1.This Act may be cited as the
United Nations Management, Personnel,
and Policy Reform Act of 2005
.
2.Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)An effective United Nations is in the
interests of the United States.
(2)The United States Government must, in the
interests of the United States, lead the United Nations toward greater
relevance and capability.
(3)Member States of the United Nations are
showing receptivity to needed reforms as a result of the urgency of new
challenges facing the organization and investigations into past failures of the
United Nations, including the Oil-for-Food Programme scandal and problems with
United Nations peacekeeping and security operations.
(4)The United Nations must transform and
reinvigorate itself in order to better prevent and end conflicts and build
stable societies, anticipate and respond to gross human rights violations
(including genocide), prevent catastrophic terrorism and the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction, and facilitate economic development and poverty
reduction.
(5)In order to address the demand that the
mission of the United Nations shift from convener of meetings on these critical
challenges to a coordinator of international action, from talk shop to a place
of action, the United Nations must undertake institutional reforms that ensure
the effectiveness, integrity, transparency, and accountability of the United
Nations system.
(6)It is incumbent upon the United Nations to
enact significant reform measures if it is to restore the public trust and
confidence necessary for it to achieve the laudable goals set forth in the
Charter of the United Nations.
(7)A successful United States effort to
further reform the United Nations will require bipartisanship and the joint
involvement of the executive and legislative branches of the United States
Government so that there is a unified United States position toward the United
Nations.
(8)A February 2004 General Accounting Office
(GAO) report entitled United Nations: Reforms Progressing, but
Comprehensive Assessments Needed to Measure Impact
finds that the
United Nations has made some progress on a number of reform measures but still
needs more accountable leadership and improvements in key management
practices.
(9)The United Nations has issued three
separate reports addressing necessary reforms:
(A)A report issued in December 2004 by the
Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change (on
which Brent Scowcroft of the United States served) entitled A More
Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility
.
(B)An analysis of the work of the High Level
Panel in the report issued in March 2005 by United Nations Secretary-General
Kofi Annan entitled In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and
Human Rights for All
.
(C)A draft outcome document report issued in
June 2005 by United Nations General Assembly President Jean Ping of Gabon in
preparation for the September 2005 General Assembly World Summit.
(10)The June 2005 United States Institute of
Peace report prepared by the Task Force on the United Nations chaired by former
House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell,
entitled American Interests and UN Reform
, provides excellent
recommendations for management and policy reform and should serve as a model
for future bipartisan policy studies.
3.Sense of Congress on
the need for United Nations reformIt is the sense of Congress that—
(1)the United Nations must develop the tools
and institute the management techniques and procurement procedures at the
United Nations that modern governments and effective chief executive officers
utilize to run efficient organizations;
(2)the United Nations must develop a uniformly
professional international civil service through transparent recruitment,
strong management oversight, and high professional and ethical standards
enforced through performance review procedures and financial disclosure
requirements;
(3)the United Nations must establish budgeting
procedures that are transparent and priority driven and performance based, and
contributions from the United States and other Member States must be well
managed so that the United Nations can meet the critical challenges
ahead;
(4)the United Nations must improve the
capacity of United Nations peacekeeping forces to perform dangerous missions by
adopting measures that ensure discipline and personal integrity and by ensuring
that United Nations troops are provided the training and authority necessary to
produce successful outcomes;
(5)the United Nations must become an effective
force for human rights improvement worldwide by reorienting and streamlining
its human rights mechanisms so that the United Nations is willing and able to
take action to improve the conduct of governments that abuse their people;
and
(6)the United Nations must strengthen the
independence of the Office of Internal Oversight Services and its capacity to
uncover waste, fraud, and abuse, and the United Nations must also protect
whistleblowers and create a mechanism to oversee and strengthen auditing of the
organization and to track management and personnel reforms at the United
Nations.
4.Management of the
United Nations
(a)Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)No single official is tasked with managing
the daily operations of the United Nations.
(2)The Senate Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that
the Government of Iraq manipulated the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme in
numerous ways, and that the United Nations’ management of the Programme was
plagued with corruption, conflicts of interest, and negligent oversight. The
Subcommittee further found that the Programme suffered from extensive smuggling
of Iraqi oil and other products, conflicts of interest in procurement and
contracting by United Nations agents, billions of dollars in illegal revenue
generated by the Hussein regime through kickbacks, and the diversion of
humanitarian commodities away from their rightful recipients, the Iraqi
people.
(3)The findings of numerous investigations,
including that of the Independent Inquiry into the Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme
headed by Paul Volcker, have made it clear that current systems for overseeing
procurement and contracting, monitoring management performance, and preventing
fraud and corruption at the United Nations are ineffective and must be
strengthened.
(b)It is the sense of
Congress that the United States should use its voice and vote at the United
Nations to pursue meaningful management reform that includes actions by the
United Nations—
(1)to empower the Secretary-General to replace
top officials in the United Nations Secretariat and recruit only the most
highly qualified individuals to fill those positions, with priority given to
proven professional excellence over geographic diversity;
(2)to conduct an updated assessment, approved
by the General Assembly, of the United Nations procurement system, with the
objective of establishing a comprehensive procurement system that incorporates
standards commensurate with those used by modern governments and effective
private sector companies;
(3)to adopt procurement policies that embody
high standards such as those contained in section 104(a) of the Foreign Corrupt
Practices Act of 1977 (15 U.S.C. 78dd–2(a)), which prohibit persons from making
or receiving payments, offering or receiving gifts, or exchanging other
promises to secure an improper advantage in winning competitive bids;
(4)to name within the United Nations
Secretariat a single senior official position to be in charge of daily
operations and to perform the role of chief operating officer;
(5)to establish a Management Performance Board
to ensure that senior officials are held accountable for their actions and the
results their units achieve;
(6)to provide representatives of each Member
State on a timely basis, as requested, all relevant information regarding the
expenditure of funds and the management and oversight of United Nations
programs;
(7)to ensure that the Security Council
establishes a Sanctions Management Office with the responsibility for assisting
and informing Security Council members on all aspects of the management,
monitoring, and oversight of sanctions programs;
(8)to revise the United Nations General
Assembly committee structure to eliminate duplication and to reflect the
substantive priorities of the United Nations;
(9)to end the practice of secret voting on the
United Nations Economic and Social Council;
(10)to create an Office of Ethics, which shall
be responsible for—
(A)revising, overseeing, and enforcing a code
of ethics for all United Nations employees;
(B)providing education and annual
training;
(C)monitoring and serving as a repository for
financial disclosure documents; and
(D)encouraging a culture of avoidance of
actual or perceived conflicts of interest.
5.
(a)Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)The personnel system of the United Nations
has accumulated a heavy load of staff who lack the skills or the motivation to
perform their duties or whose duties are no longer necessary.
(2)Some United Nations staff remain in the
same job for years or decades and often resist being transferred, particularly
if a transfer would mean leaving New York City or other desirable
locations.
(3)The Office of Human Resources Management of
the United Nations does not utilize basic standard management practices, and
the existing performance appraisal system is ineffective.
(b)It is the sense of
Congress that the United States should use its voice and vote at the United
Nations to pursue meaningful personnel reform that includes actions by the
United Nations—
(1)to create a modern personnel system for
evaluating performance, providing promotional opportunities for deserving
employees, separating unneeded and underperforming employees, and recruiting
only highly qualified employees;
(2)to empower a reformed Office of Human
Resources Management that employs techniques of modern personnel
policies;
(3)to institute a one-time severance program
designed expressly to remove unneeded staff;
(4)to require annual financial disclosure
reports to identify possible or apparent conflicts of interest from any United
Nations employee, consultant, or independent expert whose duties and
responsibilities include contracting or procurement, managing loans, grants, or
programs, or evaluating or auditing any United Nations project, program, or
entity; and
(5)to affirm the authority and responsibility
of the Secretary-General—
(A)to waive immunity in criminal cases
involving United Nations personnel unless the Legal Advisor to the
Secretary-General determines that justice is unlikely to be served in the
country at issue; and
(B)to seek reimbursement of legal fees in such
cases only if the accused is cleared by appropriate legal processes.
6.
(a)Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)There is no systematic and consistent
procedure to prioritize the goals of the United Nations and to allocate
resources to the highest priority programs and offices.
(2)The United Nations does not systematically
monitor and evaluate program performance to determine the relevance of programs
for purposes of eliminating obsolete programs and shifting resources to
priority programs.
(3)The United Nations must foster a
cost-conscious culture that could better allocate resources to high-priority
undertakings.
(b)It is the sense of
Congress that the United States should use its voice and vote at the United
Nations to pursue meaningful budget reform that includes actions by the United
Nations—
(1)to evaluate existing programs and
activities with the goal of terminating those that are no longer serving their
original purpose or do not meet priority goals;
(2)to establish sunset provisions for all new
programs mandated by the General Assembly;
(3)to identify operational programs that can
be made more effective through voluntary rather than assessed
contributions;
(4)to enforce the 5.6 rule
,
which requires the Secretariat to identify low-priority activities in the
budget proposal, and to establish an additional requirement requiring—
(A)the identification of the lowest priority
activities equivalent in cost to 15 percent of the budget request; or
(B)if no such identification is made, the
mandatory implementation of an across-the-board reduction of the budget equal
to that amount;
(5)to pursue a mechanism that would provide
larger contributors greater influence in votes on budgetary matters without
disenfranchising smaller contributors;
(6)to base the biennial budget of the United
Nations on performance-based budgeting and program evaluation;
(7)to require itemization by program, project,
and activity of the annual budget for assessed contributions;
(8)to establish effective controls to prevent
conflicts of interest in the awarding of contracts;
(9)to establish procedures and policies to
ensure effective and comprehensive oversight and monitoring of performance of
United Nations contracts;
(10)to ensure that the United Nations Office of
Internal Oversight receives its budget resources through appropriations by the
United Nations General Assembly and is not dependent upon any other bureau,
division, department, or specialized agency of the United Nations for approving
and providing such funding; and
(11)to promote a culture of cost-consciousness
at the United Nations and reduce costs through such measures as—
(A)increasing the efficiency of the public
information function of the United Nations through use of the Internet and the
consolidation of worldwide information centers;
(B)expanding outsourcing and automation of
translation services; and
(C)reducing the frequency of conferences and
international meetings.
7.Independent oversight
of the United Nations
(a)Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)The United Nations Secretariat does not
conduct periodic, comprehensive assessments of the status, impact, and need for
United Nations reforms.
(2)The United Nations has not established
sufficiently systematic procedures for the receipt, retention, and treatment of
confidential submissions from United Nations employees concerned about
unethical practices, fraud, accounting discrepancies, or mismanagement.
(3)The United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme
overtaxed the fragile oversight and accountability mechanisms of the United
Nations, revealing significant flaws that urgently need to be addressed if
confidence in the United Nations is to be restored.
(4)The Oil-for-Food scandal has also created
an opportunity for reform by conclusively demonstrating to all Member States
the need for a significant strengthening of the United Nations oversight
system.
(5)The United Nations would benefit from the
establishment of an independent oversight board that has the authority and
expertise to uncover weaknesses in the internal auditing and oversight
procedures of the United Nations and to recommend ways in which they can be
strengthened.
(b)It is the sense of
Congress that the United States should use its voice and vote at the United
Nations to pursue independent oversight of United Nations operations and reform
that includes actions by the United Nations—
(1)to strengthen whistleblower policies to the
level of the highest emerging standards for national and international law,
such as those provided for in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (15 U.S.C. 7201 et
seq.), and the Inspector General Act of 1978 (5 U.S.C. App.);
(2)to provide both the resources and the
authority to the Office of Internal Oversight Services to carry out appropriate
oversight of every activity that is managed by United Nations personnel,
whether that activity is funded by the assessments of the United Nations
General Assembly or by voluntary contributions;
(3)to create an Independent Oversight Board
that—
(A)is responsible for reviewing and providing
advice on the audit plans of the Office of Internal Oversight Services and
recommending the annual budget of the Office;
(B)receives operational and budgetary funding
through the General Assembly and is not dependent upon funding from any bureau,
division, department, or specialized agency of the United Nations;
(C)has the authority to audit all operations
of the United Nations, including the operations of the Office of Internal
Oversight Services and the Board of External Auditors;
(D)is responsible for providing annual reports
to the Secretary-General, the Security Council, and the General Assembly on its
activities, observations, and recommendations related to audit operations,
including information on audits and investigations conducted by the Office of
Internal Oversight and the Board of External Auditors; and
(E)determines and submits to the General
Assembly the budgets for the Office of Internal Oversight and the Board of
External Auditors independently of the regular United Nations budget process;
and
(4)to increase the independence of the Office
of Internal Oversight Services, including by—
(A)designating the Office as an independent
entity within the United Nations;
(B)ensuring the independence of the Office
from any budgetary or organizational authority of any United Nations entity
other than the Independent Oversight Board;
(C)providing the operational and budgetary
funding for the Office through the General Assembly and ensuring that the
Office is not dependent upon funding from any bureau, division, department, or
specialized agency of the United Nations;
(D)providing the Office the authority to
initiate and conduct investigations of any bureau, division, department,
specialized agency, official (including the Secretary General), employee,
contractor, or consultant of the United Nations or any of its specialized
agencies; and
(E)requiring the Office to provide periodic
reports to the Internal Oversight Board on the audits, investigations, and
other activities of the Office.
8.United Nations
peacekeeping operations
(a)Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)Between 1990 and 2005, the United Nations
Security Council, with the support of the United States, initiated more than 40
peacekeeping operations.
(2)As of late March 2005, there were nearly
70,000 international military and police forces serving in 17 United Nations
peacekeeping missions, and the approved peacekeeping budget of the United
Nations stood at nearly $4,000,000,000.
(3)In many cases, peacekeeping has evolved
into a complex mission to help remake societies emerging from conflicts where
progress is uneven and outcomes are uncertain.
(4)Current United Nations peacekeeping efforts
are bedeviled by both limited capacity and operational challenges.
(5)United Nations peacekeeping operations have
contributed greatly toward the promotion of peace and stability for the past 57
years and the majority of peacekeeping personnel who have served under the
United Nations flag have done so with honor and courage. Recently, however, the
record of United Nations peacekeeping has been severely tarnished by
operational failures and unconscionable acts of misconduct.
(6)If the reputation of and confidence in
United Nations peacekeeping operations is to be restored, fundamental and
far-reaching reforms, particularly in the areas of planning, management,
training, conduct, and discipline, must be implemented without delay.
(b)It is the sense of
Congress that the United States should use its voice and vote at the United
Nations to pursue meaningful peacekeeping reform that includes actions by the
United Nations—
(1)to strengthen and increase the efficiency
of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations;
(2)to develop doctrine and strategy for
multidimensional peace operations that thoroughly integrates the security
dimension with associated economic and political development
requirements;
(3)to create a Peacebuilding Commission, a
Peacebuilding Support Office, and a voluntary Peacebuilding Support Fund;
and
(4)to reform its peacekeeping operations in
the areas of planning, management, conduct, and discipline, including—
(A)conducting a global audit and comprehensive
review of peacekeeping mandates with a view toward right-sizing or even ending
peacekeeping missions;
(B)adopting a minimum standard of
qualifications for senior leaders and managers of peacekeeping
operations;
(C)adopting a uniform code of conduct that
applies equally to all personnel regardless of rank and an enforcement system
that provides for temporary suspension of personnel pending the outcome of
investigations and the punishment of those proven guilty;
(D)establishing a permanent, professional, and
independent investigative body under the Office of Internal Oversight Services
dedicated to United Nations peacekeeping;
(E)establishing a centralized database to
track cases of misconduct; and
(F)creating monitoring mechanisms, such as
personnel conduct units, to be present within each mission to monitor
compliance and report to the head of mission, the Department of Peacekeeping
Operations, and the Office of Internal Oversight Services.
9.United Nations human
rights protection and democracy promotion
(a)Congress makes the following
findings:
(1)In 2005, 6 of the 53 countries sitting on
the United Nations Human Rights Commission were listed by Freedom House as the
world’s worst of the worst
abusers of human rights.
(2)The Human Rights Commission has been
ineffective in monitoring, promoting, and enforcing internationally recognized
human rights standards in Member States.
(3)The international community has not been
able to rely on the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations to
anticipate, avert, or end genocide and mass killing.
(b)It is the sense of
Congress that the United States should use its voice and vote at the United
Nations to pursue meaningful reform of international human rights institutions
that includes actions by the United Nations—
(1)to abolish the United Nations Human Rights
Commission;
(2)to create a Human Rights Council, composed
of Member States that commit themselves to upholding the values embodied in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that has a mandate to focus its work on
abuse of human rights in Member States;
(3)to increase substantially the capacity of
the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, including by providing
increased funding;
(4)to strengthen the United Nations Democracy
Caucus;
(5)to establish a Democracy Fund at the United
Nations, to be administered by the United Nations Democracy Caucus, which shall
consider and recommend proposals for funding;
(6)to provide to the Security Council regular
reporting by the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Special Advisor for
the Prevention of Genocide;
(7)to make ineligible for membership in any
United Nations human rights body a Member State that fails to uphold the values
embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and systematically
violates the human rights of its own citizens;
(8)to make ineligible for membership on any
United Nations human rights body a Member State that is—
(A)subject to sanctions by the Security
Council; or
(B)under a Security Council-mandated
investigation for human rights abuses; and
(9)to provide the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Human Rights increased resources and greater influence in
field operations activities involving multiple United Nations activities, such
as operations in Darfur, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of the
Congo.
10.United Nations policy
reform and specific country issuesIt is the sense of Congress that the United
States should use its voice and vote at the United Nations to pursue policy
reforms and address specific country issues that include actions by the United
Nations—
(1)to adopt a definition of terrorism that
builds upon the recommendations of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on
Threats, Challenges and Change and negotiate a comprehensive convention on
terrorism;
(2)to recommend to the Western Europe and
Others (WEOG) members that Israel be provided permanent membership in the
regional grouping throughout the United Nations system;
(3)to ensure that the United Nations Relief
Works Agency establishes mechanisms to refrain from hiring on its staff members
of terrorist organizations, including Hamas; and
(4)to ensure that the Secretary-General
undertakes a review of the role of nongovernmental organizations in the United
Nations system, and to encourage the General Assembly, based on such review, to
establish an updated United Nations policy on the participation, cooperation,
and coordination of nongovernmental organizations in United Nations
operations.
11.Reports on United
Nations reform
(a)Not later than 270
days after the date of the enactment of this Act, and annually thereafter, the
President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on
the extent to which the United Nations has made significant and measurable
progress toward meeting the reform requirements described in this Act.
(b)Determination
regarding implementation of reformsEach report submitted under subsection (a)
shall include a determination by the President whether the United Nations is
making sufficient progress to implement the reforms described in this
Act.
(c)Appropriate
congressional committees definedIn this section, the term appropriate
congressional committees means the Committee on Foreign Relations and
the Committee on Appropriations of the Senate and the Committee on
International Relations and the Committee on Appropriations of the House of
Representatives.
12.Withholding of United
Nations contributions
(a)The President is
authorized to withhold 50 percent of United States contributions to the United
Nations in a year if the President has determined in the most recent report
submitted under section 11 that the United Nations is not making sufficient
progress to implement the reforms described in this Act.
(b)Funds withheld under
this section are authorized to remain available until expended.