full impact of your trip
to New York. This is a work in progress, and I told Nightline
last night it was half-time. Now it is sort of the third
quarter, but I think it is clear, by the reaction of the U.N.
and the extraordinary fact that so many of my cherished
colleagues have come here to see you again, this is a--I looked
back here and I saw instantly--I do not want to insult anybody.
I saw Australia, Mexico, other major countries are
represented here by their Ambassadors, and many missions are
represented by people just below the Ambassador level. It is
clear that the message has gotten through, and the message is
clear. You have made it clear you are not anti-U.N. You have a
view of the United Nations, and you want the U.N. to succeed on
your terms, and just as your committee has a range of views, it
is now, I think, going to be much better understood by the
Ambassadors.
And I want to say to the people who were not at lunch that
they should have seen Ambassador after Ambassador lining up to
meet every one of the Senators and unanimously saying, I may
not agree with everything you said, but your trip here is a
break-through and we appreciate it, and we now understand more
clearly what the Helms-Biden bill is all about. This lays a
much better basis, Mr. Chairman, for the actual work of
promoting American foreign policy through the U.N.
Now, I would sum up the U.N. in three words, from an
American point of view. Flawed, but indispensable. It is hard
to imagine, as Senator Biden said earlier to day, it is hard to
imagine the world today being better off if the U.N. did not
exist, and yet it is simultaneously impossible to dispute the
fact that the United Nations, for a lot of bureaucratic
reasons, political reasons, leadership reasons in the past,
prior to Secretary General Kofi Annan taking over, can be
vastly improved, and that is what we are doing, and that is
what your presence here today will advance.
I know you have a vast agenda of specific issues you want
to cover, substantive policy issues which I will withhold for
the questions and answers, but I do want to say that if you
talk about a new beginning, if Senator Biden talks about a new
chapter, if dozens of Permanent Representatives talk about
historic, I speak for both Secretary Albright and myself, we
are proud to be part of the process.
One last thing, Mr. Chairman. I have heard rumors this is
an election year, and I think that we should all note that it
is even more remarkable and important that we are meeting in
the first month of a year in which we will choose a new
President and a majority of the Members of Congress. I hope the
world understands the message here, that politics goes on, but
we are knitting together the core of a bipartisan foreign
policy within which there are significant disagreements,
significant. You and Senator Biden have aired them publicly
many times.
But the world should see what is going on here, and your
coming to New York and then inviting the Security Council to
come to Washington is a most remarkable statement, and I thank
you for it on behalf of the President, with whom I talked the
day before yesterday, President Clinton was extremely pleased
at this hearing, and asked to be remembered to the committee--
and on behalf of Secretary Albright, with whom Barbara Larkin
talked just a few moments ago.
So I thank you very much for doing this for us, and I am
ready to respond to any questions that you and your committee
and Senator Warner may have.
[The prepared statement of Ambassador Holbrooke follows:]
Prepared Statement of Ambassador Holbrooke
Mr. Chairman, Senators: thank you for this opportunity to
appear before your committee today. I would like to welcome all
of you to New York. I am deeply honored to be the lead witness
in this unprecedented ``field hearing'' of your committee, and
look forward to discussing with all of you how, together, we
can move forward to advance U.S. interests at the United
Nations, and make the U.N. a more effective institution.
As I stated during my confirmation hearings last June, and
expressed again the last time I had the privilege to appear
before you in November, I believe that close consultations with
the Congress are essential. U.S. national interests are best
served when the Executive Branch and Congress work in a
bipartisan spirit. I particularly appreciate the close
relationship that has developed between members of this
committee and myself and my team here in New York. Your trip
here is only a beginning for an enhanced partnership between
the committee and the U.S. mission to the U.N., as well as for
the U.S.-UN relationship overall.
Since the passage of the Helms-Biden legislation three
months ago, the United States' relationship with the United
Nations has undergone a dramatic, critical transformation. Mr.
Chairman, yesterday's Security Council meeting, and today's
special ``field hearing,'' opens a new beginning for the U.S.-
U.N. relations. As we heard from many of my fellow Permanent
Representatives yesterday, for the U.N. to succeed, American
leadership is essential. To my mind, there is no better example
of the imperative for American leadership in the U.N. than this
month's focus on Africa. Already, we've placed a new security
focus on the scourge of AIDS and its effects on fomenting
instability, addressed the plight of refugees and IDPs, pressed
for peace in Angola and heard from former President Mandela on
his vision for reconciliation in Burundi. And this weekend,
seven presidents from states involved in the Congo conflict
will come to New York for Monday's Security Council meeting on
the next steps for peace there. Secretary Albright will preside
over Monday's meeting, and negotiations will continue
throughout the week.
Mr. Chairman, I'd like to echo something you said yesterday
during your historic speech in the Security Council: All of
us--the Clinton Administration, the Congress, and most
important, the American people--want the United Nations to
succeed. Your committee's presence here in New York symbolizes
our agreement on one essential point: that the U.N., despite
its significant flaws, remains a vital tool for advancing U.S.
national security interests. As they might say downtown from
here, on Wall Street, the U.N. is ``net-net'' for the United
States. If the U.N. did not exist, we would have to invent it.
This fact is clear today around the globe. During the past
five months, I have been to every major arena of current U.N.
activity--Bosnia and Kosovo, East Timor, and Africa. I have
seen first-hand the critical role the U.N. plays in each of
these places: helping rebuild Bosnia and Kosovo and assisting
their people in regaining a sense of normalcy and dignity;
maintaining stability and supporting the rehabilitation process
in East Timor; and sheltering refugees and feeding the hungry
in desperate places like Angola. These are vital tasks that no
single nation could--nor should--do on its own.
The U.N. also remains essential to addressing problems that
threaten the interests of every U.N. member--problems like
environmental degradation, terrorism, arms proliferation, and
the scourge of diseases like AIDS.
And finally, the U.N. plays a critical political role in
advancing freedom and democracy. At the beginning of the 20th
century, there were only a handful of countries with
governments elected by the people (and there were none elected
on the basis of universal suffrage). Now, at the beginning of
the 21st century, there are over 100 countries with
democratically elected governments. The U.N. has played a vital
part in making this true. Mr. Chairman, as you reminded us
yesterday, these ideals--freedom of speech and faith; rule of
law, not force; and government of the people, by the people,
and for the people--are not just U.N. ideals, these are
inalienable, fundamental American ideals and having the U.N.
work toward them is in America's interest.
That being said, we cannot, we will not, turn a blind-eye
to the U.N.'s significant problems and inefficiencies Those
U.N. supporters who regard criticism of the U.N. as criticism
of the idea of the U.N. are profoundly mistaken. Those of us
who care about the U.N. and believe in its great potential--
those of us like you, Mr. Chairman, President Clinton,
Secretary Albright and myself, along with most members of
Congress, and every member of this committee--have an
obligation to be honest and acknowledge that in many ways, the
U.N. system is flawed. We owe it to ourselves and we owe it to
this organization. Since I first appeared before you during my
confirmation hearings, I have been clear that U.N. reform would
be my highest sustained priority. I intend to keep it that way.
Mr Chairman, this meeting speaks volumes about our shared
commitment to address these flaws and help the U.N. work
better. Only two months ago, we made an important step in this
direction: the Congress passed the landmark Helms-Biden
legislation. With this accomplishment, we have started moving
forward to tackle the tough reform issues. As Secretary General
Annan himself has noted, and as several members of the Security
Council repeated yesterday, U.N. reform is a ``process'' not an
event--and there is no doubt that the reform process will be
arduous.
That is why we are so grateful for this committee's support
and that of your colleagues in the Congress. Coming to New
York, joining us here at the United Nations and having the
opportunity to meet with representatives of our fellow member
nations, helps provide a sense of the immense challenge we all
face. It is imperative that we build a broad coalition of
members in support of a positive reform agenda. For our part, I
am fortunate to have as part of my team the indefatigable
Ambassador Don Hays, who has already met with over 80 of our
fellow Permanent Representatives to discuss our reform
objectives.
Mr. Chairman, our reform agenda at the U.N. is designed, as
you put it in your speech yesterday, to strengthen the U.N.'s
ability to serve the purpose for which it was created. This
agenda includes meaningful structural reforms such as those
outlined in the Helms-Biden legislation, including progress in
results based budgeting, better program evaluation and sunset
provisions. We also insist that the U.N. adheres to budget
discipline--and this year, following some difficult
negotiations, we succeeded in getting the U.N. to maintain a
stable budget. Last fall, the United States finally returned to
its rightful place on the U.N.'s expert committee on the
budget, the ACABQ. We're also insisting that the scale of
assessments process is made more equitable, and have launched a
comprehensive strategy to overhaul the scale to reflect 21st
century realities.
Mr. Chairman, let me be clear: when we insist that the U.N.
create a better management system; when we insist for sunset
clauses for committees that are now irrelevant (like the
Committee on Decolonization); when we insist for reform of the
personnel system and for more transparency; when we insist that
the U.N. get its act together on peacekeeping, we do so to
strengthen the U.N.--not weaken it. At times, we have honest
disagreements with the U.N. But that does not diminish our
fundamental commitment to the U.N. and what it stands for--
common solutions to common problems. Fifteen years ago,
President Reagan expressed a sentiment that I believe remains
true today: ``We believe in the United Nations and what it
symbolizes,'' he said. ``We have never stopped believing in its
possibilities, and we've never stopped taking the United
Nations seriously.''
But taking the U.N. seriously means helping it become more
effective--a more organized, more streamlined, more efficient
organization, one that is better equipped to deal with the
unique and daunting challenges of the 21st century. It is
toward these ends that I look forward to working with you in
the coming year.
Again, thank you for affording me this opportunity to be
with you here today.
The Chairman. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. I
suggest we have maybe 6 minutes.
My first question is, to reach a budget of $2.536 billion,
the General Assembly cut expenditures in general temporary
assistance, consultants, and travel. At the same time, the
account for peacekeeping increased and the number of temporary
positions charged to extrabudgetary funds increased, and that
leads me to ask the question, how much of the regular budget
was simply transferred to the other accounts?
Ambassador Holbrooke. Mr. Chairman, the extrabudgetary
positions are temporary, as I understand it. I am not familiar
with every detail of this issue at this moment. I can submit an
answer in writing, if you wish.
The Chairman. Sure. It is a little unfair to ask a question
like that, but I do want it for the record of this committee
meeting.
The United Nations has undertaken several new ambitious
peacekeeping missions, plans to expand several others, and is
considering several new ones. Now, in my mind, if the U.S.
temporarily details military personnel, that is, so-called
gratis personnel, to the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping, it
will make peacekeeping operations more effective and help
prevent the hiring of more permanent United Nations, shall we
say, bureaucrats.
Now, what impact has the elimination of gratis personnel
since 1997 had on the U.N.'s capacity to carry out its
peacekeeping responsibilities?
Ambassador Holbrooke. Well, I appreciate this question both
at its general and its specific level, because of all the many
important things that we deal with in our foreign policy,
directly or indirectly through the United Nations, I would say
that this is probably the most urgent issue, is peacekeeping,
although I would like permission to footnote the fact that we
are paying a great deal of attention this month to another
issue, AIDS in Africa, the spread of AIDS in Africa, which
Senator Feingold and I focused on during our trip last month.
But on this issue you raised on peacekeeping, as I
indicated in my opening remarks, we are entering a new phase of
the U.N.'s history in regard to peacekeeping in East Timor, in
Kosovo, and in Sierra Leone, and perhaps elsewhere, and the
U.N. will not get a third chance.
I mentioned the first two earlier, the involvement which
collapsed, the pull-back, now the U.N. has a second chance in
your committee, and the Armed Services Committee has been very
supportive in general and very constructive in its criticisms,
and I would note here that Senator Warner and you already had a
very important private colloquy on Kosovo with the Secretary
General and his people earlier on peacekeeping today.
Now, the U.N. will not get a third chance. If it blows it
this time, I cannot imagine that it is going to be given a
third chance, either by the American public or the world
community, and therefore we have got to get peacekeeping right.
The gratis personnel is an important part of that process.
I personally believe it was highly successful, and I believe
that the Secretary General's authority should be used to use
gratis personnel under the framework that was set out a couple
of years ago. This is one of the many issues on which I think
your trip will help. I think it will correct some
misunderstandings, and I think it is quite consistent with the
larger picture that we are here to develop today.
The Chairman. A good answer to a question that is of vital
importance.
Last month, the Security Council adopted a plan to create a
new arms inspection program in Iraq one year after UNSCOM was
shut down by Saddam Hussein. Now, the Secretary General is
having trouble getting the Security Council to agree to a chief
inspector. Two questions. Are you making undermining and
replacing Saddam Hussein a priority of the U.S. diplomacy at
the United Nations, and number 2, because they are related, are
you determined to fight off the increasingly popular notion in
the United Nations of loosening the sanctions on Saddam
Hussein?
Ambassador Holbrooke. My personal priorities would put the
removal of two people at the top of my list. You mentioned one.
The other one's name is Milosevic. I do not see how we can have
stability in either Europe or the Middle East as long as those
two men are in power.
My actual duties do not involve the efforts for a regime
change in Iraq, but I follow this issue closely. I met with the
Iraq opposition when they came to New York. You and I had a
private discussion on that, and I think we are in agreement.
On the question of the head of the sanctions regime, the
Secretary General was obligated under the U.N. Security Council
resolution to name somebody by last weekend, 5 days ago. He
told me, and I think he said to you it was the toughest
personnel decision he has ever confronted, and he made a
recommendation on schedule of Rolph Ekeus, who you all know is
a very distinguished Swedish diplomat who headed UNSCOM and is
currently the Swedish Ambassador in Washington.
Mr. Ekeus himself was not anxious to take the job. He
deserves to have an easier job than this, but he was willing to
respond to the call of the world.
Under the resolution, the Security Council needs to approve
this. Two-and-a-half members of the Security Council objected.
The half was not the key problem. The Russians objected and, I
regret to say, the French objected.
As you well know, the month of January, the United States
has the rotating presidency of the Security Council, so I am
currently the president of the Security Council, and in that
capacity I have an absolute legal obligation under the charter
to help solve this problem, which slightly limits my ability to
address it openly while trying to solve it privately.
But let me say this, Mr. Chairman. We have spent a great
deal of time on this. I read in the papers that I have not been
spending a lot of time on this because I am spending all my
time on Africa. Well, the fact is, this is the month of Africa
for the Security Council, we are emphasizing it, we did have
President Mandela here earlier in the week, we have got seven
African presidents arriving tomorrow.
This question of Iraq has been on our agenda every hour of
every day for the last month, and the situation as of this
moment, to the extent I feel it would be useful to talk about
it now, is very simple. The Secretary General made an excellent
recommendation after an immense amount of work. The United
States supports the Secretary General and commends him for his
efforts.
The Security Council is still considering Mr. Ekeus, but
there is no full agreement, which is required under the rules
of the Security Council, not entirely dissimilar, in some ways,
to a confirmation process in the Senate, with which we are both
familiar, except that it involves the Russians and other
countries, and I feel it is very wrong to have blocked Mr.
Ekeus, since he did a good job last time, and we have not stood
down our support of that recommendation.
It has not been withdrawn, and we are continuing to pursue
it, and meanwhile other names are being thrown in the hopper
and being discussed, but Rolf Ekeus is still the candidate of
the Secretary General, and now speaking very formally as the
president of the Security Council I will say we are still
seized with the problem and we have been meeting in private
sessions around the clock, and my deputy, Ambassador
Cunningham, is not here right now I think because he is working
on that very issue, in direct consultation with the Secretary
and Tom Pickering as we speak.
The Chairman. Very good.
Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Ambassador, the Helms-Biden legislation provides a
total of $926 million in back payments, but the U.N. claims the
United States owes $1.6 billion in arrears. For the record, can
you explain the difference, why the U.N. believes we owe $1.6
billion?
Ambassador Holbrooke. Senator Biden, I will let the U.N.
explain why they think we owe what they say we owe. That is up
to them. I will only say that the area in disagreement, so-
called contested arrears, is made up over a dozen different--
about $500 million is made up of over a dozen different
legislative and policy withholdings that accrued over the
years. Some result from a dispute over the taxation of U.S.
citizens. Others grew out of our legislation that capped the
U.S. contribution to peacekeeping. We will support the
legislative process and above all the Helms-Biden package, and
the U.N. may continue to say we owe them the money. Our
position is clear, as laid out in your legislation.
Senator Biden. And there is no space between the
administration's position on that and the Senate's position, is
that correct?
Ambassador Holbrooke. None whatsoever. Under oath before
your committee I said my highest sustained priority would be
implementation of the Helms-Biden package, and that is our
highest priority, and Senator Grams and Ambassador Hays and I
have had extensive discussions on this precise issue.
Senator Biden. One of the areas of confusion at the end of
this last, the first year of this Congress, which we recessed
prior to Thanksgiving, was whether or not the passage of Helms-
Biden solved the issue of losing our vote in the General
Assembly, and that is that failure to pay our dues, our current
dues, which come to about--for 1999 come to about $300 million,
whether or not the passage of Helms-Biden solved that problem,
and my understanding is that we have essentially put down $50
million toward that.
In addition, there is about $250 million, in what we call
in the Senate the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill,
which has become part of this big omnibus bill that we are
about to deal with when we get back. But is our understanding
correct that once that $250 million is freed up, which is
separate and apart from the Helms-Biden piece, that the whole
issue of our ``losing our vote in the General Assembly'' is
moot, is over?
Ambassador Holbrooke. It is a little bit too early for my
colleagues to work out exactly what will be needed to ``avoid
losing our vote in the General Assembly.'' We avoided losing it
last year by about $40 million, but if we fulfill your
benchmarks and work with people, including Joe Connor, who you
will hear from later this afternoon, we will succeed in
preventing that event.
Senator Biden. Well, one last question. Again this is--I
know we know the answers to this, but I want to make sure we
are clear on the record. The Helms-Biden bill requires a
reduction in our assessment to 20 percent. Now, is that
impossible to obtain, in your view, or is that possible to
obtain?
Ambassador Holbrooke. We will fulfill the scale of
assessment revision as laid out in the bill. It is certainly
the most difficult of your benchmarks, but it is achievable, as
you have formulated it in last year's bill. It requires,
however, the deep understanding and collaborative efforts with
many members of the United Nations, some of whose
representatives are behind us today, most notably the chairman
of the Fifth Committee, Ambassador Penny Wensley from
Australia.
And I want to pay tribute to her for her extraordinary
shepherding of the budget through the last cycle, almost a
solid week of 1-hour-a-night sleep, around-the-clock meetings
until 4 or 5 in the morning. Our team was there, too, and she
got it through, and we will look to her for leadership.
The scale of assessments was last really revised in 1973.
Since then, 56 nations have joined the U.N. Some countries have
gotten richer, some have gotten poorer. There are countries
that want to lower their rates. We are not the only ones that
want to lower our assessment rate, and some have told me
privately they are ready to raise their rate of assessment if
it is part of an equitable package.
We have hired outside consultants to do computer runs. We
are talking to Governments and capitals, and here in New York.
I will be traveling to other countries, starting in a few
weeks, to talk this over. It is going to be tough, Senator
Biden, but I absolutely believe it is possible, because in the
end the actual dollar amount involved to go to the required
rate under the legislation is only $39 million in the budget.
It is not as much as people think.
So we are talking a lot about symbolism, and I do not
believe that the member States of the United Nations, who all
care about it and who, as you heard first-hand today and
yesterday, want American leadership, are going to oppose
working with us on this issue, provided one thing, and this is
critical. This issue cannot be divorced from our policies
themselves, and it is the engagement of the United States in
pursuit of our national interests and global stability and
democracy that is critical here.
It is our support of the policies in East Timor, and
support of our brave Australian and Philippine allies, and our
efforts in Sierra Leone and Kosovo and Bosnia and elsewhere,
that have to go hand-in-hand. We cannot separate substance from
management reform once Helms-Biden was passed.
Until then, they were separate, for obvious reasons. It is
a whole new ball game now, Mr. Chairman and Senator. With the
passage of your bill, we are able finally to work toward an
integrated policy, and I am so touched that so many Ambassadors
came here today, because these are the people we work with, and
by being here in the room, they are indicating to you that
while they do not agree with everything that we do, they want
to work with us, and so we are going to make--as I told you
during the confirmation hearings, this is our top sustained
priority, and Secretary Albright is also working on it. Every
trip she makes, she always includes this as part of her
efforts.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, 10 seconds to conclude. There
is a provision that we have in there that we have got to get
this down to 22 percent, and then down to 20. If you cannot get
it from 22 to 20, there is the ability for the Secretary to
waive the condition to get it done. I would expect that you
would be able to do this. That is our hope and intention, but I
did want you to know there is--I know you know this, but to
know there is some flexibility. We do want to work with this,
and I think it is time we reassess not just our position but
other nations' positions.
Ambassador Holbrooke. I well appreciate that, and I would
just make one additional footnote, and that is that in the
final analysis I believe that it is imperative that whatever
our rate, we remain the largest contributor to the U.N. It
would not be explicable if the world's richest nation, at the
apogee of its economic power, its moral leadership, its
cultural dominance in the world, to say nothing of our military
preponderance, were to somehow not take the lead, and over and
over again, on issue after issue, the most recent example being
Vice President Gore's extraordinary appearance last week in New
York on AIDS in Africa, when he announced that he and the
administration would come to the Congress with a request for an
increase, immediately, other countries, led by Japan, came
forward and said they, too, will increase. American leadership,
which is not simply rhetoric, is critical here.
So Senator Biden, I completely understand your question. I
just want to put a footnote down. I would not want to mislead
the committee. I think it would not be explicable to the world
if we were second to any other country.
Now, that is a specific reference to one country, Japan.
Japan pays about 19 percent right now, and they are pretty
upset about the fact. They feel they got a pretty raw deal in
the U.N. because they are not on the Security Council, and so
on and so forth. Well, that is a separate issue, but the
Japanese will have a major problem with their equivalent of the
Helms-Biden package, and by the way, Mr. Chairman, you have
your equivalent in the Japanese Diet now. They have been
watching you, and they have got a committee which is starting
to talk about the budget, and I met with them here in New York,
and you are their role model. [Laughter.]
Ambassador Holbrooke. And they talk to me about the
Japanese Helms-Biden, so we have to be very, very clear about
this one subplot.
Other than that, we will get there, Mr. Chairman, Senator
Biden.
The Chairman. Japan, stay tuned.
Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Maybe our next
field hearing will be in Tokyo, Mr. Chairman. [Laughter.]
Senator Hagel. Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your
hospitality.
I would like to build on for a moment to what Senator Biden
was focusing on. As we all know, the United Nations was formed
50 years ago to deal with the great challenges of our time. It
was to be a relevant organization to deal with those
challenges. I have heard much today, we have over the last
couple of years, about United Nations peacekeeping
responsibilities.
My question, Mr. Ambassador, is this. Peacekeeping is about
more resources, about manpower, about leadership, about
commitment, and about money. At a time when Western
democracies' defense budgets are going down, ours, after a long
period of decline, is starting to go up.
Are we going to shift resources in the United Nations away
from other activities to deal with the added expenses of the
peacekeeping commitments? You mentioned Bosnia, Kosovo, East
Timor--we are talking about Africa, we are talking about so
many areas of the world that need our help.
If we are not going to shift resources within the United
Nations to deal with the additional resources needed for the
peacekeeping efforts, then where do those additional resources
come from? Will they come from increased dues, or perhaps less
U.N. activity across the board? I would be very appreciative,
Mr. Ambassador, if you could reflect on that in as many ways
and specific terms as you can.
Ambassador Holbrooke. Well, your question, Senator Hagel,
goes to the heart of what we think the U.N.'s role is in our
national security. In some cases the U.N. has been an abysmal
failure. We mentioned the three most dramatic cases earlier. In
other cases, the U.N. has succeeded. Those of you who were in
the Security Council yesterday heard one country say that the
U.N.'s peacekeeping operations had succeeded in a peaceful
transition to democracy.
I would submit that the activities of the Security Council
and the U.N. from about Labor Day on of last year in East Timor
were also successful, although the previous 20 years were not,
so I believe that peacekeeping is a case-by-case issue. We
cannot make a blanket judgment in which we become the world's
policeman, and at the same time we have to look at each issue
on its merits and say, is there something where the United
Nations, supported by the U.S., can make a difference?
Because the U.N. is only its member States; it is a
bureaucracy, and that building on the East River is not what
the U.N. is. They carry out what the member States tell them
to, sometimes not to our liking, mine very much so. I am very
unhappy with the U.N. Secretariat, as they all know, but they
carry out our will, and this is a case-by-case basis.
Sierra Leone is going to be on the table now, and the
choice is very stark in Sierra Leone. Either vote a manageable
increase in the U.N. peacekeepers, or risk a real bloodbath, in
a country which has had some terrible scenes.
I was in Minneapolis last year with Senator Grams, and we
visited the Center for the Victims of Torture, and a lot of
them were from Sierra Leone, and to see them, and then to sit
in the U.N. Security Council and recognize that your vote could
affect whether it happens again or not is a legitimate and
important question.
Now, there are no American troops involved in this. Either
way, no Americans will be involved, but it will cost some
money. Now, your question goes to the issue of fungibility.
These are case-by-case issues in which under our laws we will
have to notify you before we can formally approve these
Security Council resolutions, and for better or worse, the
Congress will get at least one notification in the not-too-
distant future, in my view, and that will be Sierra Leone.
And I will be happy to come back down to Washington and ask
you to consider that on its merits. It's not going to be an
excessive amount of money and the alternatives, it seems to me,
are much worse, but it is not fungible, Senator Hagel, in the
sense that we are going to take money out of UNICEF or the
World Food Program. It has to go through this separate process.
Senator Hagel. Well, with the remaining couple of moments I
have, Mr. Ambassador, thank you. You understand the point of
the question, because the American public pays the taxes and
pays our portion of the United Nations funding. I think the
public is occasionally confused by the U.N. role, and what its
role will continue to be. I think occasionally we are all a
little too glib in throwing around peacekeeping terminology
when the American public wonders what that means. You are
exactly right, the United Nations does not have a standing
army; it comes from the United States and Britain and France,
and all of the member States.
But at a time, again I say, when defense budgets in those
democracies are going down, except in the United States, if we
project out 10 years, those projections become clearer and
clearer that more resources are going to be needed. I do not
expect you to have the answer now, but we will obviously talk
more about it in the next year. I am concerned about where the
funds will come from and, as we have said all day today, the
worst thing we can do is fail.
The worst thing we can do is give the world a high
expectation that we will come to the rescue of the United
Nations and member states of the United Nations, and in fact
not fulfill the commitment that we have made.
Ambassador Holbrooke. I quite agree, Senator, and these are
very tough problems. You and I both saw the U.N. spending $5
million a day in Bosnia in the early nineties, and a previous
administration in the early 1970's voluntarily took the U.S.
contribution peacekeeping up to 30 percent. The Helms-Biden
package takes it back down to 25 percent.
Not everyone in the U.N. is happy about that, but you were
quite right to do it. 30 percent is an excessive percentage,
and we are going to work for that.
Meanwhile, we will have to deal with the real crises, and
some of these are very unpleasant, but I think--I hope I am not
sounding overly optimistic, because that is not my style in
regard to these issues, but I think that the pressure we are
putting on--for example, this deliberate, protracted delay we
have put on the consideration of peacekeeping in certain parts
of Africa because we do not think that the peacekeeping office
has got a clear, coherent plan yet, we have been holding that
up for 3 months now, and we are getting, even while we are
supporting a priority for Africa, we have been attacked by some
of the Africans for delay. I do not apologize for that.
I told the Presidents--Senator Feingold was with me, in
fact, in Harare when President Mugabe turned to us and said,
you are preventing peacekeeping, and Senator Feingold and I
said, you are right, we are, because we are not comfortable
yet. Senator Feingold spoke very eloquently to that issue.
But now we have to deal with it. It is an extraordinarily
difficult problem.
Senator Hagel. Thank you.
Senator Feingold. Ambassador, let me first congratulate you
on the wonderful use you are making of our American presidency
of the Security Council this month. It is very productive, and
of course I particularly appreciate the emphasis on Africa.
But turning quickly back to the conditions and the reform
issue, would you talk a little bit about the reaction of the
other member States of the U.N. to U.S. calls for reform? I am
a little concerned that some apparently regard the reform
discussion as associated with a United States-driven or
western-driven agenda, and I am terribly concerned about the
devastating impact that corruption has on social and economic
development abroad, as well as my interest in it in our own
country where we have problems with that as well.
So I wonder if you would comment on the issue of
transparency and oversight, and the problem of it being cast in
a political light, in the context of the U.N.
Ambassador Holbrooke. You are talking about within the U.N.
system?
Senator Feingold. I am, yes.
Ambassador Holbrooke. I am very concerned about this. We
have worked very closely with the Office of the Inspector
General. We have been urging a quick replacement for Mr.
Paschke, who has left the post.
But the basic answer to your question, Senator, is that
everything changed when the bill was passed. You asked about
American leverage. It is a whole new ball game once we are
sitting there with an actual set of checks in our hand and we
say to Joe Connor, who has just arrived in the room, here is
the money, but you have got to--there are certain strings that
are attached to it, and I would say, Senator, that the whole
mood has changed. People who would not talk about the
benchmarks until the passage of the bill are now willing to
discuss them.
And again, the very fact that so many distinguished
Ambassadors are here today--I see that the Ambassador from
Britain has just arrived, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, is indication
of the new mood that has been created by the passage of the
bill and now by your presence here today.
Senator Feingold. I am pleased to hear that turn-around has
occurred, but I do know that the Secretary General has publicly
complained about micro management from dozens of different
member States that can lead to sort of a paralysis with regard
to various initiatives.
Do you think that the U.S. reform agenda needs to be better
coordinated with the initiatives of other States?
Ambassador Holbrooke. Perhaps so, but when we see an
abuse--there are three or four that we are working on right
now, which we are concerned with--I will go direct to the
Secretary General in private, as any other member State has the
right to. Sometimes we work closely together. I have been
working with Sir Jeremy in a couple of areas where we share a
common concern, but not always. The British Ambassador and the
American ambassador can disagree.
We will work with them when we can, but we will speak
unilaterally for the United States when we must. The goal is
the same in every case. There are still inefficiencies in the
system. They are everywhere. You can see them. It is not just
the U.N. Almost any large bureaucracy has it. Oversight is not
as strong in the United Nations, as particularly some of the
other agencies it has been, but I do want to say one thing.
I think the current Secretary General is doing an excellent
job. I think that Kofi Annan is a remarkable international
public servant. I was particularly gratified that he changed
his schedule today to accompany you to the lunch, Mr. Chairman,
and to participate. That is a very powerful signal to all 185
nations of the United Nations, when the Secretary General and
the president of the General Assembly, who is from Namibia,
walk in with you, and I would like to be clear that my
criticisms of the Secretariat and the bureaucracy, which are
much stronger in private than I am expressing them here today,
in no way are a criticism of Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Senator Feingold. Ambassador, we have talked about
peacekeeping, and you know that I have on occasion voted
against initiatives that would send U.S. troops abroad to
address a crisis that I think in some cases would be better
handled by regional leaders and sometimes regional forces, and
you know that when we were in Africa, in virtually every
country I wanted to hear about that issue in speaking to the
presidents of the 10 African countries.
With an eye toward the issue of burden-sharing, I would
like to hear a little bit more about the state of relations
between the United Nations and regional organizations like the
OAU and the OAS with regard to burden-sharing.
Ambassador Holbrooke. In general, I think we would always
prefer to put regional organizations forward first. In Europe,
the OSCE, for example. I would rather see the OSCE deal with an
issue than the United Nations, quite frankly. It is a smaller
organization. It is more manageable. It has a mere 52 members
instead of more than triple that at the U.N.
The Organization of African Unity has a critical role to
play in almost all the crises of Africa, Ethiopia, Eritrea,
Burundi, where Nelson Mandela is desperately trying to prevent
a major blood bath, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone,
and the Congo.
In East Timor, it is slightly more complicated because
ASEAN does not want to be regarded that way, but it was
basically what Senator Helms called in his speech yesterday a
de facto coalition of the world led by our wonderful Australian
allies, and I think it is extremely important to recognize this
issue. The Australians have been with us in every war in this
century, always. I cannot think of a better ally we have ever
had in this century.
And the Filipinos, who next week will replace the
Australians as the commanders of the East Timor force, with the
Australians becoming deputies, have also been with us
throughout this century, and I would hope that this committee
and the Senate would support our support of that effort. There
are no U.S. troops under U.N. command, but we need to show our
support for Australia and the Philippines and stability in this
critical part of the world in Southeast Asia.
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. I would say that regarding the next Senator,
Senator Grams from Minnesota, that he probably ranks as one of
the most conscientious Senators working on detail, and he spent
a long time, a lot of time at and with the United Nations, and
you are next, sir.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
appreciate that. I have a statement I would like to have
entered into the record as if read.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Senator Grams. First a couple of comments, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, I am pleased that the U.N. reform package that we
worked so hard to draft was finally signed into law last year,
and that the ball is now out of our hands and into the U.N.'s
court. We are entering a new phase, as you have mentioned, as
the chairman has mentioned, in our relations with the United
Nations, one which I am confident and hopeful will be less
adversarial, and I think that this hearing is going to go a
long way to underscore that change in tone.
The Foreign Relations Committee may be tough on the
shortcomings of the United Nations, but we are fair, and we are
sincere in trying to make this a more effective and an
accountable organization. I think we are all working to reform
the U.N. in order to ensure that it can rise to meet the
potential that it has in this century, and as Secretary General
Annan has noted, and I quote the Secretary General, he said, a
reformed United Nations will be a more relevant United Nations
in the eyes of the world.
Now, while the desire for reform at the U.N. is widely
held, the role of the United States in shaping that effort
remains a matter of contention. Now, after having twice served
as a congressional delegate to the United Nations, I am well
aware of a lot of resistance to the benchmarks that are not due
to the reforms, maybe, themselves, but to the fact that they
are being proposed by the United States, and I hope these
feelings will be put aside so that there can be a substantive
debate on the merits of the reforms which the U.S. is
proposing.
Again, as I said, the ball is now in the court of the U.N.
It may decide the reforms are too onerous, and forgo the $926
million Congress has authorized and appropriated to pay our
arrears, and I hope that will not be the case, and that would
mean the loss of a great opportunity to mend U.S.-U.N.
relations, in addition to improving the U.N. itself.
[The prepared statement of Senator Grams follows:]
Prepared Statement of Senator Grams
Mr. Chairman, I am pleased the U.N. reform package we
worked so hard to draft was finally signed into law, and that
the ball is out of our hands and in the U.N.'s court. We are
entering a new phase in our relations with the United Nations,
one which I am confident will be less adversarial. I think this
hearing will go far to underscore that change in tone. The
Foreign Relations Committee may be tough on the shortcomings of
the U.N., but we are fair. And we are sincere in trying to make
this a more effective and accountable organization.
Fifty-four years ago, as the members of the United Nation's
founding delegation met in San Francisco, there was great
anticipation and a collective enthusiasm for this new, global
institution. Delegates spoke of hope, of expectation, of the
promise of peace. President Truman echoed these sentiments,
telling the delegates they had, ``created a great instrument
for peace and security and human progress in the world.''
We are all working to reform the U.N. in order to ensure it
can rise to meet its potential in the next century. As
Secretary General Annan has noted, ``a reformed United Nations
will be a more relevant United Nations in the eyes of the
world.'' And in this age, being relevant means that the great
powers, including the United States, consider the U.N. to be a
powerful tool in their foreign policy arsenal. We must be able
to look to the United Nations as a helpful forum to resolve
conflicts and engage like-minded allies in joint action. To
this end, the United States must help shape the United Nations
to be an organization that the U.S. needs as much as the U.N.
needs the United States.
It is true that many Americans are not aware the
contributions the U.N. makes in less high profile areas then
child survival and disaster relief. For example, the U.N.
agencies that focus on technical cooperation play a crucial
role in establishing and coordinating international standards
for governments and businesses. However, none of these benefits
excuse the massive and uncoordinated growth of the United
Nations which was outlined by the Secretary General in the
introduction to his reform plan. Reform is necessary--not
because Congress wants it, but to ensure the U.N. does not
collapse under the weight of its own inefficiency.
While the desire for reform at the U.N. is widely held, the
role of the United States in shaping that effort remains a
matter of contention. Having twice served as a Congressional
Delegate to the U.N., I am well aware that a lot of the
resistance to the benchmarks are not due to the reforms
themselves, but to the fact they are being proposed by the
United States. I hope those feelings will be put aside so there
can be a substantive debate on the merits of the reforms which
the United States is proposing. For the ball is now in the
U.N.'s court. It may decide the reforms are too onerous, and
forgo the $926 million Congress has authorized and appropriated
to pay our arrears. That would mean the loss of a great
opportunity to mend U.S.-U.N. relations, in addition to
improving the U.N. itself.
So while we are all here to celebrate the passage of the
U.N. reform package and the payment of the arrears it is
important to keep this new era in U.S.-U.N. relations in
perspective. Shortly after the Helms-Biden package was signed
into law, the U.N. approved a budget which is $2 million over a
no-growth budget. While I am concerned this will cause the
creation of new arrears just as we are settling the old ones, I
am even more concerned about the message this sends to the
United States. In a budget of $2.533 billion, there is no
reason to have an overage of $2 million--unless it is a slap at
the United States. Indeed, the U.N.'s outgoing Inspector
General Karl Paschke said the U.N. could cut $55 million from
its budget if it would follow his recommendations.
And I am very concerned one of our greatest reform
achievements to date, an independent Inspector Generals office,
has been jeopardized by the appointment of the Under-Secretary
General for Legal Affairs to serve as the temporary head of the
OIOS. On its face, it would seem difficult to maintain OIOS'
operational independence if the head of OIOS is responsible for
providing legal support and advice to U.N. offices he is also
auditing, investigating or evaluating.
While I look forward to discussing the status of U.N.
reform efforts, and the prospects for reform in the future, I
would also like to take a look at the bigger picture of whether
the U.N. is moving to impose norms which are anathema to many
Americans. For example, a proposed protocol to the U.N.
Convention on Transnational Organized Crime, supported by the
Clinton Administration, would change the definition of sexual
``trafficking'' in women and girls to include only those who
are explicitly forced into prostitution, not those who have
been coerced. Religious conservatives and prominent feminists
have joined in opposition to this move. These are the kind of
actions by the U.N. which lead to the disintegration of support
by the American people.
I strongly believe that the U.N. is an important forum for
debate between member states and a vehicle for joint action
when warranted. However, the U.N. must endorse reforms that
provide transparency and accountability so it can be embraced
as an asset instead of viewed by some as a threat.
Senator Grams. Ambassador Holbrooke, just a couple of brief
questions dealing with African peacekeeping. Given your
decision to devote a month to Africa on the Security Council, I
was wondering if you would reflect on the ability and the
wisdom of the U.N. embarking on a nontraditional peacekeeping
operation on that continent.
Now, while it is easy to see the potential role of peace
keepers in border conflicts, like the one between Ethiopia and
Eritrea, it is more difficult in the situation of Congo, so Mr.
Ambassador, what is the precise mission of this proposed
operation?
Ambassador Holbrooke. Thank you, Senator. I also want to
echo Chairman Helms' comments about you. This is at least the
third time you and I have met in New York on these issues, and
you have really carved out a special role as our most closely
watching watch dog, and I greatly appreciate it.
One comment before I address the question of the Congo.
Your opening comments seem to imply that a reform proposed by
the United States breeds some resentment because it comes from
us. That may have been true when you were a delegate here, or
earlier last year when the arrears issue was so red hot, but I
think if you think back to that lunch, or this remarkable
display of U.N. ambassadors here, if they were resentful I do
not think they would be in this room. The Ambassadors are here
to learn what your views are, and to help them work with us. I
have not seen any resentment directed to us simply because we
are Americans. Plenty of Ambassadors disagree with us violently
on issues, but that is how it should work.
I was warned about this by many people, including members
of my own staff. I just have not seen it, and I do not think we
saw any of it yesterday, Mr. Chairman. I do not think we saw it
today. But I am not disputing the fact that it is a widely held
perception. I just do not see it. This is a very generous set
of people and repeatedly, as Ambassador Greenstock and
Ambassador Choudry of Bangladesh, and Ambassador Hasmi of
Malaysia said yesterday to Chairman Helms, and in fact in one
way or another, every one of the 14 Ambassadors in that room,
including those from countries not known for their closeness to
Chairman Helms, said, they want American leadership.
Now to your specific point on the Congo. I know of no more
difficult issue that I have had to deal with in my career than
Congo. You use the phrase nontraditional. Well, very little in
this difficult and brave new world that the U.N. is trying is
traditional.
Kosovo is without precedent, as Senator Warner has already
made clear several times today, and I agree with what he has
been saying on that. Kosovo in fact is going to be the most
difficult of all the problems the U.N. is going to deal with
this year, including Congo.
East Timor is without precedent. East Timor will become the
fist new State of the 21st century, and the U.N. has been put
in charge of being midwife.
Kosovo is in an uncertain legal status, and the U.N.
Security Council is hotly disputing what the resolution number
1244 actually means. Two or three countries in the Security
Council say it means that Kosovo will always be part of
Yugoslavia. The United States and Great Britain and others say
that is not what it means, and as long as Milosevic is in
charge in Belgrade we cannot do it. We cannot do anything about
it anyway.
So when you talk about nontraditional and Africa, I would
just footnote we are in a world of extraordinary difficulties.
They only have one thing in common, Senator Grams, and this
includes Africa, East Timor, and the Balkans. They all stem
from unresolved issues of sovereignty that stem from the
breakup of empires and the drawing of boundaries in the latter
part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century
that caused enduring conflicts, and here we are in the 21st
century dealing with them.
They will not go away. They have sucked us in in various
places. Timor is the one that has gone the best. Kosovo is by
far the most complicated. Bosnia is doing pretty well, and
Congo, well, President Mugabe arrived in town as we are holding
this hearing from Zimbabwe. Seven presidents will be arriving
in town over this weekend. We start the debate Monday.
Secretary Albright, I am proud to say, will come to New York to
chair that terribly important Security Council meeting.
We have told the signatories to the Lusaka agreements that
if they will not implement their own agreement we cannot
support a peacekeeping effort. They have come here to reaffirm
Lusaka, to update it, to take into account time lines that have
shifted.
Again, I want to single out Senator Feingold, because every
step of the trip where this policy I am articulating was
formulated, Senator Feingold was with me in the room, speaking
separately for himself and for another branch, but with no
division.
Senator Frist, who could not be here today, was fully
briefed by the CIA and the Pentagon before the trip, and I have
been in constant touch with him. Congressman Paine, the Ranking
Minority on the House side, was here earlier in the week, and I
have been on the phone with Congressman Royce, Senator Frist's
counterpart in the House, and he is going to come up next week
to New York to participate in the debate, so we are going to
work with you closely, as we work with the African leaders.
It is much too early for me to predict where we are going,
but I certainly share your use of the word nontraditional, and
I hope to have your permission, Mr. Chairman, to report back to
you along with Secretary Albright on this important issue in a
couple of weeks.
Senator Grams. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
The Chairman. Senator John Warner is not a member of the
Foreign Relations Committee, but he does not have to be. Our
two committees, the Foreign Relations and the Armed Services
Committee, which he chairs, work together closely, as we
should. John Warner is a Senator's Senator, and I invited him,
I urged him, to come and be with us today. Senator Warner.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN WARNER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Senator Warner. I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. If I
may say, in total sincerity, the leadership that you have
shown, together with your distinguished colleague, the Ranking
Member, and our distinguished Ambassador, Ambassador Holbrooke,
you are a triumvirate that have made history. It is the right
time, a new millennium, it is a right start, and this world
cannot exist unless we as a family of nations, whether we are
large or small, or rich or poor, can sit down, as we are today
and yesterday, and address the tough decisions and provide as
best we can the leadership and the answers as to what is to be
done.
So I will nominate you here and now for Profiles in
Courage. Good luck.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Warner. Having said all that, yesterday Senator
Helms was very frank with his comments. Mr. Ambassador, you
have been very frank today, and I copied a sentence down. I
will speak this sentence on the floor of the Senate in the not-
distant future. You said, the United Nations will not get a
third chance in peacekeeping, and you enumerated the historical
context of that very profound and insightful observation.
Courageous.
You are among your peer group, and I say to you most
respectfully, and this is not a reflection on the organization,
certainly not the Secretary General with whom I spoke today,
and I told him the same thing I am about to provide you in the
form of a question. I just got back from the Balkan region a
few days ago--Kosovo and Bosnia. I have been there twice each
year almost since 1992. I have spent a lot of time, and my
committee has authorized enormous sums of money, close to $10
billion over this period of time, toward the United States
contribution to help end the human rights violations in that
area and helping the people.
I say to you most respectfully, Mr. Ambassador, the U.N. is
on the brink of failure, failure of the type that you said you
will not get another chance, and these are not just my
observations. They are the observations of the persons in the
U.N. that are working courageously in this region and the
military commanders of a number of nations. You know full well
the long list of problems that confront the U.N. It is a
challenge, and time is running out to fulfill that mission.
There are tens of thousands of brave young men and women
wearing uniforms of over 30 nations patrolling the streets, the
alleys, day and night. As we sit here in the warmth and the
comfort of this great city, they are exposed to everything, a
tremendous risk, and you know what our Nation suffered in
Somalia. That type of situation could happen any day, either in
Kosovo or Bosnia. The infrastructure needed to provide a
judicial system, the police that are needed not only for the
street crimes but for international crime--all of this is sadly
lacking, and the U.N. has not been able to fulfill in a timely
way its obligations.
The military performed with courage in prolonged battles at
great risk to life, and succeeded, and now they are holding
together--they are holding together a security blanket over
both of these nations. But beneath that security blanket,
particularly in Bosnia, are the most rapidly growing criminal
syndicates in the world today. As one U.N. official told me,
the best-organized thing in Bosnia today is organized crime,
and we have got to put a stop to that.
Now, it is one thing to make these observations, as tough
as it is for me in my great respect for you and others, but I
think that you have got to, together with the Secretary
General, elevate this decisionmaking--yes within the U.N. to
the top levels, but also involve the heads of State and
Government of the principal nations.
And second, you may have to consider a special assessment
to all nations to meet the financial needs. I mean, Pristina
does not even have enough power to operate the lamps in the
headquarters of the KFOR. So I urge you, what recommendations
can you provide this committee today by which we can begin to
have a timely fulfillment of the U.N. obligations, so that
eventually the troops of our Nation and other nations can
return home?
Ambassador Holbrooke. Mr. Chairman, I have no choice but to
agree with your assessment, because as you were in Kosovo, so
was my senior counselor for the issues, calling me every day
from rooms which had no heat, with one light dangling from his
office. The situation is--there may be some nuance differences,
but it is enormously valuable for you to draw national
attention, international attention to the fact that Kosovo is
in a perilous state.
I would differentiate, and I believe I understood you to be
differentiating between Kosovo and Bosnia. Bosnia may not be
going as fast as we want. I have been very publicly critical of
it, but it is on the right track, but moving too slowly. Kosovo
is a much more complicated situation, as we said earlier.
I agree with you about the crime. There was an
extraordinary--the only thing I am not sure about is whether
the crime is worse in Bosnia now than in Kosovo, but if it is,
do not worry, Kosovo will catch up if we do not get this thing
under control, particularly since it is linked in the situation
in Albania itself.
I agree with you about the infrastructure, but there is
only one thing you said I would like to kind of do a slight
calibration on, and it is actually not about the situation on
the ground. It is about who is responsible. You said, and I
quote, because I, too, take notes on what you said, that the
U.N. is on the brink of failure in Kosovo. If we are on the
brink of failure--
Senator Warner. --the entire region of the Balkans.
Ambassador Holbrooke. I accept that, but if we are on the
brink of failure, it is not the United Nations, it is the whole
system. We cannot simply say that we are going to solve this
through the U.N.
Now, parts of the problem are the U.N. responsibility.
Parts are the European Union responsibility. Let us be honest
in this room. Some of my colleagues will not want to hear this.
The power system in Kosovo was assigned to the European Union,
so I think we have got to be honest about this one. They let
the system collapse in the dead of winter. They are the reason
people are freezing right now in Kosovo, and they themselves
know it. I mean, I know I am going to get angry letters after
this, but this is what you saw on your trip, and this is what
my colleagues are reporting to me from freezing rooms.
Senator Warner. You are correct. I failed to say, the U.N.
and other international organizations. You are correct.
Ambassador Holbrooke. On the question of police, Secretary
General Annan responded to you by agreeing with you earlier
today, and I think the public record should reflect that he
said that the United States was the best contributor in police,
and he appreciated that, and he is very disturbed that we are
running behind.
And on the security side, that is a NATO responsibility, so
I think what you said is as important as anything else, Mr.
Chairman, we are going to discuss here today, which is a policy
of enormous importance, is not in as good shape as it should
be, and I know that Secretary Albright--she and I have talked
about this a great deal recently, as has Sandy Burger. We are
all aware of the fact that things are not going, in Kosovo, at
the pace that we had hoped at this point, but I can assure you
that it has high-level attention, and I am sure that Chairman
Warner's comments will increase that attention.
The Chairman. This concludes this panel. Mr. Ambassador,
you have been clear and responsive to all the questions, and I
appreciate that, and I appreciate all that you and your
associates have done to make this meeting and the earlier ones
possible, so thank you very much, and we will call the second
panel.
The second panel will proceed to the table, and I see that
our friend is setting it up. They understand that we are under
pressure of time. We will give the folks who are exiting the
auditorium a couple of minutes to do it, but if you will do so
as quietly as possible, we would like to proceed. We appreciate
the presence of everyone here this afternoon.
Panel Number 2 consists of two friends, and two experts,
and two Americans who I admire. Hon. John Bolton is Senior Vice
President of the American Enterprise Institute and former
Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization
Affairs in Washington, and Mr. Edward C. Luck is the Executive
Eirector of the Center for the Study of International
Organization, New York University School of Law, and the
Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University.
So I believe you understand the time restraints, and we
want to move along as rapidly as we can. Mr. Bolton, we will
first hear from you.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BOLTON, VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, FORMERLY ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AFFAIRS, WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Bolton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure to be here today to appear before you and other
members of the committee. I have a prepared statement I would
ask be entered into the record, which I will summarize.
The Chairman. Without objection, it will be done.
Mr. Bolton. Mr. Chairman, here in the United States, this
is really the third time in this century that we have had a
major debate on the role of the United States, the place of the
United States, among the nations of the world. What I would
like to do today is try to just take a few moments to move
beyond the precedent-setting Helms-Biden legislation and ask in
both a theoretical and a practical way, ``what comes next?''
It seems to me, Mr. Chairman, that there are basically
three broad priorities for the United States in any
international organization of which it is a member. The first
is preserving and protecting our constitutional decisionmaking
structures here in the United States.
The second is to defend and advance American interests in
those international organizations. Some may think that the
organizations are Platonic structures designed to create a more
perfect world. I view these organizations, instead, as places
where the United States advances its interests. The third broad
priority is maintaining American leadership while guarding
against the imposition of unfair burdens.
Now, Mr. Chairman, under those broad objectives, although
there are many specific priorities, I would name four, looking
ahead from today. First, I do not think there is much question
that the United Nations can be a potentially useful tool of
American foreign policy, but I would stress that it is not the
only tool, and generally not even the preferred tool, and I
think this goes centrally to questions of American national
security.
I think many people misread the lessons of the series of
United Nations resolutions that were adopted under President
Bush's leadership during the Persian Gulf crisis, that led to a
vast overreach by member nations of the U.N. in peacekeeping
operations. I think many of those lessons have been learned,
but Mr. Chairman, we have been faced, just within the past
year, by a very significant statement from the Secretary
General. He said it in several different ways. I would just
like to read one formulation of it.
In May of last year the Secretary General said, and I am
quoting now, ``unless the Security Council is restored to its
preeminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the use
of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy.'' I will
repeat his phrase. The Security Council was the ``sole source
of legitimacy on the use of force.''
Mr. Chairman, this statement is flatly wrong. I believe it
is a statement that is not supported by the U.N. Charter or by
international practice, and it certainly has little or no
support in the American body politic. I think it is a subject
appropriate for debate in the U.S. Senate, and I hope that you
will have a chance to do that.
The second priority is that when we do choose the United
Nations as a tool of our foreign policy interest, it is very
clear from the historical experience that the United States
must lead if the U.N. is to be successful. There is no
substitute for American leadership. There is no other nation,
there is no other combination of nations that can lead, nor, as
I think has already been said here today, can we expect the
Secretariat to lead. Indeed, I would go further. If the
Secretary General were leading, I think he would be
overstepping his bounds, and I think that would be a very bad
precedent.
Third, Mr. Chairman, while I am still in awe, quite
frankly, of the Helms-Biden bill and the ability of the Senate
and House to reach agreement on the arrearages question, I
think you were necessarily constrained because you are, after
all, members of the legislative branch. While I have no doubt
that the conditions that are part of the Helms-Biden
legislation will have a substantial and salutary effect, I do
not think, unfortunately, they ultimately really get to the
main problem, which is the enormous dysjunction in the U.N.
system between voting power on budget questions and the
contribution of financial resources. One nation, one vote on
budget issues is a system which is broken and cannot be fixed.
I think there are two alternatives. One is to move toward
what was once called the Kassebaum-Solomon approach of
basically $1, one vote, the other, the approach that I prefer,
is to move toward voluntary contributions. I think some of the
best-run U.N. agencies are funded voluntarily. I think that
competition among U.N. agencies to be better run and better
managed, and thus encourage more contributions from the United
States and other Governments, would be a good thing. I think we
have seen that voluntary contributions or systems of
replenishments, as in the international financial institutions,
can work effectively, and I think the more we talk about moving
toward a real system of fully voluntary contributions, the
better a 20 percent assessed American share will look.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, the fourth priority is to ensure
that in our use of international organizations they do not
assume governmental functions. You spoke at length yesterday
about the International Criminal Court. There are a number of
other examples of such institutions and treaties that are under
consideration or under debate. I think from the point of view
of American foreign policy, preventing the assumption of
governmental authority by international organizations has been
and should remain our highest priority.
I appreciate the opportunity to be here, Mr. Chairman, and
wish you and the committee good luck.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bolton follows:]
Prepared Statement of John R. Bolton
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, for
the opportunity to appear before you today at this field
hearing to testify about the appropriate role of the United
Nations and other international organizations. I will summarize
my prepared statement, which I ask be included in the record,
and would be pleased to answer any questions the Committee may
have.
introduction
For the third time in a century, the United States is
having a serious debate about its place among the nations of
the world. The first two of these debates (after World Wars I
and II) concerned proposed American participation in specific
international organizations (the League of Nations and the
United Nations, respectively), and touched only lightly on
larger issues. The ongoing third debate, by contrast, after the
successful conclusion of the Cold War concerns precisely these
larger issue of whether and to what extent America's freedom of
action internationally and its own internal governance--in
effect, its sovereignty and its constitutionalism--will be
constrained by international agreements and organizations.
Although the prevailing conventional wisdom is that America
was wrong to reject the League and right to embrace the U.N.,
these two debates and decisions were then and are still now
seen largely through the narrow lens of internationalism versus
isolationism. Today's debate has far greater implications for
the United States. It is more than a foreign policy debate
because it also involves basic answers to the fundamental
question: ``Who governs?''
overview
Whether the League of Nations could have prevented World
War II even with American membership is of mostly historical
interest, but there is no doubt that our membership in the
United Nations failed to prevent the Soviet Union from
launching the Cold War. Indeed, starting with the 1946 debate
over the withdrawal of Soviet troops from northern Iran, and
the first Soviet boycott of the Security Council, the U.N. was
the scene of many classic Cold War confrontations. Americans
still vividly remember Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev pounding
his shoe on his table in the General Assembly, or the display
in the Security Council of dramatic photographs of Soviet
missile facilities in Cuba in 1963.
There is near total agreement that the Cold War brought
gridlock to the Council, and rendered it largely (although not
totally) incapable of fulfilling its original mandate in the
U.N. Charter ``to maintain or restore international peace and
security.'' For the United States and its allies, the key
lesson was that the unrealistic promises of ``collective
security'' had failed yet again; strong political-military
alliances such as NATO and an independent American nuclear
deterrent replaced the increasingly hollow words of the U.N.
Charter both to protect our liberty and to prevent ``the
scourge of war.''
During the 1960's and 1970's, while the Security Council
remained largely frozen, anti-Western and anti-American
majorities in the General Assembly, egged on by the Soviets,
regularly and enthusiastically trashed our values and integrity
and assaulted our world leadership. They attacked our friends,
such as in the General Assembly's 1975 Resolution equating
Zionism with racism. They undermined economic freedom by
endorsing collectivist dreams to force a global redistribution
of wealth such as the ``New International Economic Order,''
often through the multifarious U.N. specialized agencies. And
all the while, the U.N. bureaucracy grew like a coral reef--no
planning, no management, no goals, yet apparently blessed with
eternal life. The U.N. had become, as Senator Daniel Moynihan
descried it, ``a dangerous place.''
By the mid-to-late 1980's however, the combination of a
much stronger U.S. defense and foreign policy posture and the
advent of ``new thinking'' in Soviet policy caused substantial
change in the possibilities for the United Nations. The U.N.
Secretary General helped negotiate a truce in the Iran-Iraq war
that helped protect oil supplies from disruption in the Persian
Gulf; free and fair elections were held in Namibia, leading it
out of apartheid and into independence; and the U.N. played a
constructive role in helping to end Cold War conflicts in
Afghanistan, Angola and Central America.
Most dramatically, in November, 1990, the Security Council
authorized the use of force to repel the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait, only the second time in the U.N.'s history (Korea being
the first) where the Council had acted along the lines
envisioned by the Charter's drafters. After the American-led
forces won the Persian Gulf War, the U.S. persuaded the Council
to take unprecedented steps to strip Iraq of its capabilities
in weapons of mass destruction, provide compensation to the
victims of its aggression, and maintain economic sanctions to
encourage Iraqis to remove Saddam Hussein from power.
The lesson seemed plain, for some at least: where there was
a vital U.S. interest at stake, and vigorous, persistent U.S.
leadership, the U.N. could play a useful role as an instrument
of U.S. foreign policy. However, many U.N. supporters
immediately drew a different conclusion, arguing that the
organization was now fully functional as envisioned in 1945.
This erroneous but widely shared misreading coincided with the
1992 election of President Clinton, whose central foreign
policy initiative was known as ``assertive multilateralism.''
This redirection from a perceived ``unilateralist'' impulse in
U.S. policy sought to channel more and more U.S. diplomacy
through the United Nations and its specialized and technical
agencies. Ambitious new ``peacekeeping'' activities were
launched in such places as Somalia, where the Clinton
Administration, though the U.N., tried its hand at ``nation
building.'' For the first time ever, the Security Council
created international war crimes tribunals for former
Yugoslavia and Rwanda, and urged the creation of a permanent
war-crimes court. Multilateral negotiations on environmental
matters and many other political, economic and social policy
questions previously thought to be of largely domestic concern,
were stepped up.
The Clinton Administration's ``assertive multilateralism,''
however, led directly to tragic failures in Somalia, political
ineffectiveness and military incompetence in Bosnia, and the
collapse of the post-Gulf War regime to weaken and isolate
Iraq. It led also to several ill-advised arms control
agreements, politically fashionable but militarily flawed
agreements such as the Landmines Convention, unprecedented and
far-reaching new international bodies such as the International
Criminal Court, and potentially catastrophic environmental
agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol. Even initiatives thought
buried in the 1980's re-emerged. The Law of the Sea Treaty was
revived, U.N. specialized agencies began reconsidering the
possibility of international regulatory roles, and new
proposals for international tax schemes to fund U.N. activities
(and thus to remove funding from the decisions of member
governments such as the United States) appeared.
the importance of international governance and organizations
Although the failures of U.N. peacekeeping have received
the most media and congressional attention, it is really the
broader treaty and policy manifestations of ``assertive
multilateralism'' that are the most troubling and have the most
profound implications for the United States. Of critical
importance here, we deal not with traditional ``alliances''
such as NATO, which have limited and clearly defined
objectives, but typically with organizations (and treaty
regimes) of ``universalist'' membership, whose core objectives
include membership for virtually every state.
America's interests in this broad arena are so diverse, and
the threats so numerous that policymakers and analysts can
often lose sight of the larger philosophical battle. There are,
to be sure, some vital areas where globally-based institutions
have and will continue to provide important venues for the
pursuit of American national interests, such as advancing free
trade and preventing international crime and terrorism. But
both within the United States, and especially in Europe, more
and more intense efforts are underway to constrain the roles in
international affairs of nation states in general, and to
constrain the United States in particular.
This is the battleground of the third fundamental debate in
a century about America's relations with other nations, and it
marks a significant change in the way Americans have to think
about foreign policy, at least, as we hope, if they intend to
maintain traditional concepts of constitutionalism and
independence. These fundamental American interests can be
described in three ways: (1) preserving our ability to make
critical policy decisions within the democratically-accountable
structures of the Constitution, and not losing this capability
to international organizations; (2) within those multilateral
organizations where we are members, preserving and enhancing
our political, military and economic national interests,
especially the one just mentioned; and (3) within such
organizations, maintaining an appropriate American leadership
role while safeguarding against unfair financial and other
burdens.
What happens or not in the U.N. and other international
organizations depends largely on critical political and
economic developments at national and regional levels. For
purposes of this analysis, their common importance stems from
their often-simultaneous implications for U.S. national
interests and sovereignty both in foreign policy and in
domestic affairs. It is this relatively new, shared context
that American decision-makers in the new century must bear
constantly in mind.
priorities for u.s. leadership
Within this framework, American key priorities in the
``international system'' should be:
1. Treat international organizations as potentially useful
tools of American foreign policy, not as the preferred (or
only) vehicle. Even within their increasingly apparent limits,
international organizations can play helpful roles in certain
foreign policy contexts to help advance U.S. interests. In the
Persian Gulf War, for example, the Security Council's
authorization to use force to repel the Iraqi invaders of
Kuwait was both an important political success, both
internationally and in the domestic effort to convince Congress
to do likewise. Nonetheless, it does not follow from the
Persian Gulf example that we should always or even frequently
invoke the Security Council when our vital interests are at
stake.
This logic is very much in doubt. In May, 1999, during the
air campaign over Yugoslavia, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan
insisted that ``unless the Security Council is restored to its
pre-eminent position as the sole source of legitimacy on the
use of force, we are on a dangerous path to anarchy.'' A few
months later, in his annual report to the U.N. membership, he
said that actions such as Kosovo, undertaken without Council
authorization, constitute threats to the ``very core of the
international security system.'' Both of these statements are
flatly incorrect. They are unsupported either by the language
and background of the U.N. Charter, or by over fifty years of
experience of the Charter's operation.
Nonetheless, substantial segments of ``the international
community'' and many Americans fully believe that the Clinton
Administration acted illegitimately or even ``illegally'' under
``international law'' in conducting military operations over
Yugoslavia without express authorization by the Security
Council. Within the next decade, we may well see other
conflicts where the United States must decide whether and when
to act, unilaterally or in concert with a few other countries,
without first obtaining ``approval'' by the Council. The
pattern of our behavior during this next decade, therefore,
might well determine whether Secretary General Annan proves
correct, or whether we maintain the capability for
independent--and, where necessary, unilateral military or other
action. As a matter of ``first, do no harm,'' if nothing else,
our policy in international organizations must preserve
America's independent capability for action to protect its
interests.
2. Where the United Nations or another international
organization is chosen as a tool of our policy, the United
States must be prepared to lead the organization to our
objectives. We have learned repeatedly that the U.N. as an
entity neither has, nor should it have, the capability for
independent action. It and other international organizations
function as the agents of their member governments, and no
more. Assuming these lessons as prerequisites, it follows that
we entrust responsibility for an important undertaking to the
U.N., the United States must understand that it alone has the
possibility to lead the effort to a successful conclusion. It
is unwise both as a matter of broad policy as well as
tactically to assume that someone else will have either our
best interests at heart, or our unique national assets
necessary to be effective.
Although there are many examples of this point, the most
important has undoubtedly been the fate of the U.N. Special
Commission on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (``UNSCOM'').
When the United States provided clear leadership, during both
the Bush and Clinton Administrations, technical support and
overall policy leadership, UNSCOM achieved significant progress
in eliminating Iraq's WMD capabilities. While far from perfect,
UNSCOM stood nearly unequaled as a non-military example of
international cooperation. When, however, the Clinton
Administration ceded our de facto leadership of UNSCOM to the
Secretary General, its effectiveness evaporated, and the entire
Iraq WMD-control regime collapsed. UNSCOM's failure proves
beyond dispute that if the United States is not prepared to
lead those ventures that it entrusts to international
organizations, it simply cannot count on them being protected
through difficult periods, or being implemented effectively in
calmer times.
3. Financing and governance structures in the U.N. system
must change so that American interests are better reflected.
Under the rubric of ``sovereign equality,'' voting in most U.N.
bodies reflects the ``one-nation-one-vote'' system. Simply as a
matter of mathematics, this approach typically puts the United
States at an enormous disadvantage. It did so during the Cold
War when the Communist bloc and the Non-Aligned Movement
(``NAM'') routinely outvoted the United States and a few close
friends on issue after issue. Even after Communism's demise
(and the consequent irrelevance of the NAM), these voting
patterns continued. Nowhere are they more important than in
financial decision making, since most U.N. agencies allocate
the monetary burdens of membership through purportedly
mandatory ``assessments,'' or percentages of each agency's
budget that members are ``required'' to remit annually. The
United States' share (derived under a complex and antiquated
formula) is typically twenty-five percent, easily the largest
share of any member government. The temptations for the minor
(indeed, tiny) contributors to increase agency budgets and
require the large contributors to meekly pay up has, over the
years, predictably proven completely irresistible. Indeed, many
Western countries, and even the United States itself, have
often shown a lack of budgetary discipline.
But the plain fact is that financial decision-making in the
U.N. is broken almost beyond repair. It is the enormous
disjunction between voting power and financial responsibility
that has caused so much of the dissatisfaction within Congress
that we see reflected in the withholding of U.S. assessments,
and the attendant creation of large ``arrearages'' which have
been the subject of so much recent debate. Instead of simply
acquiescing to demands that the U.S. ``pay up,'' or remaining
at loggerheads over the disputed amounts, potentially forever,
Congress has sought to impose a variety of conditions on the
payments both of the accumulated arrearages and the regular
assessments. Such legislative restrictions are, of course, the
only alternative for Congress, but we should also consider
steps that might be taken if a more realistic and hard-headed
President were to assume office in the near future.
The long-term solution to America's Gulliver-like position
in the U.N. system is either to change the one-nation-one-vote
approach on financial matters, or to replace the system of
assessments with voluntary contributions. Neither of these
alternatives will be easy, and both will require a long-term
commitment and considerable diplomatic effort. Indeed,
ultimately, neither may be obtainable. But if the United States
is unwilling to make a substantial effort, the present pattern
of dissatisfaction and frustration will simply continue
indefinitely, and, in short order, call into question the
utility of continuing our Sisyphean efforts at U.N. ``reform.''
4. Prevent the assumption of ``governmental'' authority by
international organizations. Since the end of the Cold War,
there has been considerable commentary and a commensurate level
of international activity to create new multilateral structures
and regulatory frameworks to constrain nation states. For
example, a variety of arms control agreements such as the
Chemical Weapons Convention and the Landmine Convention have
created new international norms and regulatory secretariats.
The Kyoto Protocol, if implemented, would result in profound
changes in the domestic policies of many signatories in the
field of energy policy and economic policy more generally. In
June, 1998, negotiators signed the Statute of Rome, which
created an new International Criminal Court with purported
jurisdiction over war crimes and crimes against humanity. In
Europe, the members of the European Union have been consciously
and deliberately ceding sovereign authority to the European
Commission in Brussels.
Several of these new agreements and structures have
required signatories to undertake changes of constitutional
dimensions in their domestic political arrangements, and many
have done so willingly. Indeed, many believe that there is a
global trend toward the disintegration of the nation-state,
reducing its autonomy and independence of action, in favor of
authority being transferred increasingly to multinational
bodies. The United States has, quite properly, not been a
participant in this exercise. What we can observe of its course
to date, however, demonstrates that inevitably accompanying the
trend toward integration is the loss of democratic
accountability, and the weakening of national constitutional
structures and protections without their replacement by
adequate substitutes. In countries, even in democracies, where
elite-driven politics are the norm, this pattern may be
acceptable, but it should not be acceptable to Americans.
International organizations and governance topics cut
across a wide range of regional and functional topics without
fitting comfortably into either. As such, they have often
received inadequate attention in both policy analysis and
decision making. While heretofore, the costs of relegated these
issues to a secondary role have not been enormous, that
calculus is changing. We can improve policy making considerably
simply by being more conscious of the precedent-setting effects
of foreign policy decisions that, in the long term, might
compromise American sovereignty. But much also depends on an
enhanced awareness in the post-Cold War era that America's
unique experience with constitutional democracy now faces a new
challenge, which we ignore at our peril.
The Chairman. Well, we are honored to have you here, and I
thank you. Mr. Luck.
STATEMENT OF EDWARD C. LUCK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR THE
STUDY OF INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL
OF LAW AND THE WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY,
NEW YORK, N.Y.
Mr. Luck. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I, too, would
like to submit my statement for the record and just note a few
key points now.
The Chairman. Absolutely, without objection.
Mr. Luck. First, I would like to join the others in
complimenting you on coming up to New York City. Sometimes we
have the impression that all of Washington is moving to New
York, and we consider this quite a compliment, and we are
pleased to see it is happening on a bipartisan basis as well.
Now, I would say, Mr. Chairman, that while I hope very much
that the bill that you and Senator Biden and others worked so
hard to bring about will offer a new era in U.S.-U.N.
relations, I must temper my optimism with five rather large
caveats.
First, whether the other member States will accept all of
these benchmarks and conditions is still an unknown. Second,
will other member States follow our example and start
withholding? Ambassador Holbrooke mentioned the problem with
the Japanese Diet. There could be others who do this for
reasons that might not be terribly friendly to our own
interests.
Third, I wonder whether future Congresses might say that
the U.S. got so many concessions from other member States by
this withholding, let us do it again, and for other conditions.
Maybe you have started a pattern, and maybe we will have many
chapters, not just one chapter, being opened now.
Fourth, I wonder if this is really going to help the
fundamental problem in U.N. reform, which is that the member
States simply do not agree on an agenda. There has been a fair
amount of movement in the Secretariat, but other member States,
as you know, are very resistant to being told what to do, or
otherwise we will withhold additional funding.
And finally, some of the provisions of your bill relate to
other U.N. agencies that are autonomous, that have their own
budgets, their own leadership, their own member States, and yet
the U.N. would be penalized if they do not follow the U.N.'s
example, and that, I think, could be a problem.
Now, where does this lead us? Let us assume that all of
this is accepted, that all of this moves in a positive
direction. I would suggest a six-point agenda of where we might
go from here on matters that are really fundamental.
First, and this is a chapter from Senator Hagel's book, is
the whole question of looking for a bipartisan approach. It is
very hard in our country right now for anyone to say that he or
she represents the views of all Americans. We are deeply
divided on these issues.
Now, maybe you succeeded in your legislation because there
was not a large public debate, but partly because of that, I do
not think that we have healed these divisions throughout the
public, and I believe there is a need for much more discussion
between right and left and between Republicans and Democrats on
these issues. We simply have to be able to speak with one voice
in international fora.
Second of all, Mr. Chairman, you pointed out one of the
right topics yesterday on the question of sovereignty. I would
agree much more with Senator Biden's approach. I do not think
our sovereignty is so threatened, but I do believe that this is
a fundamental issue that needs to be dealt with very seriously,
and I take your writings and comments on this with a great deal
of seriousness.
Third, I think we ought to recognize that multilateral
cooperation generally is burgeoning in field after field after
field, and all sorts of institutions and arrangements are being
created at the same time that we are squeezing the U.N.,
especially the central U.N.
It is like there is a very diverse, vague universe out
there, and the U.N. is a rather small piece of that. The
Secretary General has relatively little control over what is
happening more generally, so if you are worried about
sovereignty, if you are worried about such things, it may not
be in the U.N. Secretary General's control to do very much
about it.
And here I would disagree with John--it is very unusual
that I would ever disagree with him, of course--on the question
of voluntary funding, and I know, Mr. Chairman, that you have
written yourself that you favor most funding to be voluntary.
We are moving in that direction anyway, I believe somewhat
unfortunately, as the wealthier States pick and choose among
particular priorities, and particular programs that they care
about at the moment.
And what you end up with is most of the funding being
extrabudgetary, most of the funding in that way is not really
planned, it is not systematized. We have a lot of ad hoc-ery,
and that makes it very, very difficult if you are trying to
reform the system, because you do not really have control over
the money, and you cannot really plan in a systematic way what
is going to happen.
Now, added to this, I would say fourth, we have to pay more
attention to non-State actors. The U.N. was set up as the
quintessential intergovernmental body, but more and more of the
interesting things that are happening are outside of
Governments, and important things. So the question is, how do
you bring non-State actors into the dialog, how do you let them
have a voice without destroying the system and giving them a
vote? That very much remains to be seen.
Fifth, I would suggest that we need much more discussion
about how the international community goes about enforcing
decisions of the Security Council or of other bodies. Now, we
have heard some of the dilemmas about Kosovo. Well, we are
going to hear about those more and more in other places down
the road.
There is fundamental disagreement now about who should be
on the Security Council. A number of member States are even
challenging whether the veto ought to be kept, or whether there
ought to be many countries with the veto. Economic sanctions
are very controversial because of the humanitarian effects.
Military action is very difficult for the U.N. in any sensible
way to mount.
We have seen even this week a very divided Security
Council, and the harmony that we saw at the end of the cold war
has not lasted very long.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, let me suggest that we really need a
new modus vivendi between the United States and the other
member States. The old system is breaking down. The question
really is about power and decisionmaking. We may talk about
budgets, we may talk about reform, but fundamentally it is a
question of power within the system, and on the U.S. part we
have to decide whether we are ready or not to live within the
rules, to live within the system. Basically, I think your
legislation is saying no, we could not get what we wanted
through the system, so we did it our own way.
I think the other member States have to decide whether or
not they are ready to accommodate American power, because if
there is such a dysjunction that American power outside the
organization is not reflected inside the organization, that
could be very bad both for the U.S. and for the world
organization.
So with this, let me say that I think we ought to have a
new international political compact to go along with a new
domestic one. Thanks very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Luck follows:]
Prepared Statement of Edward C. Luck
Mr. Chairman, you and Ambassador Holbrooke should be
commended for transporting your distinguished Committee to New
York to see first hand the United Nations at work. For those of
us who have long fretted over the communication gaps between
Congress and the world body, we trust that you have managed to
trim at least a few miles from the seemingly endless distance
between New York and Washington. I am also pleased to see,
whatever our differences on the specifics, your continuing
effort to raise the public visibility of U.N. reform issues.
In my brief comments today, Mr. Chairman, I would like to
raise a few questions about the future of U.S.-U.N. relations
and the prospects for deeper U.N. reform. Now that the Helms-
Biden provisions have become law and the first payments on U.S.
arrears to the U.N. have been paid, there may be some reason
for tempered optimism, though with some very large caveats, as
follows:
First, there is no guarantee that the other U.N.
member states will accept the multiple conditions, or
benchmarks, for the second and third years of arrears
payments under the bill. Particularly onerous, in their
view, are the unilateral demands for a reduced U.S.
share of the regular budget and peacekeeping costs and
for setting aside more than one-third of U.S. arrears
in a contested arrears account. Others may well seek
off-setting concessions from us in return for bowing to
these demands.
Second, down the road other member states could
well follow our lead and begin to condition their U.N.
payments on various benchmarks that we find obnoxious.
Now that America's traditional adherence to the legal
standard that assessed contributions should be paid on
time, in full, and without conditions has been
abandoned, what will be the long-term consequences for
the integrity of the principle of collective
responsibility and for the viability of international
institutions?
Third, what lesson will future Congresses learn
from this episode: that the more they impose unilateral
withholdings, the more concessions the other U.N.
member states will make? Based on the current
precedent, will there be further rounds of withholdings
and acrimony in the years ahead, diverting attention
from the urgent task of finding a common platform for
building a stronger and more effective U.N. system?
Fourth, it is hardly coincidental that the
Secretary General has been far more forthcoming in
terms of initiating and implementing reforms than have
the other member states. Our unilateral withholding
tactics have been counterproductive in terms of
persuading other sovereign countries that the reforms
we seek can benefit their national interests as much as
our own. It should have come as no surprise that other
states have been reluctant to accept changes pressed on
them by publicly announced and unilaterally imposed
financial pressures. As a result, the progress on the
secretariat side has not been matched by inter-
governmental agreement on the more fundamental
questions of priority-setting and restructuring.
Fifth, we need to be careful not to mix apples and
oranges. The law would punish the central U.N. for the
sins of independent agencies, specifically the ILO,
FAO, and WHO, which have their own budgets,
memberships, and governing bodies. Likewise, we have
given the cause of U.N. reform a bad name--in the eyes
of others--by mixing needed improvements, such as
strengthening the inspector general system, adopting
sunset provisions, and increasing transparency and
accountability, with our understandable desire to
reduce our national payments to the world body.
Let me assure you, Mr. Chairman, that I am not calling for a
rollback of the legal provisions that you, Senator Biden,
Ambassador Holbrooke, and others have worked so hard to achieve
through the give-and-take process of legislative compromise.
The question at hand, however, is how do we proceed from
here? The first step, in my view, is for Americans of different
political persuasions to begin a serious dialogue on what kind
of a U.N. our nation wants and needs in this new century and on
what we are prepared to contribute to the realization of our
vision. For much of the past century, partisan and
Congressional-executive differences have left our nation with a
muffled and ambivalent voice in international fora. Hopefully
your efforts to build bipartisan support for the Helms-Biden
provisions will mark a turning point.
In twelve months, our nation will have a new President and
a new Congress. They will need to be vigilant in working with
the Secretary General on consolidating the management gains
that are underway. But they will also have the opportunity of
engaging the other member states in a more far-reaching review
of the functions, priorities, structures, and decision-making
processes of the world body. The member states are deeply
divided on these strategic matters, but they are also acutely
aware of the dangers of institutional drift and
marginalization. As much as they resent our withholdings, most
of them recognize that only renewed American leadership can
point the way toward a revitalization of the world body.
Over the past decade, while surface-level reforms absorbed
our attention, both the U.N. and the conditions in which it
operates were undergoing some fundamental changes without the
guidance of any blueprint or plan. Multilateral cooperation is
burgeoning in field after field, spurring the creation of
countless organizations and arrangements. Yet many of the most
consequential, such as the WTO, have been placed outside of the
U.N. system. We have insisted that the central U.N. contract
year after year in terms of staff, of real spending, and of
authority. Those who prefer voluntary to assessed
contributions--even for peacekeeping--have largely won the day.
The regular budget now covers less than one-fifth of U.N.
system-wide spending and extra-budgetary outlays far exceed
those that are assessed. More and more, the wealthier
countries--and even private donors such as Ted Turner--are
bypassing the regular budget process to fund unilaterally
selected program initiatives. As a result, ad hoc priority
setting is coming to replace coherent planning and truly
multilateral decision-making. Consequently, the pieces are
prospering and the center is fading.
At the same time, transnational non-state actors of all
kinds--NGOs, PVOs, research communities, the media, the private
sector, religious and ethnic movements, and the unsavory
elements of uncivil society--have been playing a larger and
larger role in shaping the choices and priorities of public
policy in a period of cheap and instantaneous global
communications. Most of these groups, moreover, act largely
beyond the jurisdiction and oversight either of national
governments or of the U.N. Given these trends, what hope does a
wounded United Nations have of taming this vast, undisciplined
universe of transnational organizations and arrangements, which
are composed of an ever-changing mix of governmental, semi-
governmental, and non-governmental actors? Nevertheless, the
Secretary General does his best to achieve greater coordination
within the U.N. system. But the larger picture is that the
world, and the multilateral system in its image, is
restructuring itself in ways that we barely comprehend, much
less control.
Perhaps this is as it should be: change without reform,
adaptation without planning. For a dominant power, like our
country, it may be just as well to let the pieces fall where
they may, to bend or ignore the old rules as circumstances
dictate, and to champion the virtues of ad hocism and
expediency in the name of realism and pragmatism. But the
price, at some unknown future juncture, may be greater than we
can imagine at this time of exceptional power and wealth. Half
a century from now, our children may well regret our lack of
foresight, our reluctance to try to consciously reshape the
system when we have the power, when we are in the driver's
seat. If not now, when will the time be ripe?
Mr. Chairman, though I have begun to explore these themes
in my recent book, Mixed Messages, I would not pretend to have
any quick, easy, or sure answers to the dilemmas and challenges
before this Committee and before the United Nations. But of two
things I am reasonably confident: one, that we will not be able
to get where we want to be by drifting and squabbling among
ourselves; and two, that we will not find the right answers
until we begin to pose the right questions.
Thank you, again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
raise these issues with you and with your distinguished
colleagues.
The Chairman. Very well. Thank you, sir.
Now then, Bertie and I are going to work out a little
timing situation here. We are going to give you 5 minutes for
each question, including the Chairman and Vice Chairman, but I
will have him put on the red light just briefly at the end of 4
minutes and then go back to green, and you have got 1 minute,
and then we will have to cut you off, because these folks want
to get home, and certainly I do, too. So if you will mind, no
preface, if you will just ask your questions and be done with
it, that will work out fine.
All right. Here we go. Have you got it, Bertie? Good.
Recently, Mr. Bolton, as you mentioned, Secretary General
Kofi Annan publicly proclaimed that only the United Nations
Security Council can legitimately authorize the use of force in
international affairs. Now, I came out of my chair when I read
that myself. Specifically he stated, and I am quoting, ``unless
the Security Council is restored to its preeminent position as
the sole source of legitimacy on the use of force, we are on
the path to anarchy.'' End of quote.
Now, I think the world of Kofi Annan, but I just wonder if
you think that his doctrine infringes on the sovereignty of
individual members of the United Nations to pursue policies
that are in their national interest.
Mr. Bolton. Well, to the extent that that view were to
prevail within the United Nations, I think it would be very
harmful to the United States. That has never been the view, to
my knowledge, of any American Secretary of State or Secretary
of Defense. It has never really been proclaimed, as far as I
know, by any other U.N. Secretary General.
I do not know what motivated the Secretary General to say
it. It is a flat and unequivocal remark, and I am constrained
to say just as flatly and unequivocally it is wrong. We should
reject it. We should say publicly that we reject it, and we
should make it clear that if that is his thinking, he ought to
think again.
The Chairman. Mr. Luck.
Mr. Luck. Well, I think there is a little bit of wiggle
room in the charter with Article 51, which recognizes the right
of self-defense of individual nations. I think the view he was
expressing is that of a purist on the U.N. Charter. I am not
sure I would always agree with John on this, but I do think in
fact over time we have seen member States interpret the charter
rather flexibly, and this is one of those places.
It obviously helps our international legitimacy if the
Security Council agrees and if other member States participate,
but I would not restrict American use of force simply to the
times the Council could agree, because we first had our
problems in the cold war, now we are having another set of
problems and differences on the council.
The Chairman. Maybe sometime we could have a debate on
that.
The second question is for you, sir. Many nations still
consider the United States a dead-beat Nation, even after
enacting a plan to pay $926 million to the United Nations, the
Helms-Biden bill, tied to long-discussed common-sense reforms.
Now, how can the United States be called a dead-beat when
it has contributed so much to U.N. peacekeeping operations and
military missions pursuant to Security Council resolutions, and
that amounts, John, to more than $8.7 billion, according to the
General Accounting Office.
Mr. Bolton. Well, I think that this impression that somehow
the United States' objections to payments for certain
obligations to which it has objected represent a breach of
faith by the United States with the organization, thus making
it a dead-beat, is really something that has poisoned relations
between the members of the United Nations and the United
States.
The fact of the matter is that the allocation of
assessments is fundamentally a political question within the
General Assembly, and the idea that a majority of nations can
decide what our share is and then when we, for good and
sufficient policy reasons, do not vote it, that that is somehow
has put us in breach of our obligations, I think is a canard.
It is part of the problem with the entire system of
assessments, which when you can count year after year after
year on 25 percent from the United States and 31 percent for
peacekeeping, creates a kind of welfare entitlement mentality,
and the way to break it is to move to voluntary contributions.
The Chairman. I want to give Mr. Luck a bite at this
question.
Mr. Luck. Here, I would depart a bit from John and I am
afraid from your viewpoint as well, Mr. Chairman. We have a
preference in this country for doing things voluntarily. We do
not like being told that things are assessed, or that they are
obligated. Most other member States and most other parliaments,
on the other hand, prefer to say there is an international
bill, we have a treaty obligation, and therefore we will pay
it.
It does seem to me that it is not really fair for us to do
certain things militarily around the world and then to say,
gee, coincidentally our action supported a U.N. operation and
now you should recognize this as part of our obligation. I
believe that peacekeeping costs ought to be assessed, and we
ought to pay our dues. If we provide support for U.N.
operations directly, then we should be, and are supposedly,
reimbursed for those. But if we decide to have the Sixth Fleet
deployed in the Mediterranean or in the Persian Gulf and it
happens that the U.N. also has a problem with Iraq, perhaps
because we help to persuade the Security Council to pass a
resolution, it does not mean it is only their concern and we
are just doing them a favor. This happens to be a place where
our actions coincide with the U.N., and our interests coincide.
The Chairman. Good. Thank you.
Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Thank you very much. I notice, Mr. Chairman,
you were explaining the clock. The only people who fully
understood it in the room were the lawyers, because they
understand how abrupt the Supreme Court is in 5 minutes. They
cut you off in mid-question. So we are a kind compared to them.
Mr. Bolton, Mr. Secretary, I read your statement. I do not
have time now, but I think you engaged in a little bit of
revisionism on Somalia, and in Bosnia relative to Clinton and
Bush, but I am going to write you a note as to why I think it
is different and we can discuss it.
[Senator Biden's statement on the points referred to above
follows:]
Additional Statement of Sen. Biden
Mr. Bolton's prepared statement contains some assertions
that amount to historical revisionism. The record should be
corrected.
First, he suggests that the Clinton Administration launched
the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Somalia. The truth is that the
U.N. mission in Somalia was ``launched'' in December 1992 under
the authority of U.N. Security Resolution 794 (1992), at the
end of the Bush Administration. To be sure, a Security Council
resolution was passed in March 1993--in the first months of the
Clinton Administration--that started a new phase of the
peacekeeping mission. But the Somalia expedition began under
President Bush.
Second, he implies that Clinton Administration policies
``led directly . . . to political ineffectiveness and military
incompetence in Bosnia.'' True, the Clinton Administration's
policies on Bosnia left something to be desired in the initial
years of President Clinton's first term--and I said so at the
time. But the foundation for this policy was poured during the
Bush Administration, which made a decision to yield leadership
on the Yugoslav crisis to the Europeans. The war in Bosnia, it
will be recalled, commenced in April 1992. It is an undisputed
fact that the UNPROFOR mission was established during the Bush
Administration; the weak mandate of UNPROFOR was sanctioned and
countenanced by President Bush's administration.
Moreover, it was the Clinton Administration that launched
the NATO air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs in September
1995, which played a key role in rolling back Bosnian Serb
battlefield gains and in ending the fighting. It then convened
the Dayton peace talks, which yielded the diplomatic settlement
that, while far from perfect, still offers the best chance for
lasting peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Senator Biden. I do not think you have to worry about there
being any debate on the Secretary General's statement about the
sole source of sovereignty is the Security Council. Nobody in
the Senate agrees with that. There is nothing to debate. He is
dead, flat, unequivocally wrong, and both, I would say to Mr.
Luck, who I agree with a great deal more than I you do, John,
we have been through this exercise for years, that I cannot
even figure how one gets that interpretation from the document,
unless we had put into effect the provision of the U.N. which
calls for the ability to establish a multinational force in
advance. We have not done that, so it does not even get into
play. It is a statement that an overexuberant politician like I
am might make on another matter, but I hope he did not mean it
if he did. I love him, but he is flat-out wrong. There is
nothing to debate. We totally agree on that.
Now, let me suggest and ask you, Professor Luck, you
indicated that there were four pieces, five pieces of concern
you had and six prescriptions for how to proceed. The
prescription to proceed is the need for a bipartisan foreign
policy. My colleagues might not agree with this, but I truly
believe that the Helms-Biden bill was as much an effort to
resolve within the Senate and the House and reach a bipartisan
consensus among us where we, the U.S. Congress, both parties,
stood relative to the United Nations.
So I think it is important to look at this from two places,
and I really mean that, not merely the empirical evidence that
supports the following conditions requirements and provides the
following money, but it took a long way to get there. It took
us 3 years. 3 years. And the fact that he and I cosponsored
together and fought for and got a majority of both the House
and the Senate to be with us on this is, I would argue, a first
start, a first step in reestablishing some bipartisan
consensus.
The second point I would like to make and ask is a
question, before my time is up, and that is, you indicated
there were five concerns. I share your concerns about whether
or not we can get it done, whether or not we started a
precedent followed by the Japanese Diet and others, whether or
not--I am much less concerned about whether further Congresses
will decide to make this a practice. I do not think that is a
reasonable concern, and I do not think it is a likely concern.
But the fourth one I think is the $64 question, and that
is, the agenda. This does not solve in any way, nor do we think
it would, nor did we suggest it might, the need for the member
States to reach some consensus among themselves on an agenda,
an agenda for the United Nations.
My question to you is, how does that process get underway?
Is it bilateral, then multilateral, head of State to head of
State, and then it gets to the United Nations, or can it
actually in any way be generated from within the U.N.?
Mr. Luck. Well, having watched the intergovernmental
discussions for a number of years now at the U.N. on reform, I
do not think you simply put it into a committee of 188 member
States and expect something great to happen on the other end. I
think you need a coalition of States, and from different parts
of the world, not just with our normal favorite allies, but
people from Africa, Latin America, Asia, whatever, trying to
find some common ground, and then work it from there.
The first big hurdle was getting over the U.S. arrears,
because half the discussion was about the United States, not
about U.N. reform. Then the question is finding a positive
agenda, because I think we have been looking at reform as a
negative, as a sort of punishment for the U.N. We need to have
a more positive agenda that others can buy into, and then I
think there would be a possibility, but it will not be quick or
easy.
Senator Biden. And by the way, we are not all moving to New
York. We came to New York because we know most New Yorkers do
not recognize there is a Washington. They still think New York
is the capital of America. I understand that. That is one of
the reasons why we came.
Mr. Luck. I assumed it was Friday, and everyone wants to
come to New York when it is weekend time.
The Chairman. Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Bolton wanted to respond.
Mr. Bolton. I just wanted to say briefly I am happy to have
the Biden corollary to the Helms speech yesterday.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Gentlemen, thank you. We are always grateful
for your testimony and your thoughts.
A question for each of you. Obviously, over the last 50
years the scope of U.N. activities, programs, commitments,
obligations, and responsibilities has widened considerably. My
question is, is the U.N. trying to do too much? Mr. Bolton,
would you like to start?
Mr. Bolton. Well, I think the answer to that is yes, and I
would address it in two ways. First, I think both in the United
Nations itself, and in the specialized agencies, that there is
simply too much emphasis on economic and social questions
covering a wide variety of fields that are best left either to
regional organizations or to the nation-states themselves. I
think one of the reasons for budget bloat over the years is
that economic and social programs in the U.N. system have grown
like a coral reef, utterly without plan, and without
constraint. Until that mentality changes you are fundamentally
going to get a leaner United Nations.
But second, the United Nations is only a reflection of its
members' will, or at least it should be, and what has happened,
and I can certainly testify to this from my own experience at
the State Department, is a temptation by governments, looking
at a problem that they know they cannot solve or will not
solve, to be able to say, ``well, let us have the United
Nations get involved.'' This is a very serious problem.
I think in peacekeeping operation after operation, when
member Governments, for good and sufficient reason, have not
been willing or able to engage themselves because they did not
consider it in their national interest to do so, they have been
willing to say, well, let us have a U.N. peacekeeping force,
let us have some U.N. involvement like that, in part because
they know that the United States would pay for 31 percent of
it. I think that has got to change, too.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Mr. Luck.
Mr. Luck. I think the U.N. is trying to do too much,
because the member States do ask it to do more and more, and I
would point out that there is a little paradox, because we,
too, in this country ask the U.N. to do more. At the same time,
we are asking it to do so with fewer resources and fewer
people, and at some point it has just got to be spread too
thin.
Second, I think there is a fundamental problem of priority-
setting in the organization. Any business with 188 members on
its board of directors from all over the world is going to have
a problem setting priorities. It is a real difficulty in the
organization.
One of the things I did like in the Helms-Biden
legislation--there are many things I do not like--but one thing
I did like is that it does flag the need for sunset provisions,
and that is very important. I worked on a staff basis for the
committee trying to eliminate some of the underbrush in the
General Assembly, some of the subcommittees and whatever. Quite
frankly, we went through scores and scores and scores of them,
but there was always some country that wanted each body to be
continued, some State, and so it was continued.
But I must say, this idea of only operating and deciding by
consensus, that makes choosing so difficult, was something that
the U.S. wanted because of the budgetary question. We insisted
that there be consensus-based decisionmaking, and now this is
the downside of that, because if one or two countries get up
and object, you do not have a consensus, and you cannot get rid
of things, so we might rethink that one as well.
Senator Hagel. Thank you.
Mr. Bolton. Can I just add one point on that, and that is,
I think the limits of consensus budgeting have been reached,
and I think it may well be appropriate to go back and have
votes if we are going to have an assessed budget, and let us
see how those votes shake out.
Senator Hagel. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Bolton. Mr. Chairman, could I beg your indulgence? I
have a commitment. I have got to get to Dulles Airport to pick
my wife and daughter up, and I am looking for a cab driver in
New York who is going to, within the limits of the law, get me
to La Guardia quickly, so my apologies. I thought we might
start earlier, but I have enjoyed the time.
The Chairman. I understand. We thank you for coming, John.
Mr. Bolton. Thank you.
Mr. Luck. I think he did say that I could speak for him.
[Laughter.]
The Chairman. Russ Feingold.
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Other countries, Mr. Luck, have suggested reforms for the
U.N. that are clearly not included in Helms-Biden, and one area
that I think you referred to is the composition of the Security
Council. Could you comment on some of those ideas, and what you
think of the course that should be taken?
Mr. Luck. Well, one of the things that really worries me is
that, if you look at the majority of member States, their idea
of reform goes exactly in the opposite way that we probably
would want.
Most member States feel that they are in an organization
that the U.S. dominates. They do not feel that the organization
is somehow controlling the U.S. they see it the other way
around, and many of them would like to limit the prerogatives
of the five permanent members. Many of them are very resentful
of the veto. Many of them would like to see more committees be
committees of the whole, so that everyone gets a voice. This is
a very, very deep and difficult problem.
If you get a Security Council that, let us say, has 25, 30
members in it, and you move up from 5 vetoes to 7, 10, whatever
different formula is come up with, the harder and harder it is
going to be for that Security Council to act, because more and
more States will be saying not here, not there, not somewhere
else. The biggest problem now is not that the U.N. is too
powerful, but that it is too weak. One of the reasons that it
is too weak is because you cannot get agreement on these kinds
of things, and I fear that things are going to be more and more
difficult in the Council in the future.
Senator Feingold. You are obviously done a lot of research,
and you are a qualified observer about the U.N. You have had
occasion to search through U.N. records and speak with U.N.
employees in order to further your research. In your
experience, how transparent have you found the organization's
financial and administrative practices to be? Is it a culture
of openness and accountability, or is it one of secrecy?
Mr. Luck. Well, I would say on the program side, in
activities, the organization has become more open and more
transparent. On the question of budget and accounting questions
that you are asking, it is very, very difficult. I am not sure
it is intentionally that way, but it is a rather opaque
organization. Part of it is that the very structure of the U.N.
is so complicated, and there are so many different pieces, paid
for under different budgets, and by different member States,
that it is very, very hard to go to one place and get a single
answer.
I do believe that Joe Connor, who will be speaking shortly,
has done a very good job of trying to bring a rationality to
the accounting, to the budgeting system of the organization;
but, I must say, a lot of member States do their best to work
around that. In fact, I think this one does sometimes as well,
and I would say that transparency is not the first
characteristic that comes to mind when you think about the
budgetary system within the United Nations, or the personnel
system, for that matter.
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you. Senator Grams.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Luck, just a couple of quick questions dealing with the
concerns over the creation of the International Criminal Court.
It appears unlikely that the Clinton administration will be
able to find a way to provide 100 percent protection to U.S.
military personnel and thus will not be able to sign on to the
court. Are you concerned, however, that the administration will
practice benign neglect, or maybe even worse, that it will
support Security Council referrals to the court? I was going to
address this to Mr. Bolton, but you can speak in his behalf, if
you would like. [Laughter.]
Mr. Luck. I sort of regret what has happened with the
diplomacy and the politics relating to the International
Criminal Court, because I think there is a very good, worthy
objective there, but I believe somehow the advocates got a
little out front of what the politics would bear, and maybe
this administration was not quite on top of it as much as it
might have been at the beginning.
I think there are a lot of protections in the statute, so I
am not as worried as some are on this committee about the
threat that it would be to American servicemen. There are a lot
of remedies in there, but I do feel very awkward about a court
that could come into being before the U.S. and even other major
powers, in fact, have ratified and become parties to it, that
somehow we would have to be living under a system that we had
not yet approved of. It would have been better if they had
pulled back and slowed up the negotiations until the politics
began to catch up with it.
We could have used more public debate on it, but I do not
think, when you talk about Security Council referrals, that
this administration has been in any way naive about it. I
believe that they are very realistic about it, but that they
got on top of it rather late. I hope that the process can be
slowed down enough so that we can begin to catch our breath and
begin to build a broader political base for it.
Senator Feingold. I would like to also just ask one
question dealing with the U.N. and duplications that we have
talked about, and the whole purpose of a lot of the reforms of
the Helms-Biden bill, but in the introduction to the Secretary
General's reform proposal, he stated that the major source of
institutional weakness in the United Nations is that certain
organizational features have become, and I quote, fragmented,
duplicative, and in some areas ineffective, and in some areas
superfluous. Which organization's features at the United
Nations, or the United Nations, do you believe could be labeled
as superfluous?
Mr. Luck. I am not sure. That is a question of individual
member States' and one's judgment. I do agree that some of the
economic and social things are not that central, but I am like
a typical American. I believe more in the political and
security side of the organization.
A great deal of member States, however, do put a lot of
stock in the economic, social, and development side of the
organization, and we have to recognize that this is not our
organization. It is an organization of 188 States and they are
pulling in somewhat different directions.
The main problem is not so much picking one or another
piece to eliminate, but rather that the decisionmaking
structure, particularly in the General Assembly, could be
simplified enormously if you could get rid of a lot of this
underbrush that I mentioned before.
It would help if you could do more things through smaller
coalitions and smaller groups. If there was enough transparency
and enough confidence, then more of the member States would
allow these smaller groups to work on things. But they feel
every time that the U.S. is going to control it, the U.S. is
going to dominate it, along with the other major donors, and so
they all want to be there, and pretty soon the bodies get
bigger and bigger, and it is harder and harder to make choices.
Coordination in the system is not improved by our efforts
to weaken the center of the United Nations, especially since
the U.S. has supported the creation of many, many little
pieces. Sometimes we have to get coordination together in
Washington as well, so that you do not have different agencies
of the U.S. government, different departments, favoring
particular aspects of the U.N. system that answer their
particular interests, and that includes in economic and social
and other areas. If we do not get our act together, we cannot
expect the U.N. to get its act together.
Senator Grams. Could this be number six I think you
mentioned, agenda?
Mr. Luck. Yes. To me, it is a never-ending central piece,
and Helms-Biden did touch on this. I somewhat regret that
Helms-Biden puts our particular national interests, such as
reducing our assessment, together with fundamental reforms that
you and others have worked on, so much in terms of questions of
transparency and accountability and lack of duplication and
other things, because they are really two different agendas.
One is an agenda that is good for everybody. The other is
an agenda that is basically good for us. People forget that
there are some things on the accountability side, on sunset
provisions and other things in that bill that are extremely
valuable, but because they are attached to our unilateral
efforts to get our dues down, they tend to dismiss them.
Senator Grams. Thank you. Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Luck, Mr. Bolton understands this, and I
would suggest to you that we will leave the record open for
Senators present and who are not able to come today to submit
questions in writing, and we would appreciate your responding
to them in writing.
Mr. Luck. I will be happy to.
The Chairman. Oh, just a minute. That is my boss back
there. He is a good one, too. But--and I am going to ask
unanimous consent at this point that, inasmuch as this is the
first meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee outside
of Washington, that all the testimony be printed, and if you
will respond to questions, and John and of course the
Ambassador knows that procedure.
Mr. Luck. If he is slow, I can write his answers for him.
The Chairman. Pardon me?
Mr. Luck. If he is slow, I will be happy to write his
answers for him. [Laughter.]
The Chairman. Now, John.
Senator Warner. Mr. Chairman, given the hour and the need
to move on--this has been an excellent presentation by Mr.
Bolton and Mr. Luck--I will put my questions into the record. I
thank the chair.
The Chairman. All right. This has been an interesting
afternoon for me, beginning with the luncheon. We have a third
panel.
Let me see. I am going to read exactly what was handed me.
On the third and final panel, Mr. Connor and Mr. Ruggie will be
joined by Ambassador Hays at the table for discussion, and I
apologize for the late start. I am trying to keep everything
straight here under unusual circumstances.
But thank you, sir, for coming. I enjoyed your testimony.
Mr. Luck. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you so much, and is there any further
business to come before the committee? Hearing none, this--what
did the Ambassador call it?--this historic meeting of the
Foreign Relations Committee comes to an end, and we stand
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:20 p.m., the committee adjourned.]
An Informal Discussion Among Members of the Committee and Hon. Donald
Hays, U.S. Representative to the United Nations for United Nations
Management and Reform; Joseph Connor, Under Secretary General for
Management; and John Ruggie, Special Advisor to the Secretary General.
The Chairman. Please forgive the lateness of the hour. Now
we will hear from the distinguished Under Secretary General for
Management, Mr. Connor, in the middle there, and the Special
Advisor to the Secretary General, Mr. Ruggie, and Hon. Don
Hays. Do you want to proceed with a statement? All right. I am
getting whispers in my ear. They do not have formal statements.
All right. OK.
This is a good question. Mr. Connor, isn't the toughest
reform necessitated by Helms-Biden a change in the assessment
scale, and what is your answer to that, first.
Mr. Connor. The toughest reform I am dealing with, Mr.
Chairman, is the managerial reform, to reform the personnel
system. We no longer want 90 percent of our staff members rated
as outstanding. I never met that group of people.
The second is to turn the budget around, to concentrate on
what the member States get for the money they give us. We need
productivity measurement, we need output measurement, we need a
consciousness that money should result in value. That is the
second.
Let me say that that has led to a second and a half. I do
not believe you can accomplish reform without budgetary
pressure. We did a lot of this ourselves. You helped along the
way. The budget when I joined the organization in 1994 was $2
billion, 532 million for a 2-year period. It is down $100
million over a period of 8 years, because we are budgeting
ahead.
Now, to reduce by $100 million, you have to cut $340
million worth of real costs, fewer people, fewer meetings,
fewer travel, fewer reports. We did that. That does not mean it
is over, but frankly I think one without the other, budget
pressure and reform, without the two of them together, you get
nowhere. We have measured that.
Let me answer a question that was directed to Ambassador
Holbrooke. Extrabudgetary people are people paid for by
somebody who wants an extra service. It is not assessed. The
Nordics asked us to do lots of things extra, and they paid for
it themselves. That is extrabudgetary.
Another type of extrabudgetary, the Secretary prepares the
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United
Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) payroll. That is efficient.
That is an extrabudgetary, because we bill them for the
service, so we really focus on how many people we have on the
staff.
When we began the reform we had about 10,000 people on the
regular budget. We are down by about 750 today, but that is a
remarkable achievement when you ask us to do more all the time.
Senator, let me thank this committee, let me thank the U.S.
Government. You contributed $700 million last year to this
organization, and the last $400 million was after October 1,
and you paid it by December 31 and, indeed, the loss of a vote
is off the table by $50 million. We open the mail very fast
every day in December.
I must also say that others were looking for your lead. We
were delighted to receive the Japanese payment of $155 million
in the last month.
Now, we have got problems in Kosovo. I do not think that--
The Chairman. May I interrupt you, sir?
Mr. Connor. Of course. Excuse me.
The Chairman. I want to followup on my original question,
and I do not have a whole lot of time. What do you plan to do
about a situation where we have more than 90 U.N. members pay
only 1/1000th of 1 percent of the budget, less than half the
Secretary General's salary paid by each. Do you plan to do
anything about that, or try to?
Mr. Connor. The regular budget basically reflects each
member State's share of the world gross national income. No
bells and whistles. That is about what it is. The smaller
countries get a discount that adds up to 10 percentage points
of the scale, and that is largely paid for by the European
Union, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
The U.S., because it is capped at 25 percent, is slightly
under its share of world gross national income, so what goes on
within the scale is basically the extension of willingness to
pay a little bit more than GNP by a large number of member
States so that an even larger member State component can get
somewhat of a discount. That is basically what the scale is.
The Chairman. With full respect, sir, may I take that as an
answer of no to my question?
Mr. Connor. Mr. Chairman, I have forgotten what your
question was. Excuse me for doing that.
The Chairman. Are you going to do anything to correct that
situation?
Mr. Connor. I think that the scale has got to be looked at
very carefully, and I am delighted that that is going to happen
this year.
The Chairman. One other problem I am going to ask you
about, and I will leave you alone. What do you plan to do, if
anything, about a Security Council member with one-fifth of the
population of the world, and of course I am talking about
China, paying less than 1 percent of the United Nations budget?
Mr. Connor. I think that renegotiations of the scale of
assessment, while we have an interest in seeing how it comes
out, that basically is something that gets agreed by the member
States, and I heard carefully what Ambassador Holbrooke said.
This places the ball in his court. I think it is in a very
capable set of hands, and I think he will meet equally capable
hands on the parts of the other member States.
The Chairman. I thank you, sir. My time is up.
Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Mr. Connor, I should know the answer to
this. I do not, and if you do not, maybe your colleagues do.
If the present assessment is roughly based upon the percent
of GDP, or GNP, the world GNP that each national occupies, or
contributes, was this always the measure? Realizing the cap on
the United States, was this always the measure? Was this the
measure in 1950 and 1952 and 1955 and 1957 and 1960? Do you
know?
Mr. Connor. I think with the exception of what I call the
reallocation between less-developed countries and the developed
ones, exclusive of the United States, the answer is yes.
Senator Biden. I find that amazing, because relative to the
rest of the world, in 1952 the percentage of the GDP that the
United States contributed, or made up, and what the Europeans
made up, has to have been different, substantially different
than it is today.
Mr. Connor. The scale started, Senator, with the U.S.
picking up 40 percent at the beginning.
Senator Biden. So it was different.
Mr. Connor. No, it was--yes. It was capped in the
beginning, it is capped now, and the pattern was that as the
U.S share of gross national income went down over that long
period of years, the cap was lowered, and the last time it was
lowered was, as mentioned by Ambassador Holbrooke, about 1973,
and the U.S. share of gross national income--
Senator Biden. It was lowered to what, though?
Mr. Connor. Somewhere in the thirties, I believe, low
thirties, so it has dropped several times.
Senator Biden. Well--I do not have any more questions.
The Chairman. Senator Hagel.
Senator Hagel. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Gentlemen, welcome,
and we are grateful that you would come and spend some time
with us today.
Mr. Connor, in light of the numbers that you presented, the
decrease in the budget, the decrease in manpower, I am going to
ask you essentially the same question that I asked the previous
panel.
Do you think the U.N. should be doing a better job of
prioritizing its resources and programs to meet the challenges
of our time? Essentially, is the U.N. doing too much? After you
answer that, would you give this panel some projections on how
U.N. budget resources will be matched against its commitments
and programs? Thank you.
Mr. Connor. Thank you, Senator. The member States define
too generally what they want us to do. The priorities are like
an elastic band. We need more specificity.
Within a zero-growth budget we were able to allocate about
$17 million to what we perceived to be their highest
priorities, and they went along with that. Now, the overall
program--Secretary General initiated this, and I followed
through--cut the administrative costs and reprogrammed to
programmatic outputs. Of course, everybody has his idea of how
to get the extra money, but we did, with no increase in the
budget, give more to crime, give more to drugs, give more to
human rights, give more to peace and security--we had a whole
list. But because the budget is on a zero-growth basis, that,
of course, makes limits.
But I will continue to cut administration. I must also say
that we look for that to feed programmatic imperatives much
more readily in the next couple of years.
Senator Hagel. Do you anticipate having to increase dues or
obligations over the next 5 to 10 years, as you project this
out?
Mr. Connor. We cannot stay on a zero-growth budget
indefinitely. I think that probably is--but I think we can make
major reallocations following the program that I outlined, and
then I think that if we are being asked to do something more
and something different, the member States will either have to
accept or not, but 8 years of no-growth, most years down, and
at worst level, that is not a bad record from which to start
the process of credibility with the member States as to
delivering value. That is what I would try to do.
Senator Hagel. So you think that your budget, and
projections of that budget, match the obligations the member
States want to do.
Mr. Connor. Yes, I do. Yes.
Senator Hagel. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Feingold.
Senator Feingold. Mr. Chairman, the hour is late, so I will
just ask one question. I wanted to at least mention today, on a
day when we focus on U.S. reform, the issue of criminal
tribunals.
When Ambassador Holbrooke and I were in Kigali with the
deputy prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda we had quite a meeting, and I have been a strong
supporter of the tribunal, but I was very disturbed to learn in
that meeting that while reforms and improvements have been
made, and there have been some inroads in terms of Arusha, that
the tribunal was very plagued by inefficiencies, and I am
especially concerned what message this sends in the future to
those who would commit such incredible atrocities as occurred
in Rwanda. Why can't the U.N. do a better job in reforming this
critically important entity?
Mr. Connor. Three or four years ago, as a result of an OIOS
report, very strong corrective actions were taken in changes of
people, addition of administrative types, the hastening of
construction of a third courtroom--a lot of what I would call
corrective actions were taken. We are getting mixed signals
today. A lot of the comments that you made are now coming
across my desk and the Secretary General's. We are following
the situation, determined to make those corrections which seem
to be right and responsive to known deficiencies, and that is
being pursued actually this week.
Arusha is tough. Kigali is even tougher to do this with.
One thing we have corrected is that we substantially filled up
all the posts that the member States have allowed us to fill,
so getting the number of people and the right type there, that
is now under our belt, and we will see if that corrects the
situation. There may be a need for more senior personnel
changes.
Senator Feingold. I was informed by the prosecutor there
that one of the issues may be overstaffing in some places, so I
hope you will just take that into account as well.
Mr. Connor. Well, I have to answer that, Senator. The
prosecutor went before the Budget Committee and pleaded for
more resources.
Senator Feingold. There is a disconnect here.
Mr. Connor. So I go to these meetings--and we got those
additional resources.
Senator Feingold. I think his reference was with regard to
Arusha, rather than Kigali, but I am not absolutely certain.
But we have to followup on it. Thank you for your answer.
Mr. Connor. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Grams.
Senator Grams. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The
questions I had for the fourth panel I think I will move them
up to this panel, if I can.
Mr. Ruggie, talking about sunset provisions, I know the
Secretary General has proposed to impose sunset provisions on
new organizational structures and/or major commitments of
funds. Why not some of the existing, or why aren't all programs
at the U.N. brought under the same things, and should be
sunsetting? By the way, I am a strong supporter of that in the
U.S. Congress under our programs, and I am wondering why the
U.N. would not also take a look at this.
Mr. Ruggie. Senator, the Secretary General's proposal was
conceived of as a first step. It was not intended to be the
only step, but as you well know, we had difficulty getting even
that first step approved in the General Assembly. We keep
trying, and we hope that we succeed, but it was never intended
simply as a--as a forward-going measure it was intended to
affect all programs, and all new institutional structures.
Senator Grams. Do you see further debate on this in the
future as far as expanding the sunset provision into existing
programs?
Mr. Ruggie. Well, we are still trying to get the first step
implemented. Yes.
Senator Grams. All right. Mr. Connor, when you talk about a
no-growth budget, according to OIOS millions of dollars
continue to be wasted in U.N. peacekeeping operations because
of poor financial oversight and weak internal controls,
amounting to about $900 million over a period of time. Is that
also an area that you are going to have great concern about, or
looking as to how to get rid of some of the waste and abuse
that maybe is in some of these programs as well?
Mr. Connor. Senator, OIOS has identified about $10 to $15
million worth of savings each year since they have been
instituted, so I am a little bit lost with the larger number
that you gave.
Most of the deficiencies, most of the savings had also been
identified as originating in peacekeeping. The administrative
controls are clearly in a state of installation and then
implementation, and that causes some gaps, and the backup at
headquarters has been consistently needed and has been given.
You ask how many people are in peacekeeping on the backup
side. Back in the height of the peacekeeping, 1995 or
thereabouts, we had 600. We are down to about 325 at this time.
It is probable that we cut the core too much, and I think that
is the best answer I can give to your question.
Senator Grams. Mr. Connor, I meant that $900 million was
acquisition and not waste, so my apology on that. Your numbers
are right, but you know, there is indication we have no idea
what is owned by the U.N.; because inventory records are
inadequate, so there are concerns about inventory as well as
waste in the budget when it comes to peacekeeping.
Mr. Connor. Well, Senator, we have established Brindisi to
recondition used and bring back up to good quality an
inventory. We had very few, if any, losses of that inventory in
Brindisi. We have recycled one peacekeeping mission's equipment
for the next one, and to that extent we have worked pretty
effectively, but I am sure we have not--you know, if you are a
driver in a peacekeeping mission on a 90-day contract and the
mission is going to be shut down, and you are going to be out
of a job, we lose some trucks. They drive off with them. It
will happen.
Senator Grams. Mr. Hays, before we close, I would just like
to get you involved in this as well, but it was my
understanding that under the Kassebaum-Solomon bill that the
U.S. must join in the consensus for every major budget
decision. How was your decision to disassociate from the
consensus on the budget outline consistent with that obligation
of Kassebaum-Solomon?
Ambassador Hays. I think that with regard to the last
budget, my understanding, and certainly I checked this with the
Department before I made a decision on how to act, was that we
had an understanding between the Secretary, the administration,
and the Hill, that we were going for Zero Nominal Growth [ZNG]
whether or not it was in the legislation. Therefore, when we
were not able to meet specifically the ZNG, I could not join;
because it would have been a breach of that agreement and
understanding between us.
Senator Grams. Could that have been required to have a no-
vote, rather than--
Ambassador Hays. It would have required us to go to a no-
vote, and I preferred not to go that way, given the fact that I
saw no support for our position of absolute ZNG.
Senator Grams. OK. Thank you very much, Mr. Hays. Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Senator Warner.
Senator Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First, Mr. Connor, I looked through your distinguished
biography. I think we are fortunate you have taken this on as
another career.
Mr. Connor. Senator, I love what I am doing every day over
there. It may belong, but--
Senator Warner. That is marvelous.
Mr. Connor [continuing]. --helping the organization and
helping the member States, it is kind of fun.
Senator Warner. We spoke with the Secretary General, as you
know, this morning on the subject of Kosovo, and you were about
to give some views of your own here a few moments ago when we
had to, time-wise, attenuate your response. Have you had that
opportunity to give us your views?
Mr. Connor. I am worried about the money on Kosovo. I did
not know how much it was going to cost back in July when the
Security Council voted for it, and neither did anybody else. We
put out a quickie assessment for $125 million. We had only
collected a fraction of that by the time we got to December,
and then on that happy day, the American money came in and the
Japanese money came in, and we have now collected $117 million
out of $125 million, but that was supposed to be for the 6
months that ended December 31.
Now we have got another assessment out, and practically
nobody has paid, and that brings it up to what we really need
for the full year. That is another $250 million. The U.S. has
not yet paid that, so we have a consistent lag, and this
bothers us. We are stretched all the time. We do things we
should not do. We borrow money from the regular budget to float
peacekeeping. We then pay it back. We mix it between
peacekeeping missions, the ones that are not as active.
I said it in the financial presentation. The U.N. is
running on empty, and we have got many miles to go, and most of
those miles are coming in emergency situations that Ambassador
Holbrooke and members of this committee are very, very worried
about.
We have collected relatively few of the pledged voluntary
contributions, so as the financial manager of the organization,
I am doing a lot of things that I spent 40 years with Price
Waterhouse learning not to do, and that is inevitable, so it is
very important that we complete the Helms-Biden.
Senator Warner. Well, this translates into a tremendous
amount of human suffering which is taking place.
Mr. Connor. Yes, sir.
Senator Warner. You know that, and also I think an added
risk to the men and women of the Armed Forces of our Nation and
many others, and this is what concerns me, and one of the main
reasons that I was so pleased to have the opportunity, with
Chairman Helms, to come up here.
Now, Mr. Ruggie and Ambassador Hays, this subject of the
gratis personnel in the department of peacekeeping, could you
give us a little status report on that? First, the politics of
it. Is it still very contentious? Is it working? Given the
enormity of the task just in the Balkans, and those that are
being viewed in relation to the importance of Africa, where are
we on the curve of adequacy and the politics?
Do you want to answer a little bit, Mr. Ruggie?
Mr. Ruggie. I will come in after Ambassador Hays.
Ambassador Hays. First of all, I think the gratis personnel
are still going on in the field, but the question is whether or
not we can meet the demands of the peacekeeping efforts without
having some sort of surge capacity back here at headquarters.
We have been asked in the budget for additional personnel
for DPKO. That was given. It is still not enough. We still have
to have a certain talent background, a talent mind set, an
experiential background to deal with these types of operations,
so as you heard in previous conversations, other nations are
providing that, not at the headquarters level but within
capitals. For instance, we are providing it in the Pentagon.
They are providing it in Great Britain, in London. They are
providing it in Paris.
We believe that there may be a way to provide this surge
capacity without running into conflict on the political issue
of differentiating between haves and have-nots. There are a
number of nations who do not have a lot of wealth but have
good, solid military capabilities, and they would like to be
able to contribute that capability to these sorts of efforts.
They were the ones that came forward and said, we think
gratis personnel leaves us out in the cold. You wealthy nations
get to play and we do not get to play.
I think we can cobble together a solution that will
incorporate both concerns, and we are working on that
diligently.
Mr. Ruggie. Senator Warner, you have been raising all day
long a series of very, very important questions, and in fact
Ambassador Holbrooke posed it as this may be the last chance
for the United Nations to demonstrate its utility in the area
of peacekeeping, and I think he may be right, but we really
need your help.
When we are now assigned a mission, the Security Council
adopts a resolution. Many times the resolution is, to begin
with, ambiguous, because it is a political compromise.
Ambassador Holbrooke referred to Resolution 1244 on Kosovo,
which leads to very different interpretations on the part of
member States, just what it means in terms of the ultimate
sovereignty and independence of Kosovo vis-a-vis the Federal
republic, so a clear mission is a prerequisite. You would not
send troops into the field without a clear mission. A clear
mission statement is an absolute prerequisite.
Second, we need to have some advanced planning capacity.
Once we get an assignment--for example, let us say we are told
we need to place 5,500 policemen, or whatever the case may be,
in Kosovo. We do not know who these people are. We have got to
find them one by one in member States. We have got to come to
the U.S. Government, to individual States, to localities, to
find them.
When we are assigned a mission, we do not have a
headquarters unit that we could sort of plunk down in the field
to prepare the ground.
One of the reasons we do not have those things, Senator, is
because of political opposition in some of the member States,
and it touches on the sovereignty issue that you have all
talked about today. To some people this conjures up fears of a
United Nations army doing nasty things in the world, and
challenging the sovereignty of member States.
It does not, Senator. These are national troops. These are
national policemen. But what we do need is the capacity to do
some rational forward planning if we are to get into the field
more quickly, if the people who go into the field are to have
had any experience in talking to each other beforehand, and
working together, and having some common sense of what they are
supposed to accomplish. We really need your help in that
regard, all of you, and member States elsewhere, if we are
going to pass the test that you say we now face.
Senator Warner. Thank you.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Sure.
Senator Biden. Would the committee indulge me for 2
minutes?
The Chairman. Absolutely.
Senator Biden. I would like to followup on the issue of the
ability to have at the Secretary level this planning for
military expertise made available.
I do not want to be argumentative or provocative here, but
isn't one of the reasons why the smaller nations that do not
have the wherewithal to make a financial contribution but have
a military capability did not like the way it was being run is
they wanted to get paid more? This is a money-making,
legitimate money-making proposition for them.
The opposition was not merely to a NATO-dominated or a
U.S.-dominated or a Brit-dominated or a western-dominated
military capacity, because there is no question they are the
most capable in the world, none. Zero. None. Is it not about
whether or not they get to be reimbursed for peacekeeping?
I do not blame them for that. I understand that, and they
are competent, but how much of it--and maybe you are--the
reason why you are not a formal panel is, you represent an
international organization, and we have no right to call you
before us, and you are gracious--you are gracious to come
before us for this informal discussion. You may not want to
informally answer the question, but if you would, I would
appreciate it. How much of it relates to the issue of needing
cash?
Ambassador Hays. Since I represent you and not the U.N.
Senator Biden. Yes, you do.
Ambassador Hays. I will be happy to answer from our point
of view.
From our reading, our discussion, this is both a jobs
concern and a representation concern. First of all, our gratis
personnel were viewed, because they were 2 and 3 and 4-year
tours, as a replacement for permanent positions, and therefore
doing other people out of jobs, you are absolutely right, out
of jobs both here and overseas.
Second, there was a concern that there was not a wide
enough distribution of these jobs to ensure that we built a
credibility in certain parts of the world that all nations were
participating.
And last, there was a concern that because these people
represented nation-States and not the United Nations, that the
U.N. did not buildup the expertise on a permanent basis to
handle these activities.
We feel, and I think many of the folks who provided the
gratis personnel, that these were surge capacity personnel.
Perhaps they stayed too long, but we need surge capacity as
well as permanent capacity.
Senator Biden. Well, let me conclude by saying I want to
thank you for coming, but when we talk about the contributions
to peacekeeping all nations make, it is pointed out,
accurately, that some smaller nations provide a
disproportionally high, relative to population and income,
share of peacekeeping.
I want you to know that most Americans would be
overwhelmingly delighted for them to do more, and they are not,
in fact, making a sacrifice the way it is laid out to be,
because of the reimbursement side. They are making a personal
sacrifice. They are risking their personnel. That is real. That
is genuine. But it is not like any are coming kicking and
screaming into service. They want to come into service.
The only reason I mention that is for the American audience
that is here, is to understand that. Those of my liberal
friends, who I am often counted as one, who say well, you know,
they do so much more--they do so much more because they want to
do more. They want to do more.
So let us get the record straight here. This is not a
matter of smaller nations saying, oh my God, we are being
called into service. We do not want to do this. They say, send
us more. It is an employment operation.
And I again in no way diminish their capacity, their
bravery, their credibility, or their commitment, but I just
think it is important we look at the whole here, and so when we
are told how the United States of America is on a per capita
basis really not doing much more in terms of peacekeeping than
other nations, as they say where I come from, give me a break.
Give me a break.
So I honor their commitment, but let us make sure we
understand that part of it relates to the need for employment,
and we are never going to get it right, I suspect, until we are
able to have you have some kind of planning capacity, some kind
of ability to know ahead of time what is going to happen, and
with all due respect, we are never going to get that, not just
from us.
I mean, I happen to think you should. I will send you my
article on it, as I say, but I am a minority of one in that
prospect, so get ready for contingency.
The Chairman. You are not a minority of one. You may be a
minority of two, but I agree with you.
Let me ask you a question, gentlemen. First of all, if a
little more planning had been done, I would have moved you
ahead, because you represent the information that we absolutely
need. My question is, would you accept a fair number of written
questions from Senators who are here, and maybe a few who are
not here? Would you do that?
Mr. Connor. We would be very happy to, Senator. We have
answered questions from GAO and other aspects, parts of the
U.S. Government. We would be delighted to give any information
we can.
The Chairman. Well, I appreciate your saying that, and I am
going to give you one or two myself, but in any case, this is
very important testimony.
It may not make the front page of the New York Times
tomorrow morning, but it is the guts and feathers of what is
wrong, or perceived to be wrong about the United Nations, and I
personally appreciate your coming here. I wish we had more
time, and I am going to get you on the telephone one of these
days and see if you will come down to Washington and let me buy
you some bean soup in the Senate dining room.
Mr. Ruggie. It would be our pleasure, Senator.
A P P E N D I X
______
Responses to Additional Questions Submitted for the Record by Members
of the Committee to the United Nations Secretariat
questions from senator helms
Assessment Scale
Question. In my mind, the toughest reform necessitated by
the Helms-Biden legislation is a wholesale restructuring of the
assessment scale for Member States' dues. China is on the
Security Council as a permanent member. But it pays only 1
percent of the UN budget. Is that going to change? And what is
going to be done about the 90 countries who pay just one one-
hundredth of 1 percent of the budget?
Answer. The bedrock of the calculation of the scale of
assessment is each country's share of world gross national
product (GNP). That main element is then adjusted to reflect a
number of economic factors, the principal one of which is a
country's per capita income. Another adjustment is the ceiling
assessment rate of 25 percent.
As the attached schedule shows, the reduction benefiting
one group of Member States must, of course, be compensated for
by increasing the assessed rates of other countries. In the
attached schedule, this reallocation falls mainly to Japan and
the countries of the European Union, whose rates were adjusted
upwardly to compensate for the lowering of others.
As for the minimum assessment rate, or floor, this was
reduced to 0.001 percent in the current scale of assessments,
for 1998-2000. This reflected the fact that the previous scale,
for 1995-1997, assessed a number of smaller Member States at
many times their share of the total national income of the
membership. It was estimated, for example, that the 0.01
percent assessment rate of Sao Tome and Principe in 1995-1997
was over 35 times higher than its share of the total national
income of Member States.
The scale of assessments for the period 2001-2003 is due to
be discussed at the resumed session of the General Assembly in
March, the Committee on Contributions in June and the General
Assembly again in the autumn. The final results of this
consideration will probably not be known until the end of the
year. It should be noted, however, that they will be affected
by two factors: updating GNP amounts and decisions to be made
about assessment scale methodology--including, notably,
consideration of the low per capita income adjustment and the
ceiling. Work on collating the GNP data is currently under way
and a lively debate can be anticipated on the scale
methodology.
United Nations--Comparison of Gross National Product (Base Determinant) To Adopted Year 2000 Scale Rate
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2000
Top 20 Contributors GNP \1\ Scale Rate Reduction \2\ Increase
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
United States................................................ 26.156 25.00 -1.156
Japan........................................................ 17.287 20.573 3.286
Germany...................................................... 8.283 9.857 1.574
France....................................................... 5.500 6.545 1.045
Italy........................................................ 4.569 5.437 0.868
United Kingdom............................................... 4.279 5.092 0.813
China........................................................ 3.107 0.995 -2.112
Canada....................................................... 2.295 2.732 0.437
Spain........................................................ 2.177 2.591 0.414
Brazil....................................................... 1.979 1.471 -0.508
Russian Federation........................................... 1.618 1.077 -0.541
Netherlands.................................................. 1.371 1.632 0.261
Mexico....................................................... 1.265 0.995 -0.270
Republic of Korea............................................ 1.255 1.066 -0.249
Australia.................................................... 1.246 1.483 0.237
India........................................................ 1.176 0.299 -0.877
Argentina.................................................... 0.965 1.103 0.138
Belgium...................................................... 0.928 1.104 0.176
Sweden....................................................... 0.907 1.079 0.172
Austria...................................................... 0.791 0.942 0.151
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Country percentages of total world Gross National Product (GNP).
\2\ Reductions are mainly the result of the low per capita income adjustment. The reduction for the United
States results from the established ceiling of 25 per cent. Increases above GNP are solely the result of the
need to absorb the reductions given to other countries.
Kofi Annan's Reforms
Question. The Secretary General called for a biennial
budget of $2.655 billion--some $120 million above the 1998-1999
budget. How committed is the Secretary General to reform? Or is
putting the brakes on growth of spending not a fair test of the
Secretariat's commitment to reform? As the architect of the
Secretary General's reform proposals, do you think their
implementation has been a success or a failure? How so? Have
the Secretary General's reform initiatives run their course and
run out of steam?
Answer. The purpose of reforming the UN is to strengthen
the institution and to prepare it to meet the challenges of the
future. It is also an exercise to assure that the mandates
given to it by its membership are performed effectively and
efficiently within the resources that are appropriated for
those ends.
The Secretary General is committed to this goal. As a
result of his reform initiatives there is a new sense of UN
cohesiveness, especially in relations with the Programmes and
Funds. The establishment of a Senior Management Group adds
greatly to this new dimension. The Group includes the heads of
various departments, programmes and fuiids and meets weekly to
discuss overall policy issues that affect everyone. Members in
Geneva, Vienna, Nairobi and Rome participate through
videoconferencing.
Yet to be approved are the proposals to adopt specific time
limits for new mandates and to institute a results-based budget
system. These proposals will be taken up when the Fifth
Committee of the General Assembly resumes its session in March
and again in May this year.
Concerning the budget, the Secretary General proposed a
figure of $2,535.6 million before recosting. It reflected the
preliminary estimate for increases due to exchange rates and
inflation, which were initially forecast to be around $120
million. Subsequently, and closer to the adoption of the budget
in December 1999, that figure was revalued downward as a result
of favourable exchange rates. Also, real resource reductions
were made in the preliminary budget proposals. Thus, at the end
of the day, Member States approved a final budget for 2000-2001
totalling $2.535 billion--which is virtually the same as the
previous biennium budget.
Sustaining UN Reform
Question. What steps are most important to sustain reform
in the UN? For instance, what steps need to be taken to monitor
and measure UN programs' effectiveness? And what can we do to
pull the plug on UN programs which have either fully achieved
their discrete aim or have failed miserably?
Answer. Reform should be embedded in every activity of the
organization.
To meet this objective, the Secretary General has
established a Strategic Planning Unit, which is responsible for
identifying emerging global issues and trends, analysing their
implications for the roles and working methods of the United
Nations, and devising policy recommendations for the Secretary
General and the Senior Management Group.
In addition, every department and office in the Secretariat
is carrying out management reviews to enhance their ability to
accomplish objectives in the most cost-effective manner
possible while strengthening services to Member States.
The aim of shifting the UN program budget from a system of
input accounting to results-based accountability will meet
monitoring objectives. Under this new approach, the General
Assembly, though its relevant Committees, would specify the
results they expect the organization to achieve within the
relevant budgetary constraints. The Secretariat would be held
responsible for, and judged by, the extent to which the
specified results are reached.
Finally, the use of sunset provisions, once adopted by the
membership, will set limits on each initiative that creates new
organizational structures or major commitments of funds. They
would have to be reviewed and renewed explicitly by the General
Assembly.
The OIOS
Question. Isn't the Office of Internal Oversight Services
too flimsy to do much good? Isn't it too scared that it will
antagonize member states with its findings? Isn't its impact
limited by the fact it will not widely disseminate the findings
of its investigations and audits, treating the subjects of its
inquiries as clients? Isn't this one UN program which is
actually under-funded--especially to hire enough investigators?
Answer. OIOS' record, both in terms of the reports it
prepares and the formal and informal statements to the General
Assembly demonstrate that it is far from ``flimsy'', but indeed
does a lot of good. Due to its independent set-up, which is
reflected in a variety of different operational procedures, it
does not need to worry about antagonizing member states. Its
reports testify to this independence.
The organization has consistently built up the OIOS'
strength, counter to the general budgetary trend experienced by
other United Nations programs. In agreeing to provide OIOS with
additional resources Member States have confirmed their
interest in this operation. This support shows that Member
States are appreciative of its services.
The impact of OIOS investigations and audits has been
highly successful. Dissemination of investigations and audit
findings are directed in the first instance to those that
should/can take corrective measures. Furthermore, most
findings/work products are disseminated to intergovernmental
bodies, as well as in the public domain.
Peacekeeping/Genocide
Question. The UN issued two reports recently offering an
analysis of its own failures in the case of the so-called
``safe area'' in Srebrenica and in the case of the genocide in
Rwanda in 1994. What lessons has the Secretariat learned from
these cases?
Answer. The Secretary General's report on the fall of
Srebrenica (A/54/549 dated 15 November 1999) and the report
that he commissioned on the genocide in Rwanda (S/1999/1257
dated 16 December 1999) were very well received by the Member
States and the public at large, and a number of observers have
commented that they break new ground in the United Nations
because their level of candor, sincerity, and sense of
responsibility are qualities that this Secretary General brings
to the table in his effort to reform the Secretariat.
As concerns the findings in the two reports, they remind us
that the Secretariat and the Member States have much work to do
to ensure that such tragedies are not repeated. Those findings
and the measures that are required to address them will be the
subject of a separate report on United Nations peace operations
in general, which the Secretary General intends to issue later
this year. It will focus on the areas of the Secretariat's
performance that need to be improved as well as on doctrinal
issues. I should like to take this opportunity to briefly
mention ten lessons learned from the Rwanda and Srebrenica
tragedies that the Secretariat has drawn from these tragic
events.
Four lessons regarding the Secretariat's performance
1. Individuals matter. When thousands of lives are at
stake, the character of senior personnel in the field is
absolutely crucial. Beyond possessing the requisite technical
qualifications, they must be dynamic, courageous, imaginative
and deeply principled. Over the past few years, the Secretariat
has been working with troop contributing nations to evaluate
candidates they put forward for the positions of Force
Commander, Chief Military Observer and Civilian Police
Commissioner. The Secretariat has also now been given the
resources to bring such candidates to UN Headquarters for
interviews.
2. Timely and accurate information is critical. In response
to the problems encountered in Rwanda and Bosnia, one of the
first things that the Secretary General did when he took office
in 1997 was to change the manner in which the Secretariat
interacts with the Security Council. Briefings to the Security
Council are now the responsibility of program managers in the
substantive departments to keep the Council better and more
promptly informed of developments in the field. Briefings to
troop- and police-contributing nations have now also become a
matter of routine rather than an exception. This has resolved
many of the problems attributed to inadequate information flow.
3. The Secretariat's recommendations to the Security
Council must be honest and realistic. The Secretariat must
present the Security Council with frank recommendations about
what is required to mount and conduct a successful operation,
taking more fully into account the risks and possible pitfalls
and the need to guard against setting unrealistic expectations.
Since the tragedies of Rwanda and Srebrenica, the Secretariat
has had occasion to set conditions for the deployment of
certain peacekeeping operations and, when these were not met,
to recommend against deployment (for instance, as in the case
of Congo Brazzaville in 1997). Furthermore, in a recent report
on the situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (S/
1999/790), the Secretary General observed that: ``in order to
be effective, any United Nations peacekeeping mission in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), whatever its mandate,
will have to be large and expensive. It would require the
deployment of thousands of international troops and civilian
personnel. It will face tremendous difficulties, and will be
beset by risks. Deployment will be slow.'' Such candor will
assist the Member States to evaluate and plan for the type of
assistance that missions such as MONUC will require in the near
future.
4. The Secretariat needs to provide strategic guidance to
the field without micromanaging. The Secretariat can ill-afford
to micromanage the field operations from a distance. The
Secretariat needs to strengthen its capacity to assist the
operations in times of crisis if peace processes begin to
falter. The Secretariat must increase its sources of
information to analyze situations in conflict zones. In this
context, the Secretariat has improved its early warning
capacity, and the Departments of Political Affairs and
Peacekeeping Operations, the Emergency Relief Coordinator and
the UN Agencies have joined together to maximize their
resources in this area. Reports sent to Headquarters from the
field contain information from a far wider variety of sources.
Field missions now contain human rights and humanitarian
components. A broader range of information is submitted to the
Security Council to assist it in its decision-making. The
Secretary General has also encouraged the Secretariat to forge
greater links with academic institutions and policy institutes.
These few measures are indeed not enough to strengthen the
Secretariat's capacity to conduct the type and scope of
independent risk analysis which the Srebrenica and Rwanda
reports recommend. The Secretariat does not have an
intelligence gathering capacity and is thus entirely reliant
upon Member States to share such critical information with it.
The Secretariat continues to face considerable resource
constraints, as we see in relation to the support of operations
in Kosovo, East Timor, the DRC and Sierra Leone. If the Member
States want the Secretariat to play a greater role in
supporting the peacekeeping operations in the field, then they
must first be willing to provide it with the necessary
resources.
Six lessons regarding doctrinal issues upon which the Member States'
reflection is required
The doctrinal issues related to effective peacekeeping can
be summarized in two sayings which have gained currency in the
Secretariat over the years: ``There must be a peace to keep''
and ``peacekeepers should not make promises that they cannot
keep nor threats they cannot deliver.'' Both of these
principles were ignored in the cases of Rwanda and Bosnia. From
these two general lessons flow six more specific lessons, as
follows:
1. Size matters. The configuration and size of a
peacekeeping force must be commensurate with the risk that it
is likely to face. Once the will of a peacekeeping operation
has been tested and it fails to deliver an immediate and
decisive response, its credibility diminishes exponentially and
its capacity to stem the tide of violence evaporates.
2. Sometimes having too few peacekeepers is worse than
having none at all. The Secretary General's report on
Srebrenica clearly describes how the Dutch peacekeepers in that
enclave were poorly equipped and too few in numbers to repel an
attack by a well-armed Bosnian Serb force. Rather than
providing a credible deterrent against the Serb attack, the
Dutch peacekeepers instead found themselves at the mercy of the
Serbs as potential hostages, which thus diminished the UN's
ability to call upon NATO air power with full effectiveness. In
short, symbolic deterrence is not an appropriate substitute for
credible deterrence and can do more harm than good.
3. Peacekeeping and war fighting are distinct activities.
The lesson is simple: blue helmets should not be used to fight
a war, because they will surely fail. There are nevertheless
times when the international community must resort to the use
of force in order to prevent the genocide of a people. In such
instances there are options far better suited to waging war,
such as a coalition of Member States under the framework of a
lead nation (as in the Gulf War or in Haiti).
4. Mandates must be realistic. When the Security Council
adopts mandates that create unrealistic expectations on the
part of the local population, particularly with regard to the
protection of civilians in armed conflict, this can contribute
to the worst case scenarios described in graphic detail in the
Rwanda and Srebrenica reports. From a practical point of view,
this endangers the lives of our personnel, who come under
attack by the local populace when the peacekeeping mission
fails to protect them. From a moral perspective, the creation
of false expectations discourages or even prevents vulnerable
communities from exploring ways and means of protecting
themselves.
5. A united Security Council is critical. The success of a
peacekeeping operation is dependent upon the firm support of
the Security Council, particularly its permanent members. When
the Security Council is deeply divided on how to respond to a
crisis, as it was over the war in Bosnia, the parties to a
conflict begin to view the compromise resolutions and
statements that come out of the Council as no more than paper
tigers. Without the firm backing of the Security Council the
peacekeepers lose the leverage required to induce the
belligerents' compliance through non-forceful means. In
contrast, the way in which the Security Council responded to
the violence in East Timor following the popular consultation
in September 1999 was an excellent illustration of how a united
Council can have a tremendously positive effect.
6. Rapid deployment is essential. Once the Security Council
authorizes the establishment of a peacekeeping force, it should
be deployed promptly, because peace processes tend to be most
fragile once a cease-fire or a comprehensive agreement has been
signed. The Rwanda report describes in detail the utter
absurdity of the troops arriving in theatre only after the
genocide had run its course. The Security Council authorized
the deployment of 5,500 troops to Rwanda on 17 May 1994 (six
weeks after the killing started). Three months later (after
hundreds of thousands more Rwandese had been butchered), the
Secretariat was still trying to convince Member States to
provide the troops required.
There is no doubt that the Secretariat must continue to
work on building a framework for enhancing the United Nations'
rapid deployment capacities, through such initiatives as the
Stand-by Arrangements System. However, it must be clearly
stated that the lack of a framework does not explain the
failure of the troops to arrive in Rwanda on time. The reality
is simple. The United Nations does not have an army of its own
(nor does the Secretariat believe that it should have one). The
Secretariat relies 100 percent on the Member States to provide
the required troops. In the case of Rwanda, those Member States
in a position to assist could not find the will to do so. Even
today, we are plagued by the same problem in Kosovo and East
Timor, where our peacekeeping operations face dramatic
shortages in the numbers of civilian police that they require
to effectively maintain law and order. We are thus grateful for
the generous financial and personnel support that the United
States is providing to the United Nations Interim
Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK).
[The following questions were sent directly to Mr. Connor]
Budget
Question. To reach a budget of $2.536 billion, the General
Assembly cut expenditures in general temporary assistance,
consultants and travel. At the same time, the support account
for peacekeeping increased and the number of temporary
positions charged to extra-budgetary funds increased. How much
of the regular budget was simply transferred to the other
accounts? To what extent were these legitimate transfers or
simply different ways of increasing the overall funding to the
UN?
Answer. The General Assembly reduced the 2000-2001 budget
by $19.6 million in resources requested by the Secretary
General for temporary assistance, consultants and travel in
order to accommodate Member States' request. Such imposed
decreases are handled through across the board cuts in all
departments, not through the transfer of posts to extra-
budgetary or support account posts. In fact, the number of
extra-budgetary positions envisaged for this biennium are not
seen as increasing, but as detailed in table 10 of document A/
54/6/Rev.1 are estimated to decrease to 6,632 from a total of
7,613 in the previous biennium. The establishment of extra-
budgetary posts is solely contingent upon voluntary
contributions from Member States for specific purposes as
detailed in the terms of reference of each trust fund or
special account.
On the other hand, support account posts are established on
the basis of the needs and number of peacekeeping missions.
While the number of GA approved support posts has increased,
this is a result of the most recent expansion of peacekeeping
operations in Kosovo, East Timor and Africa after a relative
short period of downsizing in the number and scope of missions.
All in all, the number of support staff complements the size,
complexity and scope of the operations.
The main mechanism for dealing with budgetary cuts has been
the Secretary General's program on productivity improvements.
By focusing on streamlining our procedures and processes, by
reviewing the way we do business, the UN has been able to cope
with the increasing demands and fewer available resources.
Budget Reform
Question. The last General Assembly resolution stated that
the Secretary General was to continue to budget on an output
basis. That is, budgets would not be linked to program
effectiveness. What are the impediments to the adoption of a
results-based budgeting approach? What priority do you place on
gaining approval for and implementing results-based budgeting?
Answer. The introduction of results-based budgeting is more
of an evolutionary development in the United Nations. The use
of pure input budgeting was discontinued in the UN when program
budgeting replaced the former objective of expenditures budgets
in 1974. Since that time, much work has been undertaken to
define Outputs, to monitor these and to formalize these
arrangements within a set of detailed rules and regulations
covering all aspects of the planning, programming, budgeting,
monitoring and evaluation cycle.
Thus the proposed shift to results-based budgeting means
continuing the search for better managerial use of resources,
that is looking at the way outputs have been budgeted and
defined and the way they are provided for in dollar terms, and
how they are monitored and evaluated.
As requested by the General Assembly, a comprehensive
report is before the Assembly in document A/54/456. This
report, which will be reviewed in early fall, seeks the
endorsement of the Assembly of a gradual approach to the
introduction of results-based elements in the program planning,
budgeting, monitoring and evaluation cycle, in a manner that
fully reflects the specific needs and characteristics of the
organization.
In addition, a concrete measure has been proposed for the
inclusion in all sections of the program budget for the
biennium 2002-2003, of performance indicators in addition to
statements of objectives and expected accomplishments in a
results-based framework, while maintaining the current level of
detail on post and non-post requirements.
Further steps envisaged by the Secretariat are: (a) the
measurement, at the end of the biennium 2000-2001, of the
performance of the five budget sections covered in the
prototype fascicles against a limited number of expected
accomplishments, using selected performance indicators; and (b)
other internal measures designed to increase the knowledge of
staff and to develop mechanisms and procedures that would
support a gradual implementation of performance measurement as
a basis for improved program monitoring and evaluation.
Such a phased approach will allow the organization to test
the feasibility of these proposals and to make adjustments
where necessary.
Lost Funds
Question. What do you know about money allegedly lost when
the UN Environment Program deposited it in the account of a
private citizen (Susan Madakor) who did not work for the UN, in
Brooklyn? Didn't the amount total some $700,000?
Answer. From 12 February 1998 through 25 October 1999, nine
separate countries--namely, Belgium, Dominica, Finland, France,
Italy, Namibia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Turkey and Uruguay--wire
transferred funds in varying amounts to the UNEP Trust Fund. In
thirteen cases, it appears that the wire transfer instructions
omitted one digit from the bank account number. The wire
transfer instructions specified an account which happened to be
the bank account of Ms. Susan Rouse-Madakor. A total of
$701,998.94 was credited to the account of Ms. Rouse-Madakor.
As of 4 February 2000, the United Nations has recouped
$470,121.57 from the Chase Manhattan Bank and efforts are
continuing to ensure that the intended beneficiary, United
Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Trust Fund, receives the
balance of the amounts which the Member States intended to
contribute.
OIOS is conducting an investigation into the source of the
erroneous bank account number as well as into the procedures
for accepting contributions, to ensure that this error is not
repeated and are cooperating with the legal authorities of the
United States on the case of the misdirected funds.
questions from senator grams
Code of Conduct
Question. The Secretary General just sent a proposal to the
General Assembly that would apply the UN code of conduct to
officials other than Secretariat officials and experts on
missions. A paragraph in the proposal specifically provides
examples of these officials including JIU inspectors and the
Head of the ACABQ. Why weren't these officials covered under
the code of conduct from the beginning? What is the prospect
for this proposal passing the General Assembly?
Answer. The explanation is purely for technical reasons.
The first step in instituting the new code of conduct was to
amend the Staff Regulations and Staff Rules, which apply to UN
staff members only. Since the JIU inspectors and the Head of
ACABQ are not UN staff members, a separate set of regulations
had to be drafted, including for others who belong in the same
category, particularly experts on mission. The report is thus
presented to the General Assembly in accordance with its own
request. We believe that the prospects are good for this
proposal passing the General Assembly.
Question. Has anyone from the OIOS staff approached the
Secretary General with concerns regarding the appointment of
the Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs to serve as the
temporary head of the OIOS? It would seem difficult to maintain
OIOS' operational independence if the head of OIOS is
responsible for providing legal support and advice to UN
offices he is also auditing, investigating or evaluating.
Answer. As far as we are aware, the Secretary General has
not been approached by anyone from the OIOS staff regarding the
appointment of the Under-Secretary General for Legal Affairs to
serve as the temporary Head of the OIOS, The appointment of Mr.
Corell as a temporary Head of OIOS for a short period does not
create a difficulty in maintaining OIOS' operational
independence. Mr. Corell has informed us that he instructed
heads of units to continue working as in the past, that he
would deal only with the most important issues of policy and
present reports to the General Assembly only if they could not
await the arrival of the new Under-Secretary General. He has
further advised us that he would, of course, recuse himself in
relation to any advice provided by the Office of Legal Affairs
to any UN Office requested in connection with an audit,
investigation, inspection or evaluation by OIOS of that Office.
Of course, Mr. Corell would not be required to recuse himself
in respect of legal advice provided to such Offices unrelated
to such audits, investigations, inspection or evaluations. In
sum, we found that in identifying someone to stand in for the
Head of OIOS for a short period, the natural choice would be
the Legal Counsel, who also acts independently in that capacity
within the Secretariat. Ultimately, the task would have to be
discharged with the judgment required by the circumstances.
______
Responses to Additional Questions Submitted by Members of the Committee
to Ambassador Holbrooke
questions from senator helms
The Budget
Question. To reach a budget of $2.536 billion, the General
Assembly cut expenditures in general temporary assistance,
consultants, and travel. At the same time, the account for
peacekeeping increased arid the number of temporary positions
charged to extra-budgetary funds increased, and that leads me
to ask the question, how much of the regular budget was simply
transferred to other accounts?
Answer. There has been no transfer of funds because the
budgets are separate and distinct, and used for different
purposes. Funds appropriated for the Regular Budget cannot be
used to pay for peacekeeping missions. Similarly, extra-
budgetary monies, which are voluntary contributions made by
member states, are earmarked for specific activities; rules and
regulations prohibit use of these amounts for activities
authorized under the Regular Budget.
The Congo
Question. In the context of ``Africa month'' during the
U.S. presidency of the Security Council, it has been suggested
that the United States should play an active role in a future
peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Presidential Directive 25 requires that peacekeeping missions
serve the ``national security interests'' of the United States.
Do you feel it is in the United States national security
interests to participate in such an operation in the Congo?
Answer. The U.S. has a clear national interest in resolving
the multi-state conflict in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, and encouraging the evolution of a stable, democratic
Congo at peace with its neighbors. The current conflict affects
much of the African continent, with enormous costs to U.S.
political and economic interests. Involving troops from at
least a half-dozen countries, three Congolese rebel factions
and numerous foreign armed groups, the Congo conflict has
become intertwined with internal conflicts in Rwanda, Uganda,
Sudan, Angola and Burundi, threatening to destabilize a broad
swath of central and southern Africa.
Inaction on the part of the international community would
have disastrous consequences, risking a resurgence of genocide
in the region and the devolution of this proxy war into a
direct war. Continued fighting in the region has produced a
dangerous security vacuum that has drawn in rogue states which
are seeking weapons sales, political allies, and access to
strategic materials. The fighting threatens to spark a major
humanitarian crisis, with a severe long-term impact on economic
growth, investment, poverty alleviation and trade for the
region. For all of these reasons, the Congo conflict ranks
among the most dangerous in Africa.
questions from senator grams
DOD Costs
Question. In addition to $1.4 billion the U.S. provided to
the UN in voluntary and assessed contributions in fiscal year
1999, the U.S. contributed $8.779 billion in support of UN
Security Council resolutions such as enforcing the no-fly zones
in Iraq and undertaking humanitarian aid in Kosovo. According
to the Administration, these amounts are not charged to the UN
because the costs support actions that are in the U.S. interest
and would be carried out whether or not they supported UN
resolutions. Why hasn't this Administration been more
aggressive in seeking credit for U.S. contributions?
Answer. As indicated, the U.S. has not sought credit for
its contributions that extend beyond the mandates of the
resolutions because these activities are in the national
interest of the U.S. and would be carried out whether or not
they supported UN resolutions.
OIOS
Question. I am very concerned that one of our greatest
reform achievements to date, an independent Inspector General's
office, has been jeopardized by the appointment of the Under-
Secretary General for Legal Affairs to serve as the temporary
head of the OIOS. On its face, it would seem difficult to
maintain OIOS' operational independence if the head of OIOS is
responsible for providing legal support and advice to UN
offices he is also auditing, investigating or evaluating. Has
the U.S. Mission voiced any concerns to the Secretary General
that it would be better to have a prominent person from outside
the UN system, or someone who had worked for Mr. Paschke,
serving in this capacity?
Answer. We agree that the Secretary General has not made a
timely appointment of a permanent chief of OIOS. We first
reminded the Secretary General of this important appointment in
April 1999 and followed it up in August with several names of
possible candidates. When it became apparent, that the initial
candidates were not deemed qualified, we provided additional
names in December, as did other member states. In January of
this year, Ambassador Holbrooke spoke with and sent a letter to
the Secretary General urging speedy action on the appointment.
Question. The certification to Congress on the independence
of the OIOS is a legal document, and as such the State
Department is expected to have a legal justification for its
decision. Would you provide the background documents supporting
this certification given Mr. Correll's appointment?
Answer. We agree that any certification to Congress must
have a basis in fact to justify it. However, decision-makers
consider input from a variety of sources when making a judgment
as to whether or not a particular certification may
appropriately be made, and there is no requirement that all
such input be reduced to writing. Moreover, the decision
documents that typically are prepared are of an internal and
deliberative character. That said, we are always willing to
provide via briefings additional details concerning the factual
basis for our certifications to supplement the summary
``justification'' generally provided with the certification
itself.
Budget
Question. It is my understanding that under Kassebaum-
Solomon the U.S. must join in the consensus for every major
budget decision. How was your decision to disassociate from the
consensus on the budget outline consistent with that
obligation?
Answer. The UN budget outline for 2000-01 was approved by
the General Assembly two years ago, in December 1998. Although
I was not yet on board at that time, I understand that the U.S.
decision to disassociate from--but not block--consensus
adoption of the outline reflected our expectation that further
efforts could be made by the UN to save on costs. As approved,
the level of $2.545 billion was $13 million above our target
level of $2.533 billion.
The outline is not an approved budget. The actual 2000-01
UN budget was approved in December 1999 at a level of $2.536
billion. Although marginally higher than our $2.533 billion
target, the approved UN budget is below the outline level
approved a year earlier ($2.545 billion) and substantially
below the level requested by the Secretary General ($2.655
billion), which included adjustments for economic factors such
as inflation and exchange rates.
The U.S. disassociated from the consensus adoption of the
UN budget because it was slightly above our desired target of
$2.533 billion--an actual difference of less than $3 million.
At the same time, our decision to not block consensus reflected
our general satisfaction with the outcome of the approved
budget. The $122 million gap between the Secretary General's
request and the U.S. target level was virtually eliminated.
Savings were achieved in administrative costs such as staff
travel, consultants, information technology, temporary
assistance and general operating expenses.
I would note that the only alternative to the consensus
procedure regarding the UN budget is to call for a vote. The
U.S. would have lost such a vote on the 2000-01 UN budget. The
voting action also would have poisoned the atmosphere for this
year's critical negotiations on the UN scales of assessment. It
was essential for us to avoid such an outcome.
The U.S. will continue to work for budget discipline in the
United Nations. Our adherence to the consensus procedure--even
if we disassociate--will ensure U.S. views are given
appropriate weight in the final outcome.
Question. During the negotiations on the UN budget for the
next biennium, did the United States propose specific cuts to
maintain a no-growth budget? For example, when the G-77
demanded $2.5 million to create year-round conference services
in a rarely used facility in Nairobi, did you suggest an
offset? Would you provide the Committee with the list of cuts
the U.S. Mission believed could be made without harming the
UN's core functions?
Answer. Prior to the budget negotiations we analyzed the
budget proposal and identified potential reductions in a number
of areas that we believed could be made without harming the
UN's core functions, These included reductions in provisions
for staff costs, travel expenses, information technology,
consultants fees, and major maintenance. At various points
during the negotiations we proposed these reductions; some
member states proposed other reductions, while others proposed
increases, The give and take of the negotiations resulted in a
$2.535 billion budget that is just $2 million more than an
absolute zero nominal growth budget. While this was
substantially less than the proposal made by the Secretary
General, it was still more than we believed was necessary to
carry out the priority activities of the UN. For this reason,
we disassociated ourselves from the agreement.
______
Responses to Additional Questions for the Record Submitted by Senator
Helms to Donald Hays
implementation of united nations reform
Assessment Scale
Question. In my mind, the toughest reform necessitated by
the Helms-Biden legislation is a wholesale restructuring of the
assessment scale for Member States' dues. China is on the
Security Council as a permanent member, but it pays only 1
percent of the UN budget. Is that going to change? And what is
going to be done about the 90 countries, who pay just one one-
hundredth of one percent of the budget?
Answer. We are working to mobilize the entire UN membership
in an agenda for comprehensive scale reform aimed at creating a
flatter, more objective system. Many Member States share our
concern about the anomalies and inequities embedded in the
current assessment methodology. Our efforts axe focused on
getting major players at the UN, including but not limited to
China, to recognize that financial responsibilities are part
and parcel of playing a leadership role at the UN. While
certain of the least developed countries are not in a position
to shoulder an additional dues burden, there are many other UN
Members that can and should pay more. Our proposals address
this problem in a transparent and fair way, and are aimed to
ensure that all countries with the capacity to pay are
contributing their fair share. We have been meeting with 5-6
delegations per day to explain our proposals and urge their
support. This is complemented by a similar mobilization for
scale reform in capitals through our embassies and senior
officials. Our message seems to be getting across, and while it
is too early to predict the ultimate outcome, we are cautiously
optimistic about effecting significant change to the assessment
system.
Budget Reform
Question. The last General Assembly resolution stated that
the Secretary General was to continue to budget on an output
basis. That is, budgets would not be linked to program
effectiveness. What are the impediments to the adoption of a
results-based budgeting approach? What priority do you place on
gaining approval for and implementing results-based budgeting?
Answer. The changes needed to achieve a more results-
oriented UN budget are substantial and may take several years.
In fact, the changes are very much like ones being made as our
own government switches to performance-based planning and
budgeting, as stipulated in the Government Performance and
Results Act. They will require shifts in attitudes of all of
the important players, including member states and program
managers, as well as critical improvements in program
evaluation functions, One of the major obstacles that we must
overcome is a view held by many developing countries that
results-based budgeting is just a pretext for making budget
reductions.
The Secretary General has proposed a gradual approach,
starting with the budget period covering 2002-2003, and the
Fifth Committee will consider this later in the year. We
believe this is very important, and we will work closely with
other member states to obtain a positive outcome. At the same
time, we will continue to push for full implementation of
existing UN rules and regulations which already contain
requirements like those found in results-based budgeting. For
example, the rules require program managers to do regular self-
evaluations of their activities with a view to determining
effectiveness and continuing relevance; unfortunately, this is
not done regularly and consistently throughout the UN, so we
will continue to insist on improvements in this area.
Similarly, we will seek full compliance with a recent rule
change, which we instigated, which requires inclusion of
specific objectives and expected accomplishments in budget
proposals, and also requires monitoring of progress made in
achieving them. All of this, we believe will lead to an
organization that is focused on outcomes rather than inputs.
Lost Funds
Question. What do you know about money allegedly lost when
the UN Environment Program deposited it in the account of a
private citizen (Susan Madakor) who did not work for the UN in
Brooklyn? Didn't the amount total some $700,000?
Answer. Our knowledge of this ease is based primarily on
media accounts. As you indicated, a woman in Brooklyn received,
erroneously, a substantial amount of funds into her bank
account that were intended as voluntary donations for UN
Environmental Program activities. The UN did not catch the
error initially because it was not aware that counties had made
contributions. Once discovered, however, the UN took action to
freeze unspent funds and recover the remainder. OIOS
investigators are in the process of determining how this
happened and what might be done to prevent such incidents in
the future.
Kofi Annan's Reforms
Question. The Secretary General called for a biennial
budget of $2.655 billion--some $120 million above the 1998-1999
budget. How committed is the Secretary General to reform? Or is
putting the brakes on growth of spending not a fair test of the
Secretariat's commitment to reform? Do you think the
implementation of the Secretary General's reform proposals has
been a success or failure? How so? Have the Secretary General's
reform initiatives run their course and run out of steam?
Answer. The Secretary General is committed to the ongoing
strategic management of the United Nations. At the start of his
tenure he made it his first priority to produce a detailed
agenda of measures and proposals to improve the effectiveness
and efficiency of the organization. Membership has supported
the bulk of his ``Track II'' reform package while requesting
more detail on proposals for results-based budgeting and sunset
provisions. Meanwhile, the Secretary General continues to
herald reform as an ongoing process and is programming this
September's Millennium Summit to produce an animating vision
for the future of the organization. Certainly the Secretary
General's ability to operate over recent years. under a zero-
nominal-growth regular budget is a testament to doing more with
less; this has been a critical first step in fitting the
organization to new purposes brought about by a changing world
environment. The implementation of the Secretary General's
reform package is making that fit possible. The successful
addition of a Deputy Secretary General heading up a new
leadership and management structure (a first-ever ``cabinet''
called the Senior Management Group) has reinvigorated the
United Nations. It has promoted and realized strengthened
leadership capacity in the Secretariat, enhanced strategic
direction from the General Assembly, acting as one coordinated
entity in the field at the country level, and increasing UN
administrative effectiveness and efficiencies, among other
things. One example: UN staff, through a specially-created
suggestion box, contributed over 400 ideas which have been
implemented for improving day-to-day administrative matters.
The Secretary General's initiatives have been lead by his
overarching reform: to lead the ongoing process of change and
to institute sound management throughout the organization.
Given that UN reform, then, is a process and not an event, it
will continue to run the course as new opportunities and
constraints arise in the course of managing the United Nations.
Sustaining UN Reform
Question. What steps are most important to sustain reform
in the UN? For instance, what steps need to be taken to monitor
and measure UN programs' effectiveness? And what can we do to
pull the plug on UN programs which have either fully achieved
their discrete aim or have failed miserably?
Answer. The most important steps for sustaining reform in
the UN are those that involve and motivate the membership to
maintain and demonstrate sustained political will for
stewarding the organization effectively and efficiently. In
brief, membership has to realize value for its involvement
which it can get by working together for sensible mandates for
UN programming, scheduled reviews of Secretariat performance,
support for the organization's financial stability, independent
and capable internal oversight, and thoughtful selection of
subsequent Secretaries-General. For monitoring and measuring UN
programs' effectiveness, the Secretary General has established
a Strategic Planning Unit to identify emerging global issues
and trends, analyze their implications for the organization,
and devise policy recommendations for the Secretary General and
the Senior Management Group. This type of orientation has been
copied and incorporated within the many Departments. Through
the adoption of the culture of relevance, officials now are in
effect monitoring and measuring UN programs' effectiveness for
compliance with mandates and goals, and no longer merely
producing a set number of outputs. Having requested that each
Department create a ``results-based budgeting'' mock-up for
each section of the regular budget, the Secretary General
established a culture of accountability to program managers for
targeting failed programs and supporting effective programs.
The OIOS
Question. Isn't the Office of Internal Oversight Services
too flimsy to do much good? Isn't it too seared that it will
antagonize member states with its findings? Isn't its impact
limited by the fact it will not widely disseminate the findings
of its investigations and audits, treating the subjects of its
inquiries as clients? Isn't this one UN program which is
actually under-funded--especially to hire enough investigators?
Answer. The creation of OIOS in 1994 was perhaps the most
significant UN reform in recent history. Under its first chief,
Karl Paschke, the Office proved itself as a valuable tool for
improving the management culture of the UN, for identifying
savings, and for reporting on fraud and abuse. Last year alone
OIOS recommendations resulted in savings of $23.5 million.
What's more, OIOS audits have led to substantial improvements
in operational effectiveness and its investigations section
pursued several major cases where UN staff and contractors were
stealing funds or otherwise abusing their authority.
A good example of OIOS' willingness to be ``hard hitting''
is found in a recently-issued investigation report about a
theft of $800,000 in the Bosnia peacekeeping mission. The chief
of the mission's travel section had devised a clever scheme to
obtain kickbacks from travel agents for excess baggage fees
that were already included in the cost of the airline tickets.
After a full audit and investigation by OIOS, the thief was
prosecuted and convicted in New York, where he awaits
sentencing. Efforts are also being made to recover the stolen
funds. More importantly, however, the investigation has led to
improvements in the weak internal controls that allowed the
scheme to operate in the first place.
The fact that OIOS does not widely disseminate the findings
of its investigations and audits does not limit the impact or
effectiveness of the office. Using its automated databases,
OIOS has assiduously followed up with managers who are
responsible for ensuring implementation. In its latest annual
report, OIOS reported that managers had implemented 85 percent
of the recommendations the office had issued since October 1994
related to investigations, and 74 percent of all audit
recommendations. This represents a steady increase over the
five years that OIOS has been operating, and is a strong
indication that program managers have become increasingly
receptive to OIOS' ideas for improving their operations and
strengthening internal controls.
Are OIOS' resources sufficient? This is hard to tell. No
doubt the auditors and investigators will probably always say
there are not enough of them. But OIOS resources, when combined
with other oversight resources--including the Board of Auditors
and the internal oversight mechanisms in various funds and
programs--provide substantial oversight coverage of UN
activities. We were also pleased that the new UN budget
provides additional auditor positions and other resources for
OIOS.
______
Additional Questions Submitted for the Record by Members of the
Committee to John R. Bolton
questions from senator helms
Reform and Sovereignty
Question. You agree with me that the United Nations has
utility only to the degree that it serves the will of the
members states, and in particular, serves the interests of the
United States. What institutional reform or change in the U.S.
approach to relations with the U.N. would best ensure this is
the case?
Answer. As I indicated in my prepared testimony, it is
incumbent upon the United States to protect its own interests
in the United Nations and other international organizations.
Unfortunately, there is no substitute for clear-headed
presidential leadership on this point as part of the overall
conduct of American foreign policy. Nonetheless, vigorous
congressional participation, pursuant to its own independent
Constitutional authorities, can help mitigate some of the worst
mistakes of misguided Executive-branch policies. Despite the
Committee's heavy workload, I would urge that you consider more
frequent hearings on American policy in international
organizations and in the negotiations of international
agreements that affect domestic policy issues. By bringing
increased public attention to these issues, I believe that
overwhelming public opinion will make itself heard in both
branches.
Peacekeeping
Question. Peacekeeping missions were on the wane in the
middle years of the Clinton Administration, following debacles
in Somalia and Bosnia--about which you have previously written
and testified. In the late Clinton Administration, they seem to
be a growth industry again. To what degree do peacekeeping
operations in Sierra Leone, East Timor, and the Democratic
Republic of the Congo serve American interests?
Answer. U.N. involvement in disputes that truly threaten
``international peace and security'' is both legitimate under
the U.N. Charter and often in the best interests of the United
States. Whether and to what extent, however, such U.N.
involvement should include peacekeeping forces deployed into a
troubled region is very much a separate question. Too often in
the past, and quite likely now in Sierra Leone and the Congo,
deploying U.N. observers or disengagement forces may be
premature, and actually exacerbate conflicts rather than help
mitigate them.
The three basic prerequisites of successful U.N.
peacekeeping remain, as they always have been: (1) the consent
of all of the parties to a conflict; (2) neutrality by the U.N.
among the parties; and (3) the use of force by U.N. troops
essentially only in self defense or in aid of their mission.
Too often, the deployment of peacekeepers has proceeded without
these essentials being in place, and the results have been
tragic, as in Somalia and Bosnia. In particular, the proposed
U.N. deployment in the Congo has all of the signs of being
premature, ill-planned and likely to fail to keep a non-
existent peace or actually to harden existing lines of
conflict.
Iraq
Question. Could you offer your thoughts of the steps that
the U.N. Security Council has taken to loosen sanctions on
Iraq? How has the U.N. performed in the year since UNSCOM was
shut down, ending weapons inspections in Iraq? How has the U.S.
team at the U.N. performed with regard to Iraq?
Answer. There has been for some time a substantial
discontinuity between UN employees on the ground in Iraq
implementing the ``oil-for-food'' program and senior
Secretariat leadership in New York. The Iraq-based personnel
appear to have become ``captured'' by Iraqi propaganda about
the effects of economic sanctions on the Iraqi people, contrary
to the clear evidence that Saddam Hussein is expending scarce
economic resources to bolster his own military and political
position in Iraq to the detriment of dissident or disfavored
segments of the Iraqi population. This tilt toward Saddam has
been manifested in inadequate monitoring of financial flows
under the oil-for-food program (thus providing Saddam's regime
with resources to purchase non-humanitarian goods and
equipment), and, in addition, unsatisfactory controls over the
distribution of humanitarian supplies provided under the oil-
for-food program. Much could be done to correct these problems
by returning full operational control of the ``oil-for-food''
program to management by the Secretariat in New York, which
would provide far greater opportunity for effective oversight
by the Security Council.
Unfortunately, the collapse of the sanctions regime through
loose field administration is not only the fault of the United
Nations. Our Administration's inattention both to sanctions
enforcement and to the hard political task of maintaining and
enhancing the international coalition against Iraq has been
ignored for too long. The recent boarding of a Russian ship
apparently carrying Iraqi oil in violation of the international
sanctions may signal a renewed emphasis on sanctions
enforcement, which should be encouraged and expanded.
Taiwan
Question. Taiwan has every attribute of a sovereign state.
What does the failure of the U.N. to give a seat or voice to
Taiwan tell you about the representativeness of the U.N.?
Answer. I believe, and have previously testified on the
House side that the Republic of China on Taiwan clearly
deserves renewed representation in the United Nations. I have
also explained how that might be achieved. For inclusion in the
record, I attach a recent article in the Legal Times which
explains my thinking on Taiwan and the U.N.
Legal Times, June 22, 1998
Welcome Back, Taiwan
the united nations should erase the stain of resolution 2758 and
`readmit' the republic of china
by John R. Bolton
In the 1970s, the United Nations was a convenient, indeed
preferred, venue for legitimizing American and Western
institutions, values, and allies. The shameful Resolution 3379
of 1975, which equated Zionism with racism, was simply the
worst of a long list of outrageous General Assembly actions. It
was presaged in 1971 by Resolution 2758, which eliminated the
Republic of China (now generally known as Taiwan) from the
United Nations' rolls and replaced it with the People's
Republic of China (P.R.C.). Although the Zionism resolution was
repealed in 1991, the pernicious effects of Resolution 2758
persist to this day.
As President Bill Clinton prepares to leave on his much
debated trip to the P.R.C., Resolution 2758 stands out as a
Cold War relic, a practical impediment to the more effective
operation of the U.N. system, and an affront to the often-
trumpeted characteristic of U.N. universality.
Resolution 2758 is itself illegitimate, violative by its
own terms of the U.N. Charter in multiple respects, and a
virtually dispositive rebuttal to any contention that the
United Nations functions within a ``rule of law'' context. So
flawed is this resolution that only its effective repeal by the
General Assembly can provide any hope of expunging the stain on
the escutcheon of the United Nations.
In the years since 1971, the crassly political way in which
Resolution 2758 violated the U.N. Charter and its larger
charter-breaking implications have been conveniently forgotten,
but the history of its adoption tells us much about what is
politically wrong with the United Nations today. That history
may even provide a way out of the current quagmire for those
willing to seize it.
Failure to seize this opportunity--and especially the
failure of the United States to take the lead in righting this
wrong--can only have grave consequences for the United Nations,
especially given the parlous levels of support it enjoys in
Congress. Taiwan attempted to begin a debate on repeal during
the latest session of the General Assembly. Although its
efforts were turned aside by the P.R.C.'s typically energetic
lobbying, the status of Taiwan is one that U.N. supporters
ignore only at their own peril.
The simplest way to explain the illegitimacy of Resolution
2758 is to state the basic facts that the P.R.C. never actually
joined the United Nations and the Republic of China was never
actually expelled, pursuant to the U.N. Charter. Resolution
2758's only operative paragraph states in full that the General
Assembly:
Decides to restore all its rights to the People's
Republic of China and to recognize the representatives
of its Government as the only legitimate
representatives of China to the United Nations, and to
expel forthwith the representatives of Chiang Kai-shek
from the place which they unlawfully occupy at the
United Nations and in all the organizations affiliated
with it.
Although the resolution was cast in the language of law,
the P.R.C., Albania (lead sponsor of the draft resolution), and
their supporters adopted the ``representation'' approach for
highly political reasons.
Any objective reading of Resolution 2758 clearly
demonstrates its facial violations of the U.N. Charter. It had
the de facto effect of admitting a new member to the United
Nations, expelling a sitting member, and replacing a permanent
member of the Security Council, all without any Security
Council action. Strikingly, a majority of the General Assembly
persuaded themselves that none of these actions amounted to an
``important question'' under the charter.
Had the P.R.C. applied directly for membership, Article
4(2) would have required it to be elected ``by a decision of
the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security
Council.'' Quite obviously, in 1971, such an approach would
have subjected the P.R.C. application to vetoes by the United
States and the Republic of China. Similarly, efforts to suspend
Taiwan from U.N. membership (under Article 5) or to expel it
entirely (under Article 6) would have failed both because the
substantive requirements of those articles were not met, and
because General Assembly action under either provision also
requires a Security Council recommendation, subject to the
permanent members' veto power.
Moreover, applications for new U.N. memberships,
suspensions, and expulsions are all explicitly enumerated in
Article 18(2) as ``important questions'' requiring a two-thirds
majority of those members present and voting in the General
Assembly. Since 1961, the United States, Taiwan, and their
supporters had been able to rely on a series of resolutions
that declared that ``in accordance with Article 18 of the
Charter, any proposal to change the representation of China is
an important question.''
Using any route provided by the U.N. Charter thus would
have (and had repeatedly in the past) led to defeat for the
P.R.C. Accordingly, the P.R.C. decided to end-run the carefully
crafted procedural protections of the charter and create a new
and unauthorized procedure of simply replacing one set of
``representatives'' with another.
On Oct. 25, 1971, in clear evidence of the decline and
final collapse of the United States-led, pro-Republic of China
coalition, the General Assembly first rejected the latest
``important question'' resolution by a vote of 55 in favor, 59
opposed, 15 abstaining, and two absent. The Albanian text that
became Resolution 2758 was then adopted by a vote of 76 in
favor, 35 opposed, 17 abstaining, and three not participating.
Illegitimate as the proceedings that led to the adoption of
Resolution 2758 may have been, however, the past cannot be
rewritten. Today, attention must be focused on addressing the
consequences of the resolution.
Obvious Option
The most obvious option is for Taiwan to seek its repeal
and reobtain representation. In effect, Taiwan now faces the
mirror image of the P.R.C.'s problem before 1971. Attempting to
obtain membership through the normal U.N. Charter procedures
would almost surely produce a Beijing veto. Accordingly,
following the trail blazed by Beijing appears to be Taiwan's
only realistic course, although it is one that will require
enormous diplomatic efforts. What Taiwan needs is the visible
support of the United States, which, sadly, is a dubious
proposition during the current administration.
The obstacles to repealing Resolution 2758, while numerous,
are by no means insuperable.
First is the question of whether the General Assembly,
acting on its own without the Security Council, has the
authority to ``reseat'' Taiwan. The U.N. Charter is silent on
this point. Of course, the charter process was also explicitly
contrary to the ultra vires procedures followed by the General
Assembly when it adopted Resolution 2758, so the problem of
perfect procedure should not long detain us.
In 1971, recognizing the likelihood that the P.R.C.'s
efforts would finally succeed, the United States and others
proposed ``dual representation'' of both the P.R.C. and Taiwan,
with the P.R.C. being seared as a permanent member of the
Security Council. Operative paragraph two of the draft U.S.
resolution stated specifically that the General Assembly
``Affirms the continued right of representation of the Republic
of China.''
In describing this draft resolution at the time, U.N.
Ambassador George Bush queried rhetorically: ``Some may ask
where and when the Charter has been used before in precisely
the way our resolution proposes. The answer is: nowhere--
because in 26 years the United Nations has never faced
precisely this situation.''
After reviewing such cases as the three General Assembly
votes possessed by the U.S.S.R. (on its own, as well as through
the Ukrainian and Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republics), and
the U.N. membership of India even before its full independence
from the British Empire. Bush concluded by saying:
In every such case the United Nations has faced a
reality, not a theory--and has acted accordingly,
finding new solutions for new problems. We are in a
similar situation now. We face a reality, not a theory.
Our proper concern must be to do justice to the complex
reality that exist today in the form of effective
governing entities, and the Charter gives us the room
to innovate to satisfy that concern.
While the dual representation resolution never came to a
General Assembly vote in 1971, reseating Taiwan would have the
practical effect of adopting it today.
This would indeed result in the addition of a U.N. member
outside the procedures of Article 4. But that outcome cannot be
any different in legitimacy than Resolution 2758 itself. It
would be absurd to say that the General Assembly cannot correct
the iniquitous effects of an illegal earlier resolution simply
because of doubts about the corrective. Otherwise, the assembly
would be unable to overcome self-inflicted wounds, even when it
had the will and the ability to do so.
Second, there is the question of whether Taiwan qualifies
as a ``state'' under Article 4. Clearly it does: It controls a
defined territory has an identifiable population and a capital
city, administers its own internal affairs, and is able to
enter into relations with other states.
The United Nations' history, as Bush's remarks on the
U.S.S.R. and India demonstrated, contains ample precedent for
accommodating ambiguous circumstances. Both East and West
Germany held U.N. membership prior to their reunification. The
two Koreas are both U.N. members, even though their very
existence as separate states stems only from the historical
circumstances of Japan's surrendering in 1945 to the Americans
in the south and the Soviets in the north. The two Yemens also
held separate U.N. memberships prior to their merger, as did
Tanganyika and Zanzibar before becoming Tanzania.
Contrary to the fears expressed by the P.R.C., providing
representation to Taiwan would not represent a ``two China''
policy, nor need it lead to the conclusion that the United
Nations is recognizing Taiwan's ``independence'' from the
P.R.C. In all the cases noted, practical political realities,
not the theology of international law ultimately governed the
decisions of the United Nations. The same realities should
guide it today.
Third, Third World majorities have argued successfully in
the past that the actions of one General Assembly cannot be
overturned by subsequent General Assemblies. But this argument,
while politically powerful, has always been a myth.
As early as November 1950, the General Assembly repealed a
resolution adopted by an earlier assembly. In Resolution 386,
the General Assembly rescinded Resolution 38, which had barred
Spain (as a former ``enemy state'') from U.N membership.
(Because of Second and Third World fears about the impact of
repealing resolutions, other former ``enemy states,'' including
Germany and Japan, were subsequently admitted to the United
Nations without a General Assembly vote revoking their ``enemy
state'' status.)
Whatever remaining doubts existed about the authority of
the General Assembly to repeal should have been completely
dispelled in December 1991, when the operative language of the
``Zionism is racism'' resolution was repealed by a vote of 111
in favor; 25 opposed, 13 abstaining, and the remaining not
participating.
Political Resolution
Fourth, opponents of repeal might raise the ``important
question'' issue thus requiring a two thirds General Assembly
majority and making repeal much more difficult. But since
Resolution 2758 itself was not originally decided as an
``important question,'' there is no reason why is repeal should
be subjected to a higher threshold.
The resolution of this procedural issue is ultimately
political: If there is truly a majority in the General Assembly
with the necessary political will to reseat Taiwan, then there
will be a majority to determine that the repeal of Resolution
2758 and adoption of the dual representation concept is not an
``important question.''
Fifth, some might argue that, whatever the legality of
Resolution 2758, the Republic of China's 1971 attempt to
withdraw from the United Nations means that Taiwan has
renounced its status as an original U.N. member and must now
reapply under Article 4 as a new member. Taiwan's
``withdrawal'' occurred when shortly after the vote was lost on
whether to declare the Albanian draft resolution an ``important
question,'' the Republic of China delegation made a point of
order, saying that it would no longer take part in any further
proceedings. The next day, President Chiang Kai-shek explained
the delegation's action: ``Before this infamous [Resolution
2758] could be put to a vote' this country announced its
withdrawal from the United Nations, an organization which it
took part in establishing.''
The U.N. Charter deliberately made no provision for the
withdrawal of member governments, largely to prevent the threat
of withdrawal from being used as a form of political blackmail
or as a means of evading obligations under the charter. Japan's
withdrawal from the League of Nations in March 1933 was very
much on the minds of the U.N. drafters. Some have questioned,
therefore, whether it is even permissible for U.N. members to
withdraw. The only other example of an effort to withdrawal--a
short-lived attempt by Indonesia in 1965--actually tends to
show that withdrawal, at least in the short turn, has no force
or effect.
Moreover, Taiwan's ``withdrawal'' was so completely
intertwined with Resolution 2758 that it is doubtful whether
the purported withdrawal should play any role here at all. Any
fair reading of the situation in 1971 demonstrates that the
Republic of China's various expressions of intent to withdraw
all involved the actual or expected adoption of the Albanian
draft and should be taken as part of a single transaction that
expelled Taiwan's representatives and installed those of the
P.R.C. Thus, the repudiation of Resolution 2758 would eliminate
the need for Taiwan's withdrawal, rendering it moot today.
Card Games
When the General Assembly adopted the infamous ``Zionism is
racism'' resolution in 1975, U.S. Ambassador Daniel Patrick
Moynihan declared in ringing terms that: ``The United States
rises to declare before the General Assembly of the United
Nations, and before the world, that it does not acknowledge, it
will not abide by, it will never acquiesce in this infamous
act.'' No such gesture of defiance, no such challenge to a
resolution's legitimacy was made in 1971 by Ambassador Bush--
perhaps because then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was too
concerned with playing the ``China card'' to allow the United
Nations to get in the way.
Yet legitimacy is a precious asset for any institution, and
never more so than for one created ex nihilo like the United
Nations. Losing that legitimacy is relatively easy, as the
United Nations has repeatedly proven, but regaining it is a
lengthy and arduous task, especially in U.S. domestic political
terms.
Today, the real question for U.N. members is whether the
stain of Resolution 2758 can be expunged, or whether its
corrosive effects will continue to hurt the organization's
reputation and effectiveness. Many U.N. members are quick to
criticize the withholding of American financial assessments by
Congress, but their collective silence on the exclusion of the
Republic of China is deafening. If critics of the United States
are really serious about the United Nations, let them help
renew Taiwan's representation.
Congo in ``Africa month''
Question. It has been suggested that the United States
should play an active role in a future peacekeeping mission in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Presidential Decisive
Directive 25 requires that peacekeeping missions serve the
``national security interests'' of the United States? Do you
feel it is in the United States' national security interests to
participate in such an operation in the Congo?
Answer. As noted in response to a previous question, I
think that UN involvement in efforts to resolve the ongoing
conflict in the Great Lakes region of Africa--through
mediation, good offices, or other diplomatic methods--is in our
best interests. Nonetheless, it does not follow automatically
that deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force is in such
interests, despite the current predisposition to do so. Until
the parties to the conflict have truly agreed on the necessary
conditions for such a force, which they manifestly did not do
at the special Security Council meeting on the subject in
January, I believe it would be a serious mistake to authorize a
U.N. peacekeeping force for the Congo.
In particular, there is no American interest that would be
advanced by the participation of U.S. forces in any such
peacekeeping mission, even if it were ultimately deployed under
proper circumstances. There is a larger issue here about
whether and when armed forces of the five Permanent Members of
the Security Council should participate in peacekeeping, which
has not, since the end of the Cold War, received adequate
public debate and discussion. I remain generally skeptical of
the utility of Perm Five participation in peacekeeping, and I
would respectfully urge the Committee to examine this question
in more detail at an appropriate point.
questions submitted by senator grams
International Criminal Court (ICC)
Question. I know you share my concerns about the creation
of the International Criminal Court. It appears unlikely the
Clinton administration will be able to find a way to provide
100% protection for U.S. military personnel--and thus will not
be able to sign onto the Court. Are you concerned, however,
that the Administration will practice benign neglect--or
worse--it will support Security Council referrals to the Court?
Answer. Every indication we have is that the Clinton
Administration is still energetically attempting to find a way
to sign the 1998 Statute of Rome, which established the
International Criminal Court (``ICC''). They have in no way
slackened their participation in ongoing negotiations intended
to establish procedures for the ICC, and they continue to tell
foreign governments in diplomatic demarches that they remain
committed to signing the Statute if at all possible. In short,
as with the Administration's actions on a number of other
treaty fronts, it is seeking to implement its preferred
policies even though Congress has not given its
constitutionally-prescribed approval.
Given the Administration's record, it is entirely
reasonable to believe that the Department of State will
continue to cooperate with governments that are parties to the
Statute of Rome, or that the Department will support the
creation of ad hoc tribunals, such as for East Timor, which
might in the near future be transferred to the ICC if and when
it actually comes into existence. Congress, which has signaled
its opposition to the Statute of Rome on a bipartisan basis,
should continue to scrutinize the Administration's actions in
order to avoid a frustration of its Constitutional
responsibilities and prerogatives.
Arrears
Question. Whenever the subject of the arrears comes up one
of the main arguments used by the supporters of paying the
arrears in full with no conditions is that the U.S. is legally
bound to do so. Is this your interpretation of U.S. treaty law?
Answer. It is simply inaccurate to say that the United
States is ``legally'' bound to pay automatically contributions
assessed by the United Nations or its specialized agencies. We
are bound only to a political process by the U.N. Charter to
meet the organization's financial obligations, and we are
entirely free politically to accept or reject the results.
I have previously written and testified on this subject,
and I attach to the answers for inclusion in the record of the
hearing (a) an article from the Wall Street Journal; and (b)
prepared testimony delivered in 1997 before the House
International Relations Committee.
The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 1997
U.S. Isn't Legally Obligated to Pay the U.N.
by John R. Bolton
Adjourning for the year, Congress stung the Clinton
Administration by refusing to appropriate any funds for the
payment of U.S. ``arrearages'' (unpaid assessments) to the
United Nations. U.N. supporters contend that the U.S. must pay
up in order to meet its ``solemn legal obligations.'' Failure
to pay, they assert, is ``illegal'' under the ``treaty
commitment'' the U.S. entered into by ratifying the U.N.
Charter in 1945.
This line of argument is flatly incorrect. Its widespread
acceptance, moreover, is based on several misperceptions about
the Constitution, U.S. obligations under international
treaties, and the attendant policy implications for American
decision makers.
First, treaties have no special or higher status than other
acts of Congress or, for that matter, than the U.S.
Constitution. There is widespread confusion on this point, even
among sophisticated foreign policy analysts, based in large
part on some expansive dicta by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
in a 1920 Supreme Court decision. At the time of the U.N.'s
formation, some pointed to Holmes's dicta to reinforce their
worry that treaties might be used as a ``back door'' to amend
the Constitution.
Perhaps sensing the need to quiet these concerns, the
Supreme Court revisited the issue in 1957 in Reid v. Covert. It
ruled that ``no agreement with a foreign nation can confer
power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government,
which is free from the restraints of the Constitution.'' It
stressed that ``this Court has regularly and uniformly
recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty.''
Whatever the legal impact of a treaty, that impact must be
determined consistently with the Constitution and subordinate
American law.
Second, treaties are ``law'' only for U.S. domestic
purposes. In their international operation, treaties are simply
``political'' obligations.
The Supreme Court recognized this distinction as far back
as 1884, holding that a treaty ``is a law of the land as an Act
of Congress is, whenever its provisions prescribe a rule by
which the rights of the private citizen or subject may be
determined.'' As for the international aspects, the court held
clearly that a treaty ``depends for the enforcement of its
provisions on the interest and honor of the governments which
are parties to it.'' And if they don't work? ``If these fail,
its infraction becomes the subject of international
negotiations and reclamations, so far as the injured party
chooses to seek redress, which may in the end be enforced by
actual war.''
There may be good and sufficient reasons to abide by the
provisions of a treaty; in most cases one would expect to do so
because of benefits treaties provide not because the U.S. is
``legally'' obligated to do so. As the Supreme Court stressed
in 1889 in Chae Chan Ping v. U.S.: ``whilst it would always be
a matter of the utmost gravity and delicacy to refuse to
execute a treaty, the power to do so was prerogative, of which
no nation could be deprived without deeply affecting its
independence.''
Third, treaty obligations can be unilaterally modified or
terminated by congressional action. This is the principle that
U.N. advocates ignore when they argue that Congress is
``legally bound'' every year to authorize and appropriate
precisely the same amount of money as that demanded by the
U.N.'s assessment notice.
They argue, in effect, that Article 17 of the U.N. Charter
(concerning the allocation of U.N. expenses among the members)
strips Congress of its normal constitutional power and
discretion over financial matters under the Constitution's
Appropriations Clause (Article I, Section 9). It would
certainly come as news to Congress that the U.N. Charter had
modified its power over the purse. The Supreme Court has been
consistent on this point. As it said in 1871 in The Cherokee
Tobacco, ``an act of Congress may supersede a prior treaty.''
There is no doubt that, whatever the U.N.'s assessment notice
may say, Congress is fully within its rights to pay it, ignore
it or do anything in between.
Fourth, American constitutional requirements override
``international law.'' It's hard to imagine that any member of
Congress would seriously argue the contrary point: That the
U.S. is ``bound'' to pay its U.N. assessments because there is
a ``higher'' authority--an authority over and above the
Constitution--that somehow compels such a result.
Some acolytes of international law, however, make precisely
that argument, contending that whatever the provisions of
American jurisprudence, it must bend its knee to higher
international authority. In their view, this is just the next
step up from saying that state law gives way before contrary
federal law. In that sense, they say, falling to acknowledge
higher international authority renders the nonpayment of U.S.
assessments ``illegal.''
The argument that the U.S. Constitution is subordinate to
international law, erroneous though it is, at least has the
virtue of clarity. Either the U.N. Charter amends the U.S.
Constitution to diminish congressional discretion over
appropriations or it does not. If it does, then the utopian
internationalists are right, and the U.S. is a global outlaw.
If not, then the normal constitutional powers of Congress (and
the President) are undiminished, and Congress can legitimately
override any treaty provision it chooses. There is no escape
from this logic.
Of course, the decision on whether and what amounts the
U.S. should pay for U.N. matters, political though it may be,
is not an excuse for obtaining benefits on the cheap. It does
not follow inevitably that because the U.S. is not legally
obligated to pay, it should not pay. Instead, the correct
conclusion is that the U.S. should meet its commitments when it
is in its interests to do so and when others are meeting their
obligations as well. It is precisely the satisfaction with the
performance of other member governments and U.N. secretariats
that has led to Congress's withholding of appropriations
before--and which may well do so again.
______
Prepared Statement of John R. Bolton
before the
Committee on International Relations, U.S. House of Representatives
April 9, 1997
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify
today before the Committee on the question of whether United
Nations peacekeeping serves U.S. interests. I will summarize my
testimony, and I request that the complete text be included in
the record of this hearing.
Although the subject is a broad one, I hope to concentrate
in this prepared statement on the subject of financing U.N.
operations, a topic which covers not only peacekeeping, of
course, but all U.N. operations financed by assessed
contributions. I do so not in any way to minimize the
importance of the political and diplomatic questions concerning
U.N. peacekeeping, which I would be happy to address in
response to questions from Members of the Committee. Rather, I
believe that the financial responsibilities of the United
States in international organizations have not been well
understood, and I hope to contribute to correcting that
problem. While my views are still somewhat preliminary, I
welcome the opportunity to present them to the Committee for
your consideration.
Before turning to the financial issues, however, I wanted
to summarize quickly my views on peacekeeping. To assist the
Committee, I have attached a copy of ``Intrastate Conflicts and
American Interests'' from the Spring, 1995, issue of Human
Rights Brief, which states many of these views at somewhat
greater length. I conclude basically that ``traditional'' U.N.
peacekeeping, in situations truly implicating international
peace and security, remains a viable instrument of foreign
policy.
Where peacekeeping has run into difficulties recently, it
has been for one of two reasons. First, the Security Council
has unwisely attempted to expand ``peacekeeping'' into ``peace
enforcement'' in situations where the U.N. membership, and
particular its leading nations, was politically unwilling to
follow through on its rhetoric. In part, these problems
resulted from deviating from the basic assumptions underlying
successful peacekeeping (consent of the parties, U.N.
neutrality, and use of force by U.N. peacekeepers only in self-
defense) without honestly confronting what such deviations
would mean on the ground.
Second, the Security Council, and especially the United
States, has been too prone recently to involve the U.N. in what
are essential the internal conflicts of member States. These
conflicts, which often bring tragic humanitarian consequences,
do not rise to the level of the Security Council's
jurisdiction--threats to international peace and security. In
the absence of such threats, involving the Security Council
involves the U.N. in conflicts not readily amenable to
resolution in that forum, and weakens its legitimacy and
ability to act in matters which truly threaten international
peace. It is in these situations that one can truly say that
the U.N.'s best friends (those advocating a larger and larger
U.N. role in international affairs) are frequently its worst
enemies (by involving the U.N. in situations where it must
inevitably fail).
Turning to the financial issue, my basic argument is that
the United States has no binding legal obligation to pay
assessed contributions to the United Nations, for peacekeeping
or for other purposes. Whatever may be the ``political,''
``diplomatic,'' or ``moral'' arguments or interests at stake,
the issue is not ``legal'' in any conventionally understood
sense of that term in the United States. This argument is fully
supported by both judicial and legislative precedent,
stretching over nearly the entirety of American history. While
this legal conclusion differs from what passes as the
contemporary conventional wisdom, I believe that it is the
conventional wisdom that is wrong. I offer these thoughts in
the form of propositions, which I then discuss in light of the
applicable American legal authorities and practice.
1. Treaties have no special or higher status than other legislative
acts, or the U.S. Constitution.
I have been surprised, in conversations even with
knowledgeable and sophisticated foreign policy analysts, to
hear repeated references to treaties as possessing some special
status in the American legal system. I believe that the
confusion stems from a misreading both of the Supremacy Clause
of the Constitution, and of the well-known opinion by Mr.
Justice Holmes in Missouri v. Holland, 252 U.S. 416 (1920).
The Supremacy Clause provides:
This Constitution, and the laws of the United States
which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all
Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme
Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be
bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of
any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
U.S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 2.
The inclusion of ``treaties'' in the Clause was a
deliberate effort by the Framers to subordinate contrary State
laws to treaties entered into by the national government. Under
the Articles of Confederation, States had frequently enacted
laws which, for example, clashed with the Treaty of Paris of
1783. Just as the Framers intended duly enacted laws at the
national level to supersede contrary State laws, so too,
national treaties were intended to trump State law under the
Supremacy Clause.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ See Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1, 16-17 (1957).
The Constitution entrusted the treaty-making power solely
to the national government, by providing that the President
``shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the
Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators
present concur. . . .'' U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section
2, clause 2. Indeed, the Framers also provided that ``No State
shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation . .
.,'' to make it completely clear that the treaty power belonged
only to the national government. (Id. Article 1, Section 10,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
clause 1.)
In Missouri v. Holland, supra, the State of Missouri
challenged the constitutionality of the Migratory Bird
Convention of 1916 with Great Britain, as well as statutes and
regulations intended to implement the treaty. Missouri argued
that the Convention, which attempted to limit the killing and
capturing of migratory birds in the U.S. and Canada, violated
the Tenth Amendment. The Supreme Court rejected Missouri's
argument and upheld the validity of the treaty, as well as the
implementing statue and regulations.
Justice Holmes specifically concluded that ``[t]he treaty
in question does not contravene any prohibitory words to be
found in the Constitution.'' (252 U.S. at 433.) Nonetheless,
his opinion added expansively that:
It is said that a treaty cannot be valid if it
infringes the Constitution; that there are limits,
therefore, to the treaty-making power; and that one
such limit is that what an act of Congress could not do
unaided, in derogation of the powers reserved to the
states, a treaty cannot do.
Acts of Congress are the supreme law of the land only
when made in pursuance of the Constitution, while
treaties are declared to be so when made under the
authority of the United States. . . . We do not mean to
imply that there are no qualifications to the treaty-
making power; but they must be ascertained in a
different way. It is obvious that there may be matters
of the sharpest exigency for the national well-being
that an act of Congress could not deal with, but that a
treaty followed by such an act could, and it is not
lightly to be assumed that, in matters requiring
national action, ``a power which must belong to and
somewhere reside in every civilized government is not
to be found [citation omitted].
(Id. at 432-33.) Having dealt with the Convention, Justice
Holmes summarily upheld the implementing statute: ``If the
treaty is valid, there can be no dispute about the validity of
the statute under article 1, [Sec.] 8, as a necessary and
proper means to execute the powers of the government.'' (Id. at
432.)
Concern about the implications of Justice Holmes' dicta
grew particularly acute after World War II, with the formation
of the United Nations and numerous other international
organizations, as some became concerned that the Treaty power
might be used as a ``back door'' way to amend the Constitution.
This concern led to an extended discussion about whether to
amend the Constitution to provide that treaties could become
effective internal U.S. law only through subsequently enacted
legislation that itself would be constitutional. This debate
over the ``Bricker Amendment,'' while inconclusive, highlighted
the relationship of treaties to the American legal system.
Perhaps sensing the need to quiet the concerns generated by
Missouri v. Holland, the Supreme Court revisited the issue in
Reid v. Covert, 354 U.S. 1 (1957). There, the Court invalidated
the murder convictions of wives of American servicemen who had
accompanied them as dependents overseas, and who were convicted
of murdering them by military courts martial. A plurality of
the Court concluded that military trials of civilians generally
violated the Constitution, while Justices Frankfurter and
Harlan limited their opinion only to capital cases.
The plurality opinion by Justice Black rejected an argument
by the government that courts martial of dependents
accompanying the U.S. military overseas were required to
implement international agreements made with the countries
where they were stationed. The Court concluded that ``no
agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the
Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free
from the restraints of the Constitution.'' (354 U.S. at 16.)
After quoting the Supremacy Clause, Justice Black stated:
There is nothing in this language which intimates
that treaties and laws enacted pursuant to them do not
have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution
. . .. It would be manifestly contrary to the
objections of those who created the Constitution, as
well as those who were responsible for the Bill of
Rights--let alone alien to our entire constitutional
history and tradition--to construe Article VI as
permitting the United States to exercise power under an
international agreement without observing
constitutional prohibitions. In effect, such
construction would permit amendment of that document in
a manner not sanctioned by Article V.
(Id. at 16-17.) Justice Black added that ``[t]his Court has
regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the
Constitution over a treaty.'' (Id. at 17) (emphasis added). He
then concluded expressly: ``There is nothing in Missouri v.
Holland [citation omitted] which is contrary to the position
taken here. There the Court carefully noted that the treaty
involved was not inconsistent with any specific provision of
the Constitution.'' (Id. at 18.)
Thus, for purposes of American law, treaties do not exist
apart from or outside of that body of law, or in a position
superior to or superseding the Constitution, or any of its
requirements or prohibitions. Whatever the legal impact of a
treaty--a point I turn to next--that impact must be determined
consistently with the Constitution and subordinate American
law.
2. Treaties are ``law'' only for U.S. domestic purposes. In their
international operation, treaties are simply ``political,'' and
not legally binding.
Another major source of confusion about the effect of U.S.
treaty obligations is what it means to say that they
constitute, in the Constitution's phrase, ``the supreme Law of
the Land.'' In normal American usage, the word ``law'' denotes
a binding obligation. In the context of U.N. assessments, the
argument is frequently made that these assessments are the
result of a treaty obligation, hence are the ``law of the
land,'' and hence are ``legally binding'' on Congress to pay in
full and in a timely fashion.
This line of argument is flatly incorrect. To the extent
that adherence to the U.N. Charter carries any obligation, it
is political in nature, and subject to allof the possibilities
for modification or abrogation of any political arrangement.
That renders it fundamentally different from a treaty that
affects the domestic relationships between the government and
its citizens, or between private citizens, as the Supreme Court
has repeatedly recognized.
In Edve v. Robertson, 112 U.S. 580 (1884) (the ``Head Money
Cases''), the Court upheld as constitutional a per-person fee
on immigrants, to be used for the support of those who need
care or assistance after landing. The ship owners challenging
the fee's validity argued that the statute establishing the fee
violated several U.S. treaty obligations. The Court rejected
this argument, and in so doing articulated the
importantdistinction between the effect of treaties in the
international arena, on the one hand, and within the United
States, on the other. With respect to the international arena,
the Court said:
A treaty is primarily a compact between independent
Nations. It depends for the enforcement of its
provisions on the interest and the honor of the
governments which are parties to it. If these fail, its
infraction becomes the subject of international
negotiations and reclamations, so far as the injured
party chooses to seek redress, which may in the end be
enforced by actual war.
(112 U.S. at 598.)
With respect to a treaty's domestic impact, however, the
Court explained that:
. . . a treaty may also contain provisions which
confer certain rights upon the citizens or subjects of
one of the Nations residing in the territorial limits
of the other, which partake of the nature of municipal
law, and which are capable of enforcement as between
private parties in the courts of the country.
(Id.)
In such circumstances:
[a] treaty, then, is a law of the land as an Act of
Congress is, whenever its Provisions prescribe a rule
by which the rights of the private citizen or subject
may be determined. And when such rights are of a nature
to be enforced in a court of justice, the court resorts
to the treaty for a rule of decision for the case
before it, as it would to a statute.
(Id.) (emphasis added)
The Supreme Court's distinction in the Head Money Cases
echoed the same point made in The Federalist, Number 75:
treaties ``are not rules prescribed by the sovereign to the
subject, but agreements between sovereign and sovereign.'' As
the Court indicates, when treaties operate as ``municipal
law,'' they are justiciable as are all other similar legal
requirements. ``An illustration of this character is found, in
treaties which regulate the mutual rights of citizens and
subjects of the contracting Nations in regard to rights of
property by descent or inheritance, when the individuals
concerned are aliens.'' (112 U.S. at 598.) In the international
arena, however, resolution of disputes arising under treaties
requires political adjustments--not legal adjudications--among
the states party to the treaty, up to and including war.
Precisely this kind of political environment is where the
dispute over U.N. assessments is to be found, not in cognizable
legal obligations. The Supreme Court has recognized:
. . . but that circumstances may arise which would
not only justify the Government in disregarding [a
treaty's] stipulations, but demand in the interests of
the country that it should do so, there can be no
question. Unexpected events may call for a change in
the policy of the country. Neglect or violation of
stipulations on the part of the other contracting party
may require corresponding action on our part. When a
reciprocal engagement is not carried out by one of the
contracting parties, the other may also decline to keep
the corresponding engagement.
(Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 581, 600-01 (1889).)
Virtually these exact words could be used today to describe the
rationale for the withholding of the U.S. assessed
contributions to the U.N.
In short, treaties are ``law'' to the extent that they
constitutionally adjust private-private and private-public
relationships within the United States. They are ``political,''
and not legally binding, to the extent that they purport to
affect relations among national governments. There may be good
and sufficient reasons to abide by the provisions of a treaty,
and in most cases one would expect to do so because of the
mutuality of benefits that treaties provide, but not because
the U.S. is ``legally'' obligated to do so. As the Supreme
Court observed in Chae Chan Ping: ``whilst it would always be a
matter of the utmost gravity and delicacy to refuse to execute
a treaty, the power to do so was prerogative, of which no
nation could be deprived without deeply affecting its
independence.'' (130 U.S. at 602) (emphasis added).
3. Treaty obligations can be unilaterally modified or terminated by
Congressional action.
A variation of the argument that the U.S. is ``legally''
bound to pay whatever assessment is presented to it by the U.N.
is that Congress lacks the power to authorize and appropriate a
different amount. Under this variation, membership in the U.N.
and adherence to Article 17 of the Charter strips Congress of
the discretion over financial contributions, and ``binds''
Congress to the level presented by the U.N.'s billing notice.
It is in this sense that some U.N. supporters argue that
Congress is ``legally'' obligated to pay because the U.N.
Charter is a treaty obligation.
The House of Representatives rejected precisely this
argument 201 years ago. Several provisions of the Jay Treaty of
1796, establishing ``mixed commissions'' to address various
issues, required appropriations to make them effective.
Supporters of the Treaty argued that, since it had been duly
ratified, Congress was obligated to make the necessary
appropriations. Opponents, by contrast, argued that separate
legislative action was required by the Constitutional provision
that ``no money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in
Consequence of Appropriations made by Law . . ..'' (U.S.
Constitution, Article I, Section 9, clause 7.)
Historical discussion of the congressional debate over the
Jay Treaty has concentrated on the struggle by Congress to
obtain the negotiators' instructions. Nonetheless, while the
debate was confused, at best, on several points, the financial
question was also one of significance. As it turned out, the
opponents, led by Congressmen James Madison and Albert
Gallatin, prevailed on the financial point, certainly in the
court of history. \2\ While the House appropriated the money
necessary to implement the Treaty, it also adopted a Resolution
that stated:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ See Killian and Beck, eds. The Constitution of the United
States of America, Congressional Research Service (1987) at 502-03. See
also: Samuel B. Crandall, Treaties, Their Making and Enforcement, John
Byrne & Company (1916) at 177.
. . . [W]hen a treaty stipulates regulations on any
of the subjects submitted by the Constitution to the
power of Congress, it must depend for its execution as
to such stipulations on a law or laws to be passed by
Congress, and it is the constitutional right and duty
of the House of Representatives in all such cases to
deliberate on the expediency or inexpediency of
carrying such treaty into effect, and to determine and
act thereon as in their judgment may be most conducive
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
to the public good.
(5 Annals of Congress 771, 782 (1796).) Thus, two centuries of
precedents in this House confirm the legitimacy of the House,
and the Senate, making their own judgments on appropriations,
independent of any prior treaty ratification. Authorizing or
appropriating less than the full amount of a U.N. agency's
assessment is doing nothing more nor less than what Madison and
Gallatin successfully urged two centuries ago.
In the Head Money Cases, the Supreme Court also addressed
the role of the House, compared to that of the Senate:
A treaty is made by the President and the Senate.
Statutes are made by the President, the Senate and the
House of Representatives. The addition of the latter
body to the other two in making a law certainly does
not render it less entitled to respect in the matter of
its repeal or modification than a treaty made by the
other two. If there be any difference in this regard,
it would seem to be in favor of an Act in which all
three bodies participate.And such is, in fact, the case
in a declaration of war, which must be made by
Congress, and which, when made, usually suspends or
destroys existing treaties between the Nations thus at
war.
(112 U.S. at 599.)
This practice is entirely consistent with an essentially
unquestioned line of congressional practice that treaties can
be voided or unilaterally modified by subsequent congressional
action. The first example of such action took place shortly
after the Jay Treaty controversy, described above. In 1798,
relations with France had deteriorated to the point that
Congress voided previously existing treaties between that
country and the United States. The key explanatory language of
the repealing statute provided that:
Whereas, the treaties concluded between the United
States and France have been repeatedly violated on the
part of the French Government; and the just claims of
the United States for reparation of the injuries so
committed have been refused, and their attempts to
negotiate an amicable adjustment of all complaints have
been repelled with indignity; And whereas, under
authority of the French Government, there is yet
pursued against the United States a system of predatory
violence, infracting the said treaties and hostile to
the rights of a free and independent nation. . . .
(1 Stat. 578 (1798), quoted in Chae Chan Ping v. United States,
supra, 130 U.S. at 601.) Adjusting for the different
circumstances, of course, much of this language might seem
applicable to the United Nations today.
Where Congressional actions modifying treaties have been
challenged judicially, there is an unbroken line of Supreme
Court precedent holding that such legislative actions are
entirely lawful and constitutional. Thus, in Chae Chan Ping v.
United States, supra, a statute prohibiting the entry into the
United States of certain Chinese laborers was challenged on the
ground that it contravened existing treaties between the United
States and the Emperor of China. The Court conceded that the
challenged statute in fact violated the treaties indicated, but
was not thereby invalid. The Court reasoned:
A treaty, it is true, is in its nature a contract
between nations, and is often merely promissory in its
character, requiring legislation to carry its
stipulations into effect. Such legislation will be open
to future repeal or amendment. If the treaty operates
by its own force, and relates to a subject within the
power of Congress, it can be deemed in that particular
only the equivalent of a legislative Act, to be
repealed or modified at the pleasure of Congress. In
either case the last expression of the sovereign will
must control.
(130 U.S. at 600.)
Moreover, Congress may exercise this authority for whatever
reason it chooses: ``it is wholly immaterial to inquire whether
it has, by the statute complained of, departed from the treaty
or not; or, if it has, whether such departure was accidental or
designed; and if the latter, whether the reasons therefor were
good or bad.'' (Id. at 602. See also: The Cherokee Tobacco, 78
U.S. 616, 621 (1871) (``A treaty may supersede a prior act of
Congress . . ., and an act of Congress may supersede a prior
treaty.''); Edve v. Robertson, supra, 112 U.S. at 597 (``We are
of opinion that, so far as the provisions of the Act may be
found to be in conflict with any treaty with a foreign Nation
they must prevail in all the judicial courts of this
country.''); Whitney v. Robertson, 124 U.S. 190, 194 (1888)
(``By the Constitution a Treaty is placed on the same footing,
and made by like obligation, with an Act of legislation. Both
are declared by that instrument to be the supreme law of the
land, and no superior efficacy is given to either over the
other. [I]f the two are inconsistent, the one last in date will
control the other. . . .''); Reid v. Covert, supra, 354 U.S. at
18 (``This Court has also repeatedly taken the position that an
Act of Congress, which must comply with the Constitution, is on
a full parity with a treaty, and that when a statute which is
subsequent in time is inconsistent with a treaty, the statute
to the extent of conflict renders the treaty null.'').)
4. American Constitutional requirements override ``international law.''
There may be those who contend, even despite what I believe
to be the overwhelming weight of American legal authority, that
the United States is still somehow ``bound'' to pay the U.N.-
billed assessed contributions. The only logical way to make
such an argument, however, is the willingness to assert that
there is a ``higher'' authority--an authority over and above
the Constitution--that somehow compels such a result. Some have
argued that ``international law'' constitutes such an
authority, and that, whatever the provisions of American
jurisprudence, that jurisprudence is subordinate to
``international law.'' Just as laws duly enacted by the Federal
Government have supremacy over State laws to the contrary, so,
by analogy, inconsistent American law must bend its knee to the
higher controlling authority.
I am not aware that this argument has ever been seriously
advanced in Congress or in Federal court. If it were, I have
little doubt what reaction it would receive. In fact, the
Supreme Court has previously said that ``[t]he powers of
Government are delegated in trust to the United States, and are
incapable of transfer to any other parties. They cannot be
abandoned or surrendered.'' (Chae Chan Ping v. United States,
supra, 130 U.S. at 609.)
There are, however, those who do make such arguments, in
American academia, and abroad. While there is neither time nor
space here to resolve the question of ``what is law?'' I offer
a few observations. First, because there is no clear authority
that determines what constitutes ``international law,'' it
hardly amounts to ``law'' as that term is conventionally
understood in a constitutional system such as ours. Indeed, the
vast bulk of such ``law'' seems to be what commentators and law
professors say it is. Their works may make interesting and even
persuasive reading, but they in no sense amount to ``law.''
Second, even if the players could agree on a baseline of
what ``international law'' was, there is no accepted way of
adjudicating disputes arising under that law. Even--or perhaps
especially--the International Court of Justice is inadequate to
the task, reflecting in part the underlying lack of consensus
on what the ``law'' being adjudicated is in the first place,
what precedents and procedures should govern, the course of
reasoning to be followed, and on and on.
Third, and most importantly, international disputes over
treaty obligations are, at bottom, political (and, at worst,
military). Resolution of those disputes does not turn on legal
questions, but on the political cost-benefit analysis of the
respective parties to the agreement in question.
In the context of the United Nations, no purpose is served
by pounding on the idea that the U.S. is acting ``illegally''
by not paying the assessments decided by the General Assembly
or other governing bodies. Even one of the eminent treatise
writers on the U.N. Charter concedes that ``[i]n principle, a
right to refuse payment of assessed contributions should be
recognized within certain limits.'' \3\ In fact, insisting on
the supposed American ``legal'' obligation, as opposed to
asserting valid American interests in favor of payment, betrays
the weakness of those advocating full payment of the
assessment. If that is the strongest argument they have, their
position is weak indeed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ Bruno Simma, ed., The Charter of the United Nations: A
Commentary, Oxford University Press (1994) at 329.
Finally, I conclude by pointing out that the decision of
whether and what amount the United States should pay for U.N.
peacekeeping, political though it may be, is not an excuse for
obtaining benefits on the cheap. It is not a logical inference
to argue that because the United States is not obligated to
pay, it should not pay. Instead, the correct conclusion is that
the United States, whether ``legally'' obligated or not, should
meet its commitments when it is in its interest to do, and when
others are meeting their obligations (and not just the
financial ones) as well. This is the logic that persuades me
that financial contributions by member States to the U.N.
system should be voluntary, or through negotiated
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
``replenishments,'' rather than by assessments.
Peacekeeping is an especially good example of why
assessments should be voluntary. There are certain peacekeeping
missions that benefit some member States disproportionately,
and these States should realistically be expected to shoulder a
greater part of the costs than what would be produced by the
U.N.'s ``capacity to pay formula'' or its ``peacekeeping''
formula. Voluntary contributions have a way of concentrating
the Security Council's attention in a way that assessed
contributions frequently do not. I would urge that the
Committee continue to investigate ways of encouraging the
Administration to enhance the range of voluntary as opposed to
assessed contributions within the U.N. system.
Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to
appear today before the Committee. I would be pleased to answer
any questions the Committee may have.
WELCOMING REMARKS BY HON. JESSE HELMS, DELIVERED IN THE OLD SENATE
CHAMBER OF THE U.S. CAPITOL
______
THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2000
Distinguished ambassadors, Dr. Baker, ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of the Foreign Relations Committee--and, indeed, on
behalf of all 99 of my Senate colleagues--it is my great
pleasure to welcome you to the United States Senate.
My colleagues and I very much appreciated the warm welcome
you all extended to us during our visit to the United Nations
in January, and we are grateful to have the opportunity today
not only to repay your hospitality, but especially to continue
the important dialogue we began in New York.
We welcome you this morning in a room filled with history.
The United States Senate met in this chamber from 1810 until
1859--except for a brief period in 1814 after the British
marched on Washington and set fire to the Capitol Building. (No
need to worry, Ambassador Greenstock, we got over it a long
time ago).
It was in this chamber that the ``Great Triumvirate'' of
Senators Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun
conducted some of the greatest debates in our nation's history
during what was known as the Senate's ``golden age.'' And,
after the Senate left for larger quarters, this chamber is
where the United States Supreme Court deliberated until 1935,
65 years ago.
Now, with your groundbreaking visit to the United States
Senate, we are adding another chapter to the illustrious
history of this room.
It is indeed appropriate that you have begun your visit
today in this chamber. For in this room, two of the three co-
equal branches of our nation's government held some of their
greatest deliberations.
Which is significant because, for many of our friends from
foreign lands, our tripartite system of government is a
mysterious institution. I know it has been suggested to you
that the President alone speaks for the United States in
foreign affairs. And in most nations of the world--even the
great democracies--that is indeed the case; the executive
branch of government dominates, and has a near monopoly in the
conduct of foreign policy.
Not so the United States. Our Founding Fathers had a
brilliant and revolutionary vision in establishing the
separation of powers, and a government with three independent
and co-equal branches, the Executive branch, the Congress, and
the Judicial branch. For those coming from countries with
different systems, it is sometimes difficult for visitors to
appreciate the unique role the United States Senate plays in
setting our nation's foreign policy agenda.
The United States can enter into no treaty without the
advice and consent of the Senate (some presidents have gotten
into trouble by demanding the Senate's consent, while spurning
the Senate's advice); no ambassador can represent this nation
abroad without the Senate's approval; and no foreign policy
initiative that involves the taxpayer's money can go forward
without those funds being authorized by Congress (as you are no
doubt aware).
When I had the privilege of addressing you in New York, I
said to you that if we are to have a new beginning in U.S.-U.N.
relations, we must endeavor to understand each other better. In
my meetings with the distinguished Secretary General and his
staff--and in visiting with you at the U.N. I learned a great
deal about that institution.
To reciprocate, I have asked the Director of the Senate
Historical Office, Dr. Richard Baker, to come here this morning
and share with you some of the history of the U.S. Senate--the
world's greatest deliberative body, and its role in the making
of U.S. foreign policy. It is my hope that this will be helpful
to you and give you a better understanding of this institution,
the U.S. Senate.
With the Foreign Relations Committee's visit to New York,
and now with your visit here today, I think we can say--quite
literally--that we are making history together. I hope that we
can continue to do so.
ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION WITH MEMBERS OF THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY
COUNCIL: CRUCIAL ISSUES BEFORE THE UNITED NATIONS
______
THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 2000
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Foreign Relations,
Washington, DC.
The roundtable was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:07
p.m. in room SD-419, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Jesse
Helms (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Members of the Foreign Relations Committee present:
Senators Helms, Grams, Frist, Biden, Sarbanes, Wellstone, and
Boxer.
Members of the Armed Services Committee present: Hon. John
Warner, Chairman; and Hon. Carl Levin, Ranking Member.
United Nations participants present:
His Excellency Arnoldo M. Listre, Permanent Representative
of Argentina.
His Excellency Anwarul Karim Chowdhury, Permanent
Representative of the People's Republic of Bangladesh.
His Excellency Robert R. Fowler, Permanent Representative
of Canada.
His Excellency Wang Yingfan, Permanent Representative of
China.
His Excellency Jean-David Levitte, Permanent Representative
of France.
Her Excellency Mignonette Patricia Durrant, Permanent
Representative of Jamaica.
His Excellency Agam Hasmy, Permanent Representative of
Malaysia.
His Excellency Moctar Ouane, Permanent Representative of
the Republic of Mali.
His Excellency Martin Andjaba, Permanent Representative of
the Republic of Namibia.
His Excellency Arnold Peter van Walsum, Permanent
Representative of the Netherlands.
His Excellency Sergey V. Lavrov, Permanent Representative
of the Russian Federation.
His Excellency Said Ben Mustapha, Permanent Representative
of Tunisia.
His Excellency Volodymyr Y. Yel'chenko, Permanent
Representative of Ukraine.
His Excellency Sir Jeremy Quentin Greenstock, Permanent
Representative of the United Kingdom.
The Honorable Richard Holbrooke, United States
Representative to the United Nations.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JESSE HELMS, U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH
CAROLINA
Chairman Helms. Usually with this gavel I say ``The
committee will come to order,'' but I want to say let us all
come to order. Let me reiterate how much it means to all of us
to have all of you here. I hope that it will be good for
everybody concerned.
Ambassador Holbrooke, Mr. President, distinguished
Ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this roundtable
discussion of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. This is
indeed a historic day. Just as the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee's U.N. visit in January, when we invited you here for
this date in March, was the first time the committee had ever
traveled en masse to visit an international institution, this
is the first time that the entire United Nations Security
Council has traveled together as a group to visit the United
States Capitol.
I cannot tell you how honored I am as a country boy to be
sitting here saying hello and best wishes. We are extremely--I
wish I had Dr. Holbrooke's deep voice which would be very
helpful--we are extremely honored to have you all here.
Let me get down to the one point of business. When I spoke
to you in the Security Council chamber, I said that I came to
extend my hand in friendship and to convey the hope that we can
work together to build a more effective United Nations. That
hand is still outstretched. I hope that our committee's visit
to the U.N. did advance the goal a little bit and I am
confident that your visit here today will do a great deal, and
that is the reason I am glad to see you.
But I do hope that we can agree to disagree agreeably and
proceed in friendship in a search for common ground.
Earlier in this century, this committee was seized with the
issue of whether or not to approve the Treaty of Versailles
which would establish the League of Nations. The chairman of
the Foreign Relations Committee then, Henry Cabot Lodge, was
not implacably opposed to the League, but he was opposed to the
radical vision of the League championed by President Wilson.
Instead of fighting to kill the League, Chairman Lodge made
a constructive offer. He asked for 14 common sense conditions
to the treaty establishing the League of Nations and there was
an outburst of discussion between the President and so forth
that I will not go into. In any case, the point is this, that
the League of Nations failed.
This committee, through the leadership of Senator Biden and
Senator Grams and many others, has extended a hand of
friendship to the United Nations. We want very much to improve
the relationship between us and you and to strengthen
cooperation between our country and the United Nations on terms
of respect and cooperation that takes into account sovereignty
and independence of the United States of America. And I said
that in New York and I meant it.
We have attempted to lay out a path by which such an
improved relationship would be possible, if not probable. In
any case, we have invited you here today in our sincere hope
that, through increased dialog and increased understanding, we
can improve the U.S.-U.N. relationship. We want to work with
you to help the United Nations serve the purpose for which it
was designed, that is to help sovereign states coordinate
collective action by ``coalitions of the willing,'' to provide
a forum where diplomats can meet and keep open channels of
communications in times of crisis, to provide the peoples of
the world with important services such as peacekeeping, weapons
inspection, and humanitarian relief.
All this is important work. For my part, I sincerely hope
that we can travel down the path of mutual respect and
cooperation together and that our discussions today will lead
us in that direction.
Now then, before we begin our discussion, a few
housekeeping notes. Our discussion will be in two parts. The
first hour will be dedicated to U.N. reform. It will be led by
Senator Biden and Senator Grams and I, of course. Senator
Grams, by the way, is Chairman of the International Operations
Subcommittee and he has been our principal interlocutor with
the United Nations and played a critical role in crafting our
U.N. reform package.
We will conclude at 3 p.m. and take a 5-minute break, and
then the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator John
Warner, and the committee's Ranking Member, Carl Levin, will
then lead off our discussion on U.N. peacekeeping.
After the opening remarks, Senators and Ambassadors will be
recognized in the order in which they seek recognition,
alternating as much as possible between Ambassadors and
Senators. As our custom is in the Foreign Relations Committee,
remarks will be limited to 5 minutes and will be measured by a
lighted timer. The yellow light when it comes on indicates that
you have 30 seconds left, and the red light indicates time has
expired.
I now turn to my distinguished colleague Senator Biden, and
after he concludes we will turn to the distinguished Ambassador
of Bangladesh, who is the current President of the Security
Council, then to Senator Grams, then to the Ambassador of
Namibia, the current President of the General Assembly, and
then to Senator Boxer.
Senator Biden.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., U.S. SENATOR FROM
DELAWARE
Senator Biden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and distinguished
guests.
Mr. President, distinguished guests, members of the
Security Council: To repeat what I said earlier, it is truly an
honor to have you here. I do not think we have ever had as
distinguished a group of individuals representing so many
nations in this Foreign Relations Committee room, and I want to
thank you for being here.
Let me be very, very brief. One of the reasons why we asked
you here is you often hear emanating from us and from the press
our views of what we should and should not do. We are anxious
and I am anxious to hear your views. I hope we can do what I
suspect all of you as trained diplomats do every day, and that
is focus on the parts we agree on and not spend too much time
on the parts we disagree on.
Let me be more precise. I know and I understand that, on
the issue of ``reform'' of the United Nations, that you may all
agree that there is a need for reform of the United Nations.
You probably all agree that we should not be telling you and
conditioning our support for the United Nations on what we
think reform should be. I understand that.
But I just hope we are able to discuss frankly, if we can,
in addition to your possible displeasure with the way in which
we conditioned what we did, I hope we will frankly discuss what
reforms are or are not needed in the United Nations. I doubt
whether any one of us would suggest that moving into the 21st
century attempting to achieve the role which many of us dream
the United Nations can achieve of being that single most
significant world body to help maintain order, bring peace, and
generate prosperity in the world, I doubt whether any of us
would think the way we are equipped today is totally sufficient
to take us through the 21st century.
There is a need. Every major corporation in your country,
every major political institution, has engaged in significant
reform because circumstances have changed. I would just
respectfully suggest, whether we suggest it or not, many
circumstances have changed.
I conclude by saying that for you to understand, I hope,
please consider that from the point of view of the average
American they never doubted why one-quarter of the
responsibility for dues at the United Nations should be borne
by the United States in 1951, 1955, 1958, 1963, 1969 and 1975.
But they have trouble understanding why that is the case in a
fundamentally changed world in the year 2000.
So again, I hope we will have a discussion about what needs
to be done. I am not in any way suggesting you should refrain
from being critical of what we have done, but we are anxious to
hear what you have to say.
Mr. Chairman, I yield the floor.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Senator Biden.
Ambassador Chowdhury, whom I had the pleasure of sitting
with at lunch today. We had a delightful experience, and we
appreciate that. Ambassador Chowdhury is the President of the
United Nations Security Council for the month of March, and we
recognize you, sir.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY ANWARUL KARIM CHOWDHURY, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF BANGLADESH AND MARCH
PRESIDENT, UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL
Ambassador Chowdhury. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure and an honor for me to commence the discussion from
the visitors' side, if I may say. Your visit in January, if I
may be allowed this comment, was an ice-breaking one, and our
visit was a chocolate-breaking one.
But on a serious note, we believe that your visit in
January was really, if I may, the door-opening visit. The
dialog that you started with us is very important and we
believe that as diplomats and I think all civilized people
believe that dialog is the only process to reach an
understanding, to remove difficulties, to hasten the process of
strengthening relationships.
So we are here to continue that process of dialog. We would
like to repeat that here you have represented by us 15
countries out of 188 countries of the United Nations. We are
all members of the Security Council. Like all our fellow
members of the United Nations, we strongly believe in the need
for reforms. The world is changing fast. We need to adapt the
United Nations to the changing circumstances.
Particularly, we believe that in a post-cold war situation
the United Nations really needs to focus itself on its
responsibilities in the present day world and in the coming
decades. It has to approach these new emerging responsibilities
with a process of reform and that is what we are doing.
You are aware, Mr. Chairman, that reform is in the minds of
all of us. We believe that, be it big country, small country,
rich country, poor country, all of us are interested in
reforms. We are engaged seriously in this exercise, and I can
tell you on behalf of my colleagues here, on behalf of myself,
and even on behalf of the colleagues who are not present here
that reform is taken with utmost seriousness by the U.N.
membership.
We want to believe that in this process of looking into our
reforms all of us need to keep first and foremost the best
interests of the United Nations in mind. This is the
organization that we are engaged in reforming, so we must see
what is in the best interests of the organization and how best
it can serve humanity, how best you can reach out to each and
every individual of the world to make their lives more secure,
more peaceful. That is what we are engaged in.
If I may say, we also should look at the United Nations in
its totality, not only in its role in peacekeeping or the
international peace and security area, but also in the areas of
economic and social development, in the areas of norm-setting
that the U.N. has done over the years.
I come from a country which is a developing country, known
as, categorized as a least developed country. But millions and
millions of people in my country and countries in similar
situations around the world have benefited tremendously from
the work of the United Nations. The U.N. has made an impact on
their lives.
So we believe that we should try to do everything possible
to make the U.N. strong, more effective, and more efficient, so
we are engaged in this process.
I thank you for this opportunity for me and my colleagues
to engage in this interaction with you. We believe that it will
be fruitful and worth our visit.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
We will now hear from Rod Grams, Chairman of the
Subcommittee on International Operations with oversight for
U.N. operations, for his first comments.
STATEMENT OF HON. ROD GRAMS, U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA
Senator Grams. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As a supporter of the U.N. and Chairman of the
International Operations Subcommittee, which as you mentioned
oversees the United Nations, I want to thank you for extending
the invitation to members of the Security Council to visit the
Senate. I would also like to express my sincere and personal
gratitude for all the Ambassadors who have made the effort to
be here as well. I thank you very much.
Congress, as you know, is entering a new phase in our
relations with the United Nations and one which I am confident
will be less adversarial in the future. I think this meeting
will go a long way to underscore that change in tone. I share
the belief of the Secretary General that a reformed United
Nations will be a more relevant United Nations in the eyes of
the world.
So I am interested in listening and also in learning, and I
want to perform the needed work in order for the U.N. to reach
its potential.
Now, as one who was involved in drafting the U.S. reforms
benchmarks, it should come as no surprise that I believe that
these are a good start. The Clinton administration has already
made a certification regarding the conditions concerning U.S.
sovereignty and $100 million of our arrears has been paid.
The issue which now is at the forefront of all of our minds
is the possibility of the change in the scale of assessments in
the regular budget and for peacekeeping activities. As you
know, payment of $475 million in U.S. arrears plus $107 million
in debt relief is at stake. Given the top three U.N. budget
contributors in calendar year 2000 are assessed a total of
55.43 percent, while the other 85 member countries are assessed
a total of 44.57 capability, I would be interested in hearing
today your views about the assessment formula, how it can be
altered to provide a broader base of support for U.N.
operations, although I must add that, having twice served as a
congressional delegate to the United Nations, I am convinced
that some of the year three conditions, including the anti-
nepotism provision and the code of conduct and also creating a
mechanism to sunset outdated programs, may be harder to achieve
than the changes we are going to discuss in the substance.
In the introduction to his reform proposal, the Secretary
General stated the major source of institutional weakness in
the United Nations is that certain organizational features have
become--and I quote from the Secretary General--``fragmented,
duplicative, in some areas ineffective, and other areas
superfluous.''
I think we all recognize that, even if the U.N. decides to
implement every benchmark in the Helms-Biden legislation, that
fundamental shortcomings will not be completely corrected. I
hope we can work together in a very constructive way to
consider even more far-reaching reforms than have been proposed
to date.
To this end, the chairman and I have asked the U.S. General
Accounting Office to prepare a report on the success of the
Secretary General's reform initiatives and, while the
preliminary findings are very complimentary regarding the
changes in the management structure at U.N. headquarters and
the human resources system, according to GAO there is no system
in place to monitor and evaluate program results or the
impacts.
In other words, the U.N. undertakes numerous activities on
social, economic, and political affairs, but the Secretariat
cannot reliably assess whether these activities have made a
difference in people's lives and whether they have improved
situations in a measurable way.
I am very interested in your assessment of how well the
U.N. can demonstrate it is making a difference, which it is
undoubtedly doing in many areas. I strongly believe that the
U.N. is an important forum for debate between member states and
a vehicle for joint action when warranted. However, the U.N.
must enact reforms to provide transparency and accountability
so that it can be embraced as an asset.
In closing, I sincerely hope, for the good of the United
Nations, that you will join the United States in this mission.
Again, like I stressed several times, I look forward to hearing
from you on how you view this and what your recommendations
will be.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Helms. Well said, Senator, and I thank you very
much.
Senator Biden and I have decided that we have forgiven the
United Kingdom for what they did to the U.S. Capitol some years
back. Ambassador Greenstock of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Ambassador, would you comment on paternity leave while
you speak? [Laughter.]
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY SIR JEREMY QUENTIN GREENSTOCK,
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM
Ambassador Greenstock. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have my
matches safely in my pocket today.
Chairman Helms. Please pull your microphone closer. You are
a soft-spoken man.
Ambassador Greenstock. I want to respond to this real
opportunity to have a further dialog on roles of the United
Nations. I think we must get down to some of the questions that
Senator Grams has raised.
First of all, I want to make a little apology, Mr.
Chairman. I would like to apologize for my abruptness recently
in saying that the United States had muffled its voice and
stained its reputation by falling behind in its obligations to
the United Nations. When the voice of the United States at the
U.N. is the voice of Ambassador Holbrooke, ``muffled'' is not
the first word that comes to mind. So I think I ought to
explain myself.
Mr. Chairman, the United Nations is looking to the United
States for the same thing that the States were looking to King
George the Third for and did not get: the right balance between
representation and taxation. Ambassador Holbrooke is trying to
achieve that, but he is fighting to be heard in the United
States.
What is at stake is the collective effort amongst nations
to control the process of change in the world, what we call
globalization, and the U.S. and the U.N. are the two collective
institutions that have the greatest influence on and bear the
greatest responsibility for that process of change.
Now, the U.N. without the United States is, I think, a
limbless organization and the United States without the United
Nations lacks the reach and the democratic force to produce
that controlled change. The question we have come to ask this
committee this afternoon is this: Is the United States prepared
to invest in a United Nations that will not realize its full
potential without that investment? Like any good investment, it
is going to carry some risk. But unless you take that risk, you
will never get the higher return that you need in your own
interests.
Now, this is, Mr. Chairman, directly relevant to the
discussion about U.N. finances. U.N. membership is rightly
focused on the capacity to pay of each country in the United
Nations, and the United States is using that principle as an
argument to get other nations to change their payments to fit
with modern economic circumstances. But if the U.S. is uniquely
to be excused from that principle, why should the rest of us
buy into it?
I think the only effective answer is that as a result the
United States will be a consistent and willing partner of the
United Nations, choosing unilaterally and voluntarily to put
its full strength behind what the United Nations is and is
going to become. That decision has to be made within the
process of change and not after it, because otherwise we may
lack the capacity to do everything that we need to do.
Now, to come to Senator Grams' point, the U.N. is engaged
deeply on a reform process and in the next 4 months there are
going to be three separate reviews or reports which are
relevant: the Secretary General's report on the U.N.'s role;
the review of the internal management of the United Nations, to
report this summer; and a review of peacekeeping going on now.
It is essential to have the United States fully involved in
this work with its voice clear and uncontested as an
uninhibited partner of the United Nations. Then we may be
laying the basis for a partnership which will control change.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you very much.
Next is Senator Barbara Boxer, a delightful lady who serves
on our committee. I have gotten to know her real well in the
matter of this term. She is the ranking member of the
Subcommittee on International Operations, which has oversight
of the U.S.-U.N. relations, and she is recognized for--you are
recognized for making your comment. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF HON. BARBARA BOXER, U.S. SENATOR FROM CALIFORNIA
Senator Boxer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
commend you and Senator Biden and Ambassador Chowdhury for
arranging this very historic meeting, and I want to extent on
behalf of the people of California the warmest welcome to our
guests, the Ambassadors of the U.N. Security Council. We are
truly proud to have you here in these historic rooms.
I had the great privilege, at the invitation of Ambassador
Holbrooke, to visit the United Nations in December. It was a
most rewarding experience for me and I was greatly impressed as
I listened to the debate at that time. It was about Bosnia. I
was greatly impressed in what I heard and how I saw people
striving to make progress on a very difficult issue.
One month later, our Chairman, Senator Helms, went to the
United Nations. As Ambassador Chowdhury pointed out, it was a
breakthrough, it was an ice-breaker. I thought what was really
very interesting about that was how he spoke so directly to
you. I think that is a high compliment. I think when things are
difficult and you do not agree and you have problems, if you
lay those out unequivocally it is a high compliment to the
people, even though it may be not that pleasant a message.
The fact that someone respects you enough to speak from the
heart and tell you how he feels I think is very important. And
I said that to my chairman. Although I did not agree with him,
he said it, it is in his heart, and this is what he believes.
One of the things I think Ambassador Holbrooke has been
trying to do, and I think very successfully, is to try to
explain to all who do not reside in our country and who do not
exactly understand it the way things work here. We have to
reach a compromise on many things, particularly when we have a
divided Government as we do. Unlike in Great Britain where you
have the same party in control, we deal with different
ideologies and different ideas. So we must resolve these
questions.
I think that this going in was very, very important. Now,
as the chairman has alluded to, I have spent only a short time
on this committee. I am a new appointee. I am the only woman on
the committee. I am proud to be here. But I do feel my State of
California has a unique relationship with the United Nations.
As you all know, the Charter was drawn up and signed by the
representatives of 50 countries at the conference which met at
San Francisco from April to June 1945. So we are very proud of
our involvement back in our State.
In the aftermath of World War II, in the tragedy of the
Holocaust, the purpose and dream of the U.N. was to preserve
peace through international cooperation. And despite our
problems and our challenges, I know we are all keeping that in
mind. That is why it is so worth the debate to resolve these
problems of reform, because the dream is really alive today and
that dream of peace through international cooperation cannot
die.
So we must resolve the problems that we face. Today there
are many problems and we all see it differently. From my
perspective it is preventing ethnic conflict, protecting the
Earth's environment, stopping the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction, assuring the equal rights of women. These are
all issues that can only be solved through international
cooperation. One nation cannot solve all these problems alone.
That is why the United Nations is as important today as it
was in the years following World War II, and that is why the
American people support the United Nations, giving it their
highest approval rating since 1959.
One challenge I briefly want to mention is the threat of
infectious diseases, such as TB and AIDS. These epidemics know
no boundaries and demand an international solution, and I am
very proud of Ambassador Holbrooke and the Security Council for
their discussion in January on the spread of AIDS, particularly
in sub-Saharan Africa. It was the first time ever that an
international health issue was discussed before the Security
Council, truly an historic event that recognizes the security
implications of the AIDS crisis.
I want to compliment my chairman and my ranking member
because, with their help, Senator Gordon Smith and I, we
reached across party lines to do this. We were able to get
through the committee a wonderful initiative to take on the
problems of AIDS and tuberculosis, and I think members of the
Security Council would be pleased to hear that America is
really stepping forward on this.
So Mr. Chairman, again I am very pleased to stand together
and work with you and Senator Biden and Senator Grams on
resolving some outstanding problems that we may have.
Chairman Helms. Thank you very much.
Now we have our friend from Namibia, Ambassador Andjaba. I
hope I pronounced your name right. I did?
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY MARTIN ANDJABA, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE REPUBLIC OF NAMIBIA
Ambassador Namibia. Yes, you are right, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I will be brief, and I will start with what
you already know and that is that you have a right man at the
U.N. at the right time, and that is my dear colleague and
friend Ambassador Holbrooke. He is working very hard, very
tirelessly, to improve the U.S.-U.N. relationship. But most
importantly, Mr. Holbrooke needs your assistance, Mr. Chairman.
He needs the assistance of this committee.
The U.S. needs the United Nations and the United Nations
needs the U.S. This was said so eloquently by Ambassador
Greenstock.
Namibia attaches great importance to reform, but we also
believe that reform should not be an end in itself. We also
believe that a hasty reform without implementing decisions will
weaken the organization. Mr. Chairman, we also believe that
reform must accentuate the needs of millions of people around
the world, in particular those who live in poverty, those who
live in conflict situations, and those living with HIV-AIDS and
other diseases. Reform should not put these people in positions
where their aspirations are compromised.
Namibia today is known as one of the success stories for
the United Nations. We should then work together, all of us
nations, big and small, and maximize those successes for the
benefit of all of us irrespective of where those successes are.
Let us work together and help the United Nations address
the needs and the problems that we ourselves have assigned it
to do. Without the necessary resources, without the support,
the United Nations will not be able to address those problems
that we have asked it to address.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, sir. We are honored to have you
here today along with your comments.
I guess we throw it open now. Senator Biden, anyone who
seeks recognition? Ambassador van Walsum, the gentleman from
The Netherlands.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY ARNOLD PETER VAN WALSUM, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NETHERLANDS
Ambassador van Walsum. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to make it very clear that my
country--and I am not here in my personal capacity. We are not
here as the Security Council, but we are here as individual
members of the Security Council, so I do not speak in my
personal capacity, but I am speaking as the representative of
The Netherlands on the Security Council.
My country supports all your insistence upon reform at the
United Nations, but I cannot help saying once again that we do
not like to do so under the pressure of the Helms-Biden
legislation. Let me put it in a more positive way: We would
like to cooperate with you to bring about reforms, but I am
sure we would do so even more enthusiastically if at a certain
time in the future the Helms-Biden legislation was repealed.
Senator Biden. Well said.
Ambassador van Walsum. What disturbs us about the Helms-
Biden legislation is the conditionality. I spoke about that on
the 20th of January and I will not do so again. But it is an
element which we do not like. The element which we do not like
is the concept of withholding money, money that is due under a
treaty obligation, to enhance one's influence on a given
process.
The reason that we are so sensitive about that is that my
country is in relative terms pouring money into the United
Nations and getting very little influence in return. The
Netherlands is a country with fewer than 16 million inhabitants
and last year it spent over 40 million U.S. dollars on assessed
contributions and over $365 million on voluntary contributions
to the United Nations.
In the scale of assessments for the regular budget, The
Netherlands ranks among the top ten contributors. Moreover,
with a percentage of .81 of GNP, it belongs to the top seven
country contributors of net official development assistance.
For all this, it obtains very little influence in return.
It does currently sit on the Security Council, but that is only
for a term of 2 years and it enjoys that privilege on average
only once in a generation.
If our parliament should approach this situation even
remotely along the same lines as the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, The Netherlands would seriously consider leaving the
United Nations. If we did, some people might be sorry, but the
United Nations would continue to exist. And that is the crucial
difference between our two countries. The United Nations cannot
survive without the United States, and this is why we cooperate
and why we agree that a solution has to be found.
But it should be clear that we are not cooperating because
we think your arguments are valid, but simply because we feel
that the United States has to not only stay in the United
Nations, but has to be a committed, influential member. So we
are not--I just want to make that clear. We are not persuaded
by your arguments, but by our enlightened self-interest.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Wellstone. Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Mr. Wellstone.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL D. WELLSTONE, U.S. SENATOR FROM
MINNESOTA
Senator Wellstone. I kind of like the comments from the
Ambassador from The Netherlands in some ways. I understand his
point and I think I find myself more or less in agreement with
him.
I just wanted to also thank everyone here, all of the
Ambassadors. Ambassador Holbrooke, thank you for your wonderful
work.
I just wanted to say to all of my colleagues that, as I
think about this world that we live in and I think about my
grandchildren--and I now have six--I really see the United
Nations playing a really important role, a very important role.
Senator Boxer talked about that, whether it be in public health
or whether it be trying to deal with the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction or whether it be a sustainable
environment or whether it be what my colleague from Namibia
referred to as just the whole issue of justice for people and
uplifting of living standards of people or whether it be a
peacekeeping force--I know that Senator Warner is going to be
chairing a session on this--that can get ahead of some of the
genocide that we have seen and prevent it.
I just think that ultimately this international
organization is going to be terribly important for making this
a better world. So the whole issue really becomes when we talk
about reform, it still becomes reform for what priorities,
reform for what mission, reform for what vision, and I am very
focused on those questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Senator.
Who seeks recognition? Ambassador Wang.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY WANG YINGFAN, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF CHINA
Ambassador Wang. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I came to New York in February, so I missed your discussion
with the members of the Security Council in January. But before
I came to Washington I did my homework by reading your
statement in the Security Council, and from your statement I
picked some words which I think are very important. You stated
``friendly atmosphere and understanding.''
I am glad that this afternoon we have this very friendly
atmosphere and our objective through our discussion is to have
a better understanding, which I think we could manage to
achieve.
My colleagues in the Council have talked about the point
that the United Nations needs the United States, but I think we
should stress another point. That is, the United States also
needs the United Nations very much. Probably I wish to change
``the United Nations'' into ``the world.'' The world needs the
United States and the United States needs the world as well.
Every nation in the world pays great importance to its
relationships with the United States, including the People's
Republic of China. The Sino-U.S. relationship is a priority
among our relations with countries indeed. We do hope we have
very constructive, stronger relationships.
Then, in this interdependent world, the United States,
although the only superpower left, you cannot manage everything
without the support of other countries in the world. I hope
this point could be seen by many American people, especially
the representatives in the House and in the Senate.
We talk about reform. For the Chinese people we all know
that reform is very important in our world. For the last 20
years or more, every Chinese has benefited from the reforms we
have carried out in our country. When we look at the United
Nations, which has functioned more than half a century,
certainly we need reform if we want to make this unique
institution more effective.
So there's no doubt that we should have reform, but in what
way we should carry out reforms is very complicated. We had
this United Nations half a century ago as a mechanism for world
peace and for development of each nation which has its
representative in this organization.
We call it United Nations, but, very unfortunately, the
nations are not quite united yet. So that is the problem. We
had the cold war and even after the cold war we still had a lot
of differences in the United Nations on many world issues. But
how to have a better world when we look ahead for the new
century, the millennium, and the millennium summit and the 21st
century's U.N. role. I think we have to try to achieve unity in
the United Nations, better unity in the United Nations.
We have a lot of differences among the 188 members because
conditions, economic development levels, vary from country to
country. But we have not been coming to the United Nations
because of differences. We have come here for something we can
work for together, the common interest. So we have to work
together through the differences for the common ground, for the
common interest, where we can really be united so to have an
effective United Nations.
About reform, I would say that this morning when I had the
tour of the Congress, when I had a briefing on the history of
the Senate, I was struck by the point that when you had 37
States in the Senate or in the Congress you passed some rules
or laws to protect the majority of the States, I mean the
interests of smaller and weaker States. For instance, when you
adopt something you have to get two-thirds majority, in order
to prevent the fact that the Senate might be dominated by the
few important and stronger States.
I think in the United Nations when we have reform we have
to defend or try to defend the weaker states or smaller states
to have their interests well represented and well defended in
this unique world body.
So when we discuss some particular issues or concrete
issues we have to bear it in mind in our world we have some
rich and strong powers like the United States, but we have a
lot of not so strong and quite poor nations. So if they have a
common interest, the interest of each member of the United
Nations is well represented, well defended there, maybe we
would make this United Nations more effective, not only for the
few but for every nation.
Thank you.
Chairman Helms. Thank you. You are the Ambassador of your
country?
Ambassador Wang. Yes. I am currently more than 40 days in
New York.
Chairman Helms. What I want you to do is to talk to him
about a conversation we had in this hearing room, Ambassador.
Ambassador Wang. Thank you.
Chairman Helms. Before recognizing the next speaker, please
be advised that we will recognize three more before a short
break and then turn to peacekeeping with Senator Warner. So
three more.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, Ambassador Yel'chenko of
Ukraine and Ambassador Fowler of Canada have both sought
recognition.
Chairman Helms. And Mali.
Senator Biden. With the Ambassador from Argentina is four.
I will let you, Mr. Chairman, pick them.
Chairman Helms. And Senator Sarbanes. I do not know if that
is four, but we will do it that way. You may proceed, sir.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY VOLODYMYR Y. YEL'CHENKO, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF UKRAINE
Ambassador Yel'chenko. Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I
thank you for your invitation. I am grateful to you for the
opportunity to be here and the invitation we received. I am
also thankful to you because I come from a country--and now let
me quote from the statement of Ambassador Holbrooke during the
January meeting in New York--``a country whose independence, as
we all know, you strongly supported earlier than anyone else,
in the United States.''
Let me say that I fully agree with my colleagues who said
that we cannot imagine the United Nations without the United
States. But it seems to me that, as China said, that the United
States needs the United Nations no less than any other country
of this organization.
We are aware of the problem which you have, the problem of
reform. Let me say that Ukraine is as critical about the United
Nations as the United States, and I fully share the words of
Senator Grams. On the issue of arrears, let me say, as you well
know, Ukraine is No. 2 after the United States as regards its
arrears to the United Nations. We owe more than $200 million to
this organization. But when you go to the Ukrainian parliament
you will not hear from a single member of the parliament that
Ukraine is not going to pay that, although more than two-thirds
of our arrears is a result of a fully unjustified decision by
the Committee on contributions made back in 1992. But we think
this is only a matter of time for us to pay.
But let me say once again that we fully respect and we
share your opinion that the United Nations should reform more
actively, the internal oversight should be strengthened, the
budgetary process should become different. But this will become
possible only if it is supported by our joint efforts.
Again, I think that if the United States will be as active
as it is now as it is being represented by Ambassador
Holbrooke, then everything would be OK.
Thank you.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, sir.
Senator Sarbanes.
STATEMENT OF HON. PAUL S. SARBANES, U.S. SENATOR FROM MARYLAND
Senator Sarbanes. First of all, I was pleased to hear that
very strong endorsement of our Ambassador to the United
Nations. We think highly of Richard Holbrooke and we are glad
to hear that that attitude also prevails amongst his colleagues
in the Security Council.
Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to take a moment or two to
welcome our guests. We are very pleased they are here with us
today in order to discuss important issues with respect to U.N.
activities.
It is my own firm belief that the interests of the United
States have been served by our country's active participation
in the United Nations and the U.N. system. I think any fair and
objective evaluation over the course of the U.N.'s existence
would support that observation, and I think our task now is to
assist the United Nations to meet the challenges of the new
century.
I think we should be very strongly committed to that. The
cold war that followed the end of World War II, of course, put
the United Nations system into something of gridlock over quite
a sustained period of time. Now, with the cold war over, new
challenges have arisen that are testing the resolve of the
international system.
The U.N.'s work for peace and prosperity has never been
easy, but the difficulty of the task has increased in part
because the nature of the conflicts the U.N. is asked to
address have become more complex. Warfare is increasingly
conducted within national borders by parties who do not respond
to political or economic pressure, and often involve forces
that lack discipline and clear chains of command.
Civilians are not only caught in the crossfire; they
actually become the targets or pawns of the violence. And you
have the vast refugee flows and complex humanitarian
emergencies.
Now, in my perception the U.S. seeks U.N. resolutions to
provide a mandate for actions we seek to take, often with
others, to serve and protect the international peace and
prosperity. This of course often elicits significant
contributions from other countries. Sometimes in fact it is
other countries that put their troops on the line in order to
accomplish important objectives of which the United States has
been very supportive.
By the end of 1999, the figures I have been given are that
the U.S. had 677 persons involved in U.N. peacekeeping
operations out of a total number of U.N. peacekeepers of
18,410. If we did not have the U.N. and the U.N. system, it
would either fall to the United States to respond to these
various crises on our own, at greater costs and risks to
Americans, or alternatively to suffer the potential
consequences of doing nothing and allowing conflicts to spread
and intensify.
We often talk about burden-sharing and obviously it is very
important to achieve the right ratio. But I think we ought to
regard the way the U.N. system works as a very important form
of burden-sharing, if the system was not there, and if the U.S.
wanted to do something about a problem, we would have to do it
on our own or, alternatively, not act and then bear the
consequences of inaction.
Besides important peacekeeping work, the U.N. is involved
in many worthy efforts around the world. The World Health
Organization, working in concert with USAID and other agencies,
led a 13-year effort resulting in the complete eradication of
smallpox, saving an estimated $1 billion a year in vaccination
and monitoring. It helped, the World Health Organization
helped, wipe out polio in the Western Hemisphere. Through its
High Commissioner for Refugees, Children's Fund, Development
Program, the International Fund for Agricultural Development,
and the World Food Program, the U.N. has literally saved
millions from famine and provided food, shelter, medical aid,
education, and repatriation assistance to refugees around the
world.
So Mr. Chairman, I am very pleased that these distinguished
Ambassadors have come to the Senate today to share their views
with us on the important role that the U.N. has played and I
very much hope will continue to play in the years ahead.
I am pleased to extend this warm welcome to our
distinguished visitors from the Security Council.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Senator.
We have two Ambassadors who wish to be recognized. First,
Ambassador Fowler of Canada and then Ambassador Ouane.
Ambassador Ouane. ``WON.''
Chairman Helms. Well, I appreciate the correction.
Ambassador Ben Mustapha. Mr. Chairman.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, I know we are running short on
time on Senator Warner, on the peacekeeping piece here. Maybe
we could recognize the two Ambassadors you just recognized,
have Senator Warner then open, and then recognize our friend
from Tunisia to speak at that time. Would that be appropriate?
Ambassador Ben Mustapha. Yes.
Chairman Helms. Ambassador.
HIS EXCELLENCY ROBERT R. FOWLER, PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF
CANADA
Ambassador Fowler. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
for your extremely warm welcome here today. We've enjoyed
ourselves. You provided a wonderful, splendid lunch, an
excellent tour. I enjoyed reverting to the role of history
student. I was particularly glad to see the full magnificence
that has become of what my ancestors tried to burn down some
years ago.
As a Canadian history student, I learned very carefully
that that was the result of your attacking Toronto. But I must
say that, as a young Montrealer, I never thought it was a
terribly bad idea. [Laughter.]
But it is very good of you to have received us so well.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to join our President in
underlining the fact that the Security Council has no mandate
whatsoever for financial issues, but we are, all 15 of us,
members of course of the General Assembly and we all therefore
have views as members of the General Assembly regarding the
issue that we are discussing this morning, and obviously it is
in that guise that we are addressing this issue.
When we get to Senator Warner's issues in a moment, we will
approach more directly the area of the mandate of the Council.
Mr. Chairman, if I could begin by expressing some views on
issues that were raised by my neighbor (in every sense),
Senator Grams, and to acknowledge, as I know he would agree,
that of course not only is the U.N. not perfect, it will never
be perfect. It will never be Microsoft. We did not design it to
be that way.
It represents every culture, every religion, every idea,
every ideal, every foible, and every tendency in the world, and
that is what we designed it to be. In the main, I think we are
very well served by it.
By my count, there are about 8,000 international public
servants working for the U.N. in New York. That compares with
something over 30,000 working here for you on the Hill. We have
overlap and duplication and so do you. There are 50,000 U.N.
international public servants working around the world, doing
the things that Senator Sarbanes catalogued so effectively a
moment ago, and, again, I think they are serving us well.
The U.N. at the senior levels is served by as dedicated a
group of international public servants as I have ever seen.
That said, we all must ensure that efficiency is the order of
the day. I participated in cutting almost a quarter out of the
Canadian public service and I assure you that we Canadians are
not anxious to see waste and inefficiency in the international
public service that we would deplore and find unacceptable at
home.
Our Secretary General has said that reform is not an event,
it is a process, and it is something that we, I think all of
us, must work on every day and in every way, and I think we are
making progress in that regard. But Mr. Chairman, the U.N.
today is, I believe, significantly sub-optimized. That is
principally because the United States is not acquitting its
full fiscal obligations and, even more, because we are deprived
of your energy and commitment and, indeed, your leadership.
Just imagine what Dick Holbrooke's engagement on
fundamentally important issues like peace and security in
Africa, the blight of internally displaced persons, or the
countless millions of people around the world afflicted with
AIDS; just imagine what his brand of energy and engagement
could accomplish if Dick were not weighed down in his task by
financial delinquency and American ambivalence toward the
organization which he serves so admirably. Just imagine what
America could achieve in the world were it to leverage its 25
percent in this organization to make it really strong.
I am confident, Mr. Chairman, that with meetings such as
this today, with a better understanding of each other's
preoccupations, we will get to that stage where the United
States will bring to bear that enormous energy with which it
has achieved such remarkable things over your short history. If
that energy is applied to the work of the international
organization that we all serve, we will be able to achieve
remarkable things together.
Thank you.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, sir.
We will hear from the Ambassador from Mali and then a short
break. Sit in here or wait in the hall or whatever you want to
do.
Ambassador.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY MOCTAR OUANE, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE REPUBLIC OF MALI
Ambassador Ouane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman. Because the time is running I will be very brief.
I have just one comment on U.N. reform. By now it is well
recognized that--
Chairman Helms. Mr. Ambassador, we want to hear everything
you say. Pull the mike closer to you, if you will.
Ambassador Ouane. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I know the time is running and I will be very brief. I have
just one comment on U.N. reform. By now it is well recognized
that democratization of the world already is the goal of
international community. I do hope that the United States, in
supporting democratic values, will take concrete steps to
promote democratization of the world order. The process could
begin with democratization of the U.N. system. For that reason,
we strongly support efforts to reform the U.N. both in
peacekeeping and the regular budget.
Thank you.
Chairman Helms. Thank you.
We will now take a short break. Following that we will
recognize you, sir.
[Recess from 3:10 p.m. to 3:19 p.m.]
Chairman Helms. The order of recognition beginning now,
first will be the distinguished Senator from Virginia, Mr.
Warner, then Senator Levin, then Ambassador Said Ben Mustapha
of Tunisia, and I hope I have your name right. Then we will
hear from Ambassador Holbrooke.
So you may proceed, Senator Warner.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN WARNER, U.S. SENATOR FROM VIRGINIA
Chairman Warner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I commend
you, Senator Biden, and the members of this committee for
holding this, the second historic meeting between the U.S.
Senate and this distinguished international body, the Security
Council. I was privileged to be in New York, as I am privileged
to be here today.
I am certain in the minds of some there is the question of
why should the chairman and ranking member of the Armed
Services Committee be involved. It goes back to a great
President of this Nation, Teddy Roosevelt, who once said:
``Always speak softly, but always carry a big stick.'' Most of
you know far more about diplomacy and foreign policy than do I,
but clearly, throughout history, it has been shown that a
nation's foreign policy is largely no stronger, no more
effective, than that nation's ability, either alone or together
with others, to carry out that foreign policy and the will to
use force if that force be necessary.
My responsibility in the U.S. Senate is for the roughly 1.4
million, a little more, a little less, men and women wearing
the United States uniform all over the world today, working
with our allies. Our concept of the defense of this Nation is
one of forward deployment. No one has crossed our shores since
our friends from Great Britain and Canada. The oceans have
protected us. But now we put our forces with your forces to
defend peace around the world.
I am sorry my colleague Mr. Sarbanes departed, because I
listened as he talked about the number of U.S. troops. Let me
tell you that the defense budget, which I will take to the
floor in about 6 weeks, is approximately $300 billion. It is
twice the size of all the defense budgets of the other 18 NATO
nations.
I remind you, we are relatively protected here in this
country, but we expand that to work with you in many capacities
throughout the world in the cause of freedom. And on the
subject of peacekeeping, I clearly say that it is a vital role
of this organization. We the United States want to be
considered a partner in that. And I commend my long-time friend
Ambassador Holbrooke for his efforts, and indeed he has taken
certain risks and leadership that no other Ambassador in that
post in my memory, Mr. Chairman, has taken. But again, he does
it to strengthen the relationship between this organization and
the United Nations and our country.
But on peacekeeping, I must say I wish to offer some
constructive criticism. Again coming back to an old maxim in
our country, do not take on more than you can do. We are
heavily involved in Bosnia and in Kosovo. We have 4,000 troops,
Mr. Sarbanes, in Bosnia and some 6,000 in Kosovo. I did not
hear any mention of that in the totals. They may not be wearing
blue hats, but they are there implementing the Security Council
resolutions, the policy of the United Nations, the EU, the
OSCE, and other international organizations.
So we are there, and we intend to stay. You might say:
Well, Senator, you say you intend to stay, but you are the
author of an amendment, which has been examined, I presume, by
most of you, an amendment which said that our President has to
certify--in connection with the $2 billion supplemental, $2
billion just for Kosovo--that the other nations are fulfilling
their commitments and roles, whether it is police or dollars or
legal infrastructure or housing or whatever it maybe. The
reason being we in this country want to try and determine when
our troops, together with the troops of the other 30-plus
nations carrying out this mission, can relinquish the military
role of peacekeeping and have it assumed by the United Nations,
the EU, and other organizations.
Now, I must tell you that is not a step that was favored by
our President. Indeed, he has communicated that to me, as have
the Secretaries of State and Defense and the National Security
Adviser. But by pure coincidence, the resolution that I drew
up, without a word change in it, was voted today in the House
of Representatives. It was placed on that supplemental with the
$2 billion. It was a very close vote. Even though the President
brought, as we say here, the full court press against it, it
carried with 200 votes yea for it, 216 nay, a 16-vote margin.
It is my intention to raise the same amendment, although I
am continuing to work with our President and his staff on the
matter in the U.S. Senate. Now, I do not point that out as a
threat. We wish to be in Kosovo and Bosnia, but we think when
you take these missions on you have got to bring to bear in a
timely manner the infrastructure that is necessary to achieve
our goals.
Now, you are thinking about taking on missions in Sierra
Leone and the Congo where human rights cry for relief, there is
no doubt about that. But I ask of you rhetorically: Do you have
the assets, do you have the commitment to take on those
additional missions, when the Kosovo, Bosnia, East Timor
missions are far from concluded? Do not take on more than you
can do and do effectively.
To continue to get the support here in the United States,
you have got to show positive results in bringing some of these
things to conclusion in a timely manner.
I want to touch on Iraq. As we sit in this room exchanging
our views, there are aviators flying from our Nation and Great
Britain--France has stood down--taking risks of life. There are
sailors trying to enforce the illegal trafficking of oil out of
Iraq through the Persian Gulf. There are efforts to try and
thwart that illegal transfer through pipelines.
Now, can we in clear conscience ask these young men and
women taking these risks to continue unless we are bringing the
full might and the full weight of this organization, and indeed
the nations themselves, to enforce the resolutions of this
distinguished body? They may not be wearing blue hats, but they
are in every respect carrying out the goals that you laid down.
I may have a resolution on that situation not unlike the
one that I have on Kosovo, because I am responsible for their
lives, and the welfare of their families, and I must take such
actions as I see fit, Mr. Chairman, to protect the men and
women taking those risks today.
So I thank you very much. We are going to be a full
partner, but from time to time persons like myself must express
views which may not be well received. But I will say, I have
been here, what, 23 years and I have almost consistently voted
in support of the United Nations and I intend to continue to do
that, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Levin.
STATEMENT OF HON. CARL S. LEVIN, U.S. SENATOR FROM MICHIGAN
Senator Levin. Senator Helms, first let me thank you and
Senator Biden for your leadership in bringing our guests here
today. It is an extraordinary outpouring of world unity for
improvement in the very important relationship between Congress
and the United Nations.
Dick Holbrooke does a spectacular job at the United
Nations. His willingness to come here to Washington to meet
with the Congress really is a very important step, I believe,
in promoting a much warmer relationship between the Congress
and the United Nations.
I want to share a few thoughts with you as someone who
generally has supported the United Nations and its peacekeeping
operations. As Senator Warner said, I am the senior Democrat on
the Armed Services Committee. So our responsibilities there are
similar.
I applaud the fact that the Security Council has recently
discussed the integration of humanitarian components into
peacekeeping operations and the matter of disarmament,
demobilization, and re-integration of ex-combatants in a
peacekeeping environment. I applaud Secretary Annan's
appointment of a distinguished international panel of experts
to study U.N. peacekeeping operations and to make
recommendations for their improvement.
I concur with the new chairman's initial comment that when
peace operations are being ventured that state power, political
will, and resources must be ensured until their completion.
We have learned some lessons, frequently some bitter
lessons, from some peacekeeping experiences. I believe that we
have learned that you, the Security Council, must pay closer
attention to on-going peace operations, and to assist you in
doing that the Secretary General--and I believe that Dick
Holbrooke and others have been very supportive of this--are
urging that your Department of Peacekeeping Operations be
strengthened, given more staff, given more resources to do the
planning and the oversight that you need to do your job
effectively. I welcome the news that you are going to be
sending a mission to Kosovo next month to review the situation
there.
You must be realistic. Senator Warner made reference to a
number of failures in the area of peacekeeping. I think we
should learn from those failures. When it became clear that the
Security Council had given the United Nations Protection Force,
UNPROFOR, in Bosnia a mission that it was not equipped to carry
out, one of two things should have happened. Either the
appropriate resources should have been provided the UNPROFOR or
the mission should have been changed.
In Srebrenica and other places a mission was given to
create safe havens, but the resources that were necessary to
achieve that mission were not forthcoming, and the tragedy that
occurred there and in other places resulted.
We saw something similar in Somalia. Senator Warner and I
went to Somalia to see what had happened in the aftermath of
the tragedy and the loss of 16 American soldiers. We found that
the mission was not clear. Its purposes were not clear. We
engaged in nation-building without dealing with the people who
were in control of that nation, to the extent that there was a
nation.
I hope that you will feel freer to use your media assets to
ensure that member states provide the resources, both financial
and the personnel, needed to get the peacekeeping missions
done. We have now a situation in Kosovo where Bernard Kouchner
is pleading for funds in order to provide the consolidated
budget and the civilian police personnel. You have a press
department which frequently gets word out about members who
have paid their dues and assessments and those who have not.
That is fine and that is appropriate. But it is also important
that you get word out about the member states who routinely
provide military troops, military observers, civilian police,
and those that do not.
Right now we desperately need civilian police in Kosovo. We
are using troops in Kosovo for a purpose that they are not
trained; civilian police are trained for those missions. We
have too many countries that have not carried out their
commitments. We have other countries that have made no
commitments to provide for the deployment of civilian police,
so that the peacekeeping mission can be achieved.
I hope that you will find ways to redouble your efforts to
get those police there. You are a unique body and you are
visiting a unique legislative body. You have heard a lot about
us. You know a lot about us. I think perhaps the most
significant thing that I could say is this: The Congress has a
unique role in foreign policy because we control the
pursestrings. We also have oversight and other
responsibilities. The control of the pursestrings gives us a
special power and a special responsibility. That is true
whether or not the same party is in control of the White House.
Finally, these checks and balances, which are built into
the U.S. Government, mean that power is divided. They are there
because of the distrust of power that resulted a Revolutionary
War. It is ironic that the world's greatest power at the
moment, the United States, is a country that is built on an
inherent distrust of power.
It is a real fact of life in this Congress, with the
division we have here. It is something we hope that you will
come to understand, as we have, and to respect and to work
with, as Dick Holbrooke does so brilliantly.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Senator.
The distinguished Ambassador from Tunisia.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY SAID BEN MUSTAPHA, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF TUNISIA
Ambassador Ben Mustapha. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I was about to agree with the item one of the
agenda relating to reform at the U.N. But as I see now that
Senator Warner has already moved on to point two with his
remarks, I will withhold and refer to our paper.
Thank you.
Chairman Helms. Now, a gentleman whom I did not know not
too long ago, and the more I found out about him the more I
admired him. We have people in this world who do and people who
do not. This guy is a doer. Ambassador Holbrooke.
STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD HOLBROOKE, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO THE
UNITED NATIONS
Ambassador Holbrooke: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairmen and other members of the committee. My deepest
thanks to all of you for this extraordinary day that you have
arranged for the members of the Security Council of the United
Nations, who are here of course in their individual capacity,
but thank you nonetheless for all of them.
My thanks especially to Ambassador Chowdhury and my other
colleagues of the Security Council for coming here today in a
very important second phase of an evolving dialog between the
United Nations and our co-equal branch of government, as you so
eloquently put it, Mr. Chairman, when you addressed us from the
well of the Old Senate Chamber. I cannot tell you, as the one
American representative here today, what a moving thing it was
for me and my colleagues on the U.S. team to sit in those
historic seats, which are normally closed to visitors, and
listen to a senior American Senator speak to us from the same
place where so much history took place.
I will not repeat what has already been said here today
about the importance of this deepening and broadening dialog or
the historic nature, to use the phrase several people have
used, because I think that speaks for itself. But I am deeply
grateful to all of you, especially for the courtesy.
Before I talk about peacekeeping, I would like to say a
word about reform, with the permission of you, Senator Helms
and Senator Biden, because your names are attached now and
forever to a piece of legislation which is, to put it mildly,
controversial.
Reform is a very tough thing, as we all know. But I want to
say to you and your colleagues on the committees, the Foreign
Relations and Armed Services Committees, that all of us are
trying, not just the United States delegation, which is under
an absolute constitutional obligation to do so, and I told you
under oath during my confirmation hearings that I was committed
to seeking implementation of the Helms-Biden package, and I
have tried to fulfil that commitment to you.
But I do want to say to you, on behalf of the other 14
nations in this room and almost all the other member states of
the United Nations, that everyone is trying. Ambassador Fowler,
Ambassador Andjaba, Ambassador Greenstock, and many other
Ambassadors here have already expressed their reservations
about some of the procedural aspects of this. But I hope that
what was not lost in this part of the discussion is the fact
that all of the Ambassadors in this room have told you, either
here or when you met with them in New York, that reform is
desirable.
Senator Grams correctly and skillfully quoted our Secretary
General, Kofi Annan, as supporting reform. But it is tough, as
it is in the Congress or the executive branch. I think progress
is being made.
I cannot say today, Mr. Chairman, if we will succeed fully
in achieving all your benchmarks. We have done about 80 percent
of them already in the last 7 months, starting with getting the
U.S. back on the ACABQ with the great assistance of Senator
Grams, who was our first congressional visitor to New York, and
with the support of the rest of you. But I cannot say today we
will reach 100 percent on schedule. All I can tell you is we
are trying, we think we are making progress, and we appreciate
your continued support.
I will keep you informed, as I have before, on a regular
and daily basis. I also thank you and so many of your
colleagues for coming to New York or for planning to come in
the near future.
Let me turn now to the peacekeeping issues that Senator
Warner and Senator Levin have raised. Let me begin by saying
that, despite all the other important things the United Nations
does--the UNHCR, UNICEF, the specialized agencies, UNDP, our
extraordinarily important efforts to combat AIDS in Africa--and
we are deeply grateful, Mr. Chairman, to you, to Senator Smith
sitting here now to my right, to Senator Boxer, and to others
for your dramatic new initiatives to increase the amount of
money.
Despite the importance of all those other things, the U.N.
is ultimately going to be judged on its ability in conflict
prevention and conflict resolution. That is what Franklin
Roosevelt and Winston Churchill had in mind. It is the core
responsibility of the U.N. It is the one on which the U.N. is
ultimately judged.
I believe that that record has been very mixed, and in the
last 10 years since the end of the cold war we have already
gone through two phases and we are already in a third. In the
first phase the U.N. expanded its peacekeeping much too
rapidly, bit off more than it could chew, and ran into three
spectacular disasters in Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia, and then
retreated very rapidly, from a high of 80,000 peacekeepers to a
sixth or an eighth of that number.
Now, even in that period there were successes. Ambassador
Andjaba has spoken eloquently in his previous meeting with you
to the fact that the United Nations was a successful operation
in Namibia, bringing a settlement to the problem and
independence. That is also true of Mozambique. I think you can
give the U.N. a qualified positive report card for Cambodia.
But still, this was a very bad period. The U.N. was then in
full-scale retreat. We are now in a new peacekeeping era, Mr.
Chairman, with four big ones--East Timor, Kosovo, Sierra Leone,
and Congo. Although Sierra Leone has not been previously
mentioned today, I want to stress it because it is a very
dangerous operation.
Mr. Chairman, you and your colleagues have asked whether or
not the Office of Peacekeeping of the U.N. is up to the job.
Let me answer the question with a simple word: No. They are
not. There is not one of us in the room who is happy with DPKO.
The head of DPKO, Bernard Miyet, an outstanding international
civil servant, does not think they are currently structured to
do the job. The Secretary General does not.
They have 400 or less people, 200 professionals, to
oversee--and they are essentially the UN's ministry of defense.
It is not going to work at the current levels. When you talk
about reform--several of you mentioned, Senator Grams,
Ambassador Greenstock, the Secretary General's review of the
peacekeeping office. That is a review we are all extremely
interested in. We are conducting our independent efforts, many
other countries here are. We are deeply concerned about their
ability to manage this process.
Nonetheless, we are faced with the dilemma. If the U.N. is
not going to do it, who is going to? In some cases, East Timor
and Kosovo, the solution was very sophisticated. The U.N. voted
to authorize the operation in the case of East Timor, but it
was not conducted by the U.N. It was conducted by an
international force led by the Australians, who did a
magnificent job, and supported by the Philippines, Thailand,
Malaysia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and many other
countries. For the first time in history, I believe--correct me
if I am wrong, Ambassador Wang--China sent civilian police to
participate in the operation, and I think that should be noted.
They had had some medical workers in a previous operation, but
the Chinese participation should be especially noted.
Now, in Kosovo the United Nations did not act until after
NATO acted and then they in essence mandated what was already
happening on the military side, backed up by a civilian
operation. That was another model.
In Africa neither model is available in its purest form. So
Sierra Leone and Congo posed us the most difficult problems. I
want to thank all of the four Senators at the head of the table
in the presence of my colleagues, because all four of the
Senators at the head of the table have approved the United
States' support of the peacekeeping operation in Congo and
Sierra Leone. That is very important.
We do not yet have full approval from everyone on the
appropriations side and we are very anxious to get that.
Meanwhile, the DPKO, Mr. Chairman, is continuing its planning
for the operation, with the possibility of deployment in July
if the conditions are right. Of course, even before we make the
final decision we need to unblock enough of the money so the
planning can continue. There will not be American troops on the
ground, as we have informed both your committees.
But I want to say again that these operations in Africa--
and I am singling them out because we have elsewhere held very
extensive hearings on Kosovo and Senator Warner and Senator
Levin and their colleagues have been in extensive dialog with
us on Kosovo. I want to say again how vitally important it is
for all of us to support the U.N. and make it work in Africa.
This is going to be a tough one. But absent that, absent
support for the U.N.'s efforts in the Congo, I think we will
face a much worse situation. It is better to deal with the
causes of a crisis than to deal with its consequences.
On that basis, Mr. Chairman, I thank you for your support.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, sir.
Senator Smith, we will hear from you.
STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON H. SMITH, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Smith. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will be very
brief. I am honored to join you as a member of your committee.
I salute you, sir, and our ranking member Joe Biden for the
efforts you have made to deepen the dialog between the U.S.
Senate, Congress, and the United Nations.
Senator Warner referenced Teddy Roosevelt's comment that
American foreign policy should be about speaking softly but
carrying a big stick. I recently read a book called In the Time
of the Americans, which is a history of American foreign policy
in the 20th century. American foreign policy began in the last
century with that as our doctrine. It was followed by the
service of Woodrow Wilson, whose views were not about a big
stick, but moral purposes in American foreign policy.
After the First World War, those two approaches really
failed at the League of Nations and it took a second World War
for military might and moral purpose to be joined together, as
it has been magnificently done in the United Nations.
I know that there is great frustration in the United
Nations because of arrears of the United States. I would simply
say to our visitors, so much of the good that the United States
does in the world does not show up on any U.N. ledger. There
has been reciprocal frustration in the U.S. Senate as to the
issue of reforms and the way a lot of the moral purposes, as we
see them, are frustrated.
But these meetings are so valuable because we need the
moral voice of the United Nations in the world and, when backed
up by the military might of the United States and allies and
people of like view, we form a union that forges such good in
the world that we leave this planet a much better place.
I think what our leaders have done here today by bringing
us together is adding significantly to a better chapter as we
start this new century.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Senator.
There is one final Senator. He is a remarkable individual.
He is a heart surgeon who has done beaucoup heart transplants.
Bill, I want you to say whatever you want to say to our
friends.
STATEMENT OF HON. BILL FRIST, U.S. SENATOR FROM TENNESSEE
Senator Frist. Mr. Chairman, thank you, and I will be
brief. I know the hour is late and other people would like to
speak. But I also would like to extend my welcome to everybody
here and hopefully later today and this evening we will be able
to continue discussions on several issues.
I have had the wonderful opportunity of chairing the
Subcommittee on African Affairs and just very briefly I want to
speak to the concern that we all have about the prospects of
long-term peace in the Democratic Republic of Congo and all of
central Africa. Clearly the stability of that region affects
the interests of the United States of America and failure to
seize every opportunity to enhance the possibility for the
resolution of conflict there would really be disastrous.
I support the essence of the peacekeeping resolution that
our colleagues have put forward. Yet many in this body are
deeply concerned about the proposed expansion of the United
Nations in the sense that it lacks some of the necessary
elements, not because it is in Africa, but because of the less
conducive atmosphere, in part safety, at this point in time.
I wanted to express my own support for that ongoing dialog
because I think that dialog will be important in this body and
in the United States for there to be really effective
leadership by the United States, by the United Nations, in
working with Africa. And I look forward to continuing to pursue
this cooperation with others in this room.
Second, I want to mention again--I do not think it is an
issue that we need to spend a lot of time on today, but I think
it is important for our colleagues to understand in this body
in particular, as represented by the Foreign Relations
Committee and by the Budget Committee is the interest in AIDS-
HIV positivity in Africa.
As the chairman mentioned, I am a physician. I am
interested in public health. But I think it is very important
again for everyone to recognize that when it comes to AIDS,
when it comes to HIV positivity, all of our interests in terms
of policy can be destroyed, can be undermined, if we do not
adequately address this trend that is increasingly terrifying
of AIDS and the increase of AIDS in Africa.
In closing, let me just say that we have made real strides
on the Foreign Relations Committee. Just last week we in a
bipartisan way with a number of members on the committee, both
sides of the aisle, added an amendment which greatly increases
the authorization for supporting this war against AIDS. In
fact, we doubled what the President of the United States had
initially requested.
I say that only because it notes the high priority that
this Congress places on combatting AIDS worldwide and
particularly in Africa. Just about 4 hours ago the Budget
Committee of the United States, where we finalize the budget
for all spending in the U.S. Senate, we established in the
budget resolution that combatting AIDS worldwide must be a high
priority of the United States foreign policy. That linkage
between foreign policy and combatting AIDS is one that we
understand and look forward to participating with others of you
in.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Warner.
Chairman Warner. I just handed the chairman a note which
was handed to me. An hour ago Secretary of Defense Cohen,
because of the critical conditions in Kosovo, sent in two new
U.S. units, one a surveillance group from Germany and the other
a tank company out of Macedonia with tanks and artillery. So
they may not have blue hats, but they are there and they are to
be counted in the support of this mission.
A serious situation over there, my good friends. We have
got to address it.
Chairman Helms. Senator, we have a series of distinguished
Ambassadors who have a few words that they want to say. The
distinguished Ambassador from Jamaica. Where are you today?
There you are. You may proceed.
STATEMENT OF HER EXCELLENCY MIGNONETTE PATRICIA DURRANT,
PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF JAMAICA
Ambassador Durrant. I wanted to join all those who have
spoken in thanking you for the very warm hospitality extended
to us by you and the members of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee and to say how much we appreciate the interest that
members of this committee have taken in improving relations
between the United Nations and the United States, because we
believe--and it has clearly been expressed by all of our
colleagues--that we all have an interest in ensuring a more
effective United Nations.
I hope you do not mind if I just make a few comments on the
reform situation, because others have pointed to the fact that
reform is an important part of what we are doing at the United
Nations; but we agree that much still needs to be done. And
others have pointed to the fact that, as Senator Frist just
mentioned, the question of infectious diseases such as AIDS,
which know no boundaries, improvement in the status of women;
issues relating to the environment and relating to
peacekeeping; the question of the proliferation of small arms
in conflict areas, are issues which we all have to address.
I mention this because we now have to deal with a very
different situation from the past when we dealt with more
traditional forms of peacekeeping. We are dealing with very
complex conflicts. As Senator Warner mentioned, the situation
is completely different in places like Kosovo than when we were
talking about traditional peacekeeping between countries that
have already agreed on a truce.
But these complex conflicts and situations are the nature
of the conflicts that we have to address, and if we do not
address them they will cross borders and they will affect all
our countries and they will drag us into a much wider
situation.
In this regard, I wanted to mention the question of the
situation in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is a
conflict which is spreading across borders, which brings in all
countries around the borders of that country. And if we do not
address that situation, deal with the situation of civilians
caught in conflict, of children in conflict, deal with
humanitarian emergencies, which in truth and in fact are
draining resources away from what we would have spent on
traditional development assistance--we will not be able to
address the root causes of conflict.
So we cannot deal with reform on the one hand, with
development on the other, and with peacekeeping. We have to
look at it as part of one complete whole. I hope that out of
these discussions that we have today we will come to the
conclusion that what we have to do is address all of these
situations in a cooperative manner and arrive at solutions
which will have the widespread support of the entire membership
of the United Nations.
Mr. Chairman, in closing I just want to recognize the
tremendous contribution which the United States has made over
the years, not only in peacekeeping but to all avenues and all
operations of the United Nations across the world, and to thank
Ambassador Holbrooke for the dynamism that he has brought to
our work over the last few months, particularly in January when
you visited us and began this dialog, which I know will stand
all of us in good stead.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you very much.
The senior Ambassador of the Russian Federation, Ambassador
Lavrov.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY SERGEY V. LAVROV, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Ambassador Lavrov. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
your hospitality.
Of course, we are all here in our individual capacities and
because this is not the kind of hearing, if only because I find
it difficult to hear sometimes, but we would like to stress
that we also value this opportunity to continue the dialog with
you and your colleagues from the Senate on how we all as
individuals, but some of us are influential individuals, how we
can improve relations between the United States and the United
Nations.
I thank Chairman Warner for his presentation and I think it
is good for the Pentagon that $300 billion has been authorized,
and I also think that it is good for the world because we need
the United States in operations like Kosovo. I am glad that, as
Chairman Warner informed us, Secretary Cohen decided to
increase the American presence there in a very serious
situation and in view of the need to stop the crisis from
deteriorating and to come back to the implementation of the
resolution of the Security Council in full. So I believe it is
good news.
On the other hand, it is unfortunate that the United
Nations still cannot get $1.5 billion, which is much less than
$300 billion, unfortunate because, among other things, if not
from international obligations about which my colleagues spoke,
about some other things.
The bulk of this money is owed exactly to contributing
nations, to contributing nations for former peacekeeping
operations. When Chairman Warner asks whether we all are sure
when we decide on peacekeeping operations if the United Nations
has resources for those operations, to a large extent the
answer is--I mean, the question is rather hypothetical and
maybe even artificial, because when we take our decisions on
the peacekeeping operations countries just send their troops
and they pay for these troops. And it is only after that these
contributing nations are being compensated.
Therefore, the problem of arrears, about which we spoke in
the last hour, has also relevance to the ability of the United
Nations to attract contributors.
The second important factor answering the question about
whether the U.N. has enough resources is the political will,
nothing else, the political will. And that is the only thing
which is necessary to take a decision on a peacekeeping
operation, provided of course we are given information,
analysis, and such from the Secretariat. When political will is
present, everything is fine.
And the U.S. can always very successfully make a very
serious difference, like it was in the case of Haiti, when the
U.S. was not only playing the leading role, but pushing for the
continuation of a large peacekeeping operation which had the
military component much bigger than the one for the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, much larger than what we authorized for
the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
So my answer on the question of whether we know if we have
the resources for peacekeeping operations is, yes, I think we
do have the resources provided we have the political will.
Last, I would like to say that the financial problems of
the United Nations are relevant for its peacekeeping capacity.
Of course we would like, together with many of us, to support
DPKO and to strengthen DPKO. But I do not think it would be
possible to do this by cutting other departments. Maybe I
myself would want to do so, but I do not think that we are
going to get a consensus in just increasing the DPKO without--I
mean, increasing DPKO without increasing the overall U.N.
budget. We have to be very, very much aware of all this.
And since this is something which exists in financial
matters in the General Assembly, and the General Assembly, by
the way, is very much the model like the Senate of the United
States--it is based on the concept of sovereign equality of
states. The only difference is that your States are part of the
United States and in our case the states are members of the
United Nations.
But unlike the Senate, the General Assembly on financial
issues does not vote. So you need to have that consensus.
Therefore I think we need all to work on this consensus, but
this would involve certain concessions on all parts, including
on the part of the United States.
But we are ready to work toward this end, and I once again
thank you and your colleagues for your hospitality.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, sir.
The distinguished Ambassador from France.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY JEAN-DAVID LEVITTE, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF FRANCE
Ambassador Levitte. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this
golden opportunity to build a really positive and constructive
relationship between the U.S. and the U.N. And thank you for
sending to New York the best American Ambassador.
Two comments, one on Kosovo. Senator Warner mentioned
rightly Kosovo as a big problem. Senator, we worked together
during this difficult period of the war. Let us stay together
to build or try to build peace. It will be difficult. It will
take time. But I hope it will be recognized that the Europeans
are doing their part of the job.
Today we have over 36,000 troops in Kosovo. This represents
78 percent of the total amount of troops. We have announced
recently that France will send another battalion to reinforce
the most difficult part, that is the region of Mitrovica.
In terms of spending, the European Union countries will put
between 1999 and year 2000 over $8 billion in Kosovo, out of
which $5 billion is for military expenditure and the rest for
humanitarian aid and reconstruction.
So we are doing our part of the job. Maybe we are too slow,
but we will do our best to capture and do our part of the job.
Now, my second remark, Mr. Chairman, is about peacekeeping
operations, are we planning too many of them? Well, I put the
question the other way around. Is it morally possible to say no
to populations which are desperately in need of help, help to
build peace, to have development? This is the situation in
Sierra Leone. This is the situation in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. The situation in Central Africa is such that if
we do not act now, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will
have to act and it will be even more difficult and more costly.
So let us do it now. But of course we have to be cautious.
We have to organize ourselves in a better way, and we all agree
on that. You want reforms, we want reforms. Let us do them
together.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.
Any comments?
Chairman Warner. No.
Chairman Helms. Senator?
Senator Biden. No.
Chairman Helms. The last one on the list here is the
distinguished Ambassador from Malaysia.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY AGAM HASMY, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF MALAYSIA
Ambassador Hasmy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
recognizing me sitting in the corner of this long table.
I wanted to also join my colleagues in talking about the
reform of the U.N. But since the subject has been adequately
addressed, I will not. I would merely associate myself with
what they have said.
I had actually some facts and figures I wanted to discuss
with you on another aspect of U.N.-U.S. relations. That is as
to whether or not the U.S. benefits from the existence of the
U.N. But I think I will save it for another occasion because it
would take some time. The figures have been bandied around, as
you know. Others have read about them, too. I am not sure that
I will be able to do a complete job today.
But we feel that on balance the U.S., in spite of its large
contribution, has derived tremendous benefits from the U.N.
system, much more than some other countries. But I will leave
that for another occasion.
As to the dialog, I am inclined to believe that it is doing
well and I think the success of these dialog processes is
reflected by your own remark to me during lunch as we were
leaving, when you said: You have to invite me back to New York.
So that proves that there is hope that this dialog, contrary to
skepticism expressed in some quarters, may be helpful in the
long run. I look forward to joining my colleagues to welcome
you back should you be prepared to do so.
Now, on the question of peacekeeping, which is the subject
of the second session, I would like to also refer to the
statement by Senator Warner when he asked the question, when he
raised the point that we should not take on more than we can
handle. I think that Ambassador Jean-David Levitte has already
addressed that issue.
It is a good principle to follow, but the problem is, as he
(Ambassador Levitte) said, what do you do when you have more
and more conflict situations around us? And we feel here that
the U.S., acting in concert with other member states in the
United Nations, can do much more than acting singly if and when
you have to do it yourselves. So I think if you look at
history, your best contribution to the U.N. system has been
when you acted in concert with the U.N. community rather than,
I think, alone. With the U.N. you have the legitimacy, you have
the support, moral, material, and so on.
So we are going through a period of more and more
conflicts, some of a different nature from previously. You have
intrastate conflicts which sometimes turn into interstate
conflicts. The DRC is a case in point. Here I think the other
members of the Council and the membership of the U.N. look
forward to the leadership of the United States on this. We
would like to see the United States become even more engaged,
more actively engaged in this process because, as Ambassador
Levitte said, if we do not fix it now things will get worse in
the long term.
So that is the dilemma we are in. So it is important
therefore that on, for instance, the question of the DRC, many
members of the Council look forward to a more proactive
engagement of the United States on this issue. It is a
difficult problem. Many people have to play significant roles
before we can mount a major operation.
But that country is burning. We tried to fix it some years
ago. It did not quite work. So I think this time around we will
have to fix it again. We will have to do a better job than what
we did before. And this is where I think that this particular
role of the United States would be very much desired.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Helms. Thank you, sir.
The only gentleman we have not heard from, we would like to
hear from you, Mr. Ambassador.
STATEMENT OF HIS EXCELLENCY ARNOLDO M. LISTRE, PERMANENT
REPRESENTATIVE OF ARGENTINA
Ambassador Listre. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
First of all, allow me to join my colleagues in thanking
you and Senator Biden and all your colleagues for this
invitation that is so appropriate and so opportune in order to
exchange views on this very important subject.
I will be very brief. Many of the things that have been
said already express my opinion, in particular what Ambassador
van Walsum said relating to the Helms-Biden amendment.
Argentina is not very happy with the amendment but very happy
with you personally. Would you amend your amendment?
Senator Biden. Well said, Mr. Ambassador.
Chairman Helms. You sound like my wife. [Laughter.]
Ambassador Listre. We really think that, it is obvious,
that many countries are not satisfied with the scale of
assessment in the United Nations and it is a matter which has
to be dealt with in the General Assembly. It is not a matter
for the Security Council. Perhaps we could try to compromise.
And it is a thing that is possible to try to get compromise, a
realistic compromise, in this regard, bearing in mind that the
principle of the capacity to pay should be always respected by
everybody. We should also bear in mind that there are going to
be some countries, like many Latin American countries, that are
the ones that are going to be more damaged with any new scale
of assessment that it is not fully based on the capacity to
pay. I think of my own country that will be the most damaged of
all, but also I mean Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and
others.
In spite of this, I think that we should reach a compromise
on this issue based on the idea of strengthening the United
Nations, especially the peacekeeping operations. The United
Nations has its shortcomings, but despite all the problems it
is facing, it is the only organization that can deal
effectively with some of these issues. It is the only
organization that can deal with peacekeeping and all the
problems we face, as Ambassador Holbrooke so eloquently pointed
out.
So we think that it is extremely important that the U.S.
commits itself to the United Nations as every member state
commits itself as well. This, because the United States is the
most important country in the world. It is the most important
contributor; not only how they pay, but the spirit with which
they pay their contribution is very, very important to
strenghten the organization.
We look forward to working with you, sir, with your
delegates, with your head of delegation, our great friend
Richard Holbrooke. We look forward to a new direction, and I
hope that the next time we meet we will have something pleasant
to tell.
Chairman Helms. Senator Biden.
Senator Biden. Mr. Chairman, let me conclude what I have to
say by making four points. One, to thank you for taking this
initiative. I think that the opportunity for these gentlemen to
be exposed to your charm, notwithstanding your taking positions
on the U.N. in the past, has been very helpful.
Chairman Helms. In the past.
Senator Biden. In the past, in the past.
Second, I discern two things. There seems to be a consensus
around the table. One, you understandably do not like what we
did, but you know what we did would have to be done even if we
did not do it, but you would rather us not have done it. I
share your view. I do not think it was the way we should have
gone about it.
But the thing that I find encouraging is the spirit with
which each of you have spoken. I particularly was impressed by
the Ambassador from Argentina who just basically said--I do not
know that his principals back in Argentina heard him say it,
but--we will pay more if we have to, but we do not want to.
But I am confident that if this spirit can be maintained,
and I am sure it will be with the leadership of Ambassador
Holbrooke, we can work our way through a lot of these things.
At least I sincerely hope we can, because I think that you are
the essential institution to the existence of the world today.
You are the essential institution.
I happen to share the view that we need you as much as you
so gracefully have stated that you need us. One of the things
the American people are somewhat ambivalent about is we are not
very comfortable in the role of being the world's only
superpower. As someone said to me when I mentioned that today--
I will not mention the Ambassador's name--he said: You would be
even more uncomfortable if you were not the world's superpower.
[Laughter.]
Well, probably correct. But nonetheless, I appreciate you
being so solicitous to our particular concerns. It is actually
remarkable that your countries would authorize you to come here
today before a committee of the U.S. Senate and be as
accommodating and candid as you have been. I just want you to
know we are flattered by it. We do not expect it. We do not
believe you have an obligation to be here. We do not think that
this is something that we--I hope you do not view it as any
way, I do not think you do, that we have in any way indirectly
summoned you. We do not view it that way at all. We are truly
flattered by the fact that you would be here.
I want to particularly say to our friend from China, I was
particularly struck by your forthright statement, and I want
you to know I share, mutually share your view, that your
country and ours, the formation and the maturation of that
relationship is among the most important things that either of
us will do in our lifetime is impacted on that.
So I just want to tell you that I truly appreciate you
being willing, to use an American colloquial phrase, to be
engaged in our intramural dispute here and be involved with us.
The only thing that I regret that all of you did today, I
regret the fact that you paid such homage and respect to
Holbrooke. He is difficult enough to deal with absent all of
you telling us how important he is, and now he will be
insufferable. [Laughter.]
He is I think the most talented diplomat we have. I hate
like hell the fact that he knows it. I hate like hell the fact
that you acknowledge it.
But short of that, I have nothing to say but thank you
very, very much for giving us the privilege, the privilege of
being able to host you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Do you want to respond to that?
Ambassador Holbrooke. No, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Is that your final answer? [Laughter.]
Ambassador Holbrooke. Yes.
Chairman Helms. We have a request from Ambassador Ouane and
I am going to give him the floor, the distinguished Ambassador
from Mali. Pull the microphone close to you so we can hear you.
Ambassador Ouane. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am sorry to take the floor again, but the issue of
peacekeeping is very important for us and we would like to make
a comment on it. I appreciate the chance to have a discussion
on peacekeeping today, especially because my region, Africa, is
one of those most in need.
My country Mali is small, but we have contributed what we
can: peacekeepers, diplomats. Now we need your help, especially
in Sierra Leone, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We
Africans must keep those processes moving forward. But we need
your help.
In particular, I hope you will be able to make your full
contributions to the U.N. missions in Sierra Leone and in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo. If you do your part, we will
do ours.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Helms. Thank you very much.
Now we have a request from somebody in the media wanting a
graduation picture--excuse me. Yes, sir.
Ambassador Fowler. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I
just wonder. With the vagaries of the alphabet I take over as
chairman of the Security Council in all too few hours, and I
wonder if I could perhaps ask you, Mr. Chairman, and the
Senator of the United States if they might make a technical
contribution to the efficiency of the United Nations by
offering us this gizmo here. [Laughter.]
If you could perhaps loan us such a machine in the Security
Council, it might significantly streamline and render more
effective our deliberations.
Senator Levin. Would it be worth a billion dollars to you?
[Laughter.]
Chairman Helms. My arm is sore because I have held this
gavel. We are adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:25 p.m., the roundtable was adjourned.]