[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 105 (Monday, June 26, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9024-S9026]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE UNITED NATIONS

  Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, today is the 50th anniversary of the signing 
of the U.N. Charter. Amid high hopes at the end of the Second World War 
in Europe, the United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco. 
Fifty years later, the record of the United Nations is mixed, and the 
expectations of its founders have not been met.
  The United Nations has had some important accomplishments--on 
international air travel, eradicating smallpox, and sharing information 
about global concerns ranging from weather to health. But the United 
Nations at 50 is an organization at a crossroads--if the United Nations 
is to survive another 50 years, there must be fundamental change. if 
the United Nations is to be more than a debating society with 185 
members, there must be fundamental change. And if the United Nations is 
ever to fulfill the hopes of its founders, there must be fundamental 
change.
  Much was written this last weekend about the past and future of the 
United Nations. In my view, the best single piece was by Senator Nancy 
Kassebaum and Congressman Lee Hamilton--one a Republican and the other 
a Democrat, I might add. On each of the key issues facing the United 
Nations, they made important points.
  On peacekeeping, they conclude the United Nations has overreached. 
Much criticism of the United Nations in the last 5 years has centered 
on the failures of U.N. peacekeeping. The tragic record of Somalia and 
Bosnia make one fact very clear--the United Nations is not capable of 
mounting serious military operations. Nor should it be. Monitoring an 
agreement between two or more parties is one thing the United Nations 
can do. Imposing an agreement is something it cannot. The United 
Nations should be limited to peacekeeping, not peace enforcing.
  Senator Kassebaum and Congressman Hamilton also suggested the United 
Nations focus on key agencies and functions--such as the International 
Atomic Energy Agency--and quit wasting time and money on the dozens of 
agencies which no longer serve a useful purpose--if they ever did. In 
my view

[[Page S9025]]

the United States should push to abolish wasteful organizations--and 
withdraw if we are unsuccessful. Examples of unnecessary or duplicative 
bureaucracies include the International Labor Organization, the United 
Nations Industrial Development Organization, the U.N. Conference on 
Trade and Development, and many more.
  The Kassebaum-Hamilton article suggests an end to U.N.-
hosted conferences which cost millions and accomplish very little.

  Finally, and most importantly, Senator Kassebaum and Congressman 
Hamilton focus on the importance of accountability at the United 
Nations. Last year, Congress tried to move the United Nations toward an 
inspector general. Progress has not been sufficient. An individual was 
appointed, but with limited powers, and under the authority of the U.N. 
Secretary General. I expect Congress to revisit the issue this year. 
Much more needs to be done: Promotions based on merit, real 
investigations of U.N. waste, shutting down bloated bureaucracies. 
Reforming the United Nations is a tall order--but the alternative is to 
give up on an organization that could still live up to the ideas of 
some of its founders.
  Mr. President, the United Nations can be an important tool to advance 
American interests--as long as America leads the way. The answer to the 
problems of the United Nations is not getting the United States out of 
the United Nations, it is getting common sense into the United Nations.
  There are two very different U.S. approaches toward the United 
Nations--one pursued by the Bush administration and one pursued by the 
Clinton administration. In 1990-91, the United Nations gave valuable 
support for American and allied efforts to liberate Kuwait. But 2 years 
later in Somalia, the United Nations changed the mission and began a 
vendetta against one Somali faction. Many brave Americans died in the 
ensuing disaster. Nation building was complete failure, and the United 
Nations finally left Somalia little better than when the humanitarian 
mission began.

  The lesson is clear--if the United States is not in the drivers' seat 
at the United Nations, the United Nations will take us for a ride. If 
the United Nations is to realize its potential--and if American support 
for the United Nations is to continue--real reforms must begin now. No 
more window dressing but real reform to build a foundation for future 
U.S. support for the United Nations. I expect the Congress will 
continue to lead the way to reform as it has before. And I expect to 
work with Senator Kassebaum, Congressman Hamilton, and other interested 
colleagues in this 50th anniversary year. I ask unanimous consent that 
their article be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the article was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, June 25, 1995]

                              Fix the U.N.

              (By Nancy Landon Kassebaum and Lee Hamilton)

       As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations 
     Charter this month, it is time to ask what we want the United 
     Nations to be and what we realistically can expect it to do. 
     These hard questions are neither academic nor abstract. Our 
     answers will determine whether the United Nations can be an 
     effective international forum or is merely a debating society 
     destined for irrelevance.
       To mark this golden anniversary, we believe the United 
     States must lead a bold and broad effort to reinvent the 
     United Nations and give it new life. While it may be an 
     indispensable institution, the United Nations today is a 
     terrible mess. We need a decisive change of course that 
     produces a smaller, more focused, more efficient United 
     Nations with clearly defined missions.
       For America, the U.N. is not a charity but an important 
     tool for advancing our vital national interests abroad. Our 
     foreign policy requires an effective United Nations, just as 
     we need a powerful military, vigorous diplomacy, solid 
     alliances, prudent foreign aid and healthy international 
     financial institutions. Taking away these tools one by one, 
     or sharply restricting their use, will inevitably diminish 
     our ability to build coalitions and construct the sort of 
     strong policy that Americans expect.
       If the United States abdicates leadership at the United 
     Nations, we will weaken our ability to pursue our vital 
     national interests around the world. To allow the U.N. to 
     continue drifting would be to squander, in large part, the 
     opportunity that now exists for creating a more stable, 
     peaceful and prosperous world in the 21st century.
       Clearly, the U.N. has fallen short of its potential. During 
     the Cold War, superpower rivalry paralyzed the Security 
     Council and marginalized the General Assembly. With its 
     central organs in deadlock, the U.N. shifted resources to 
     secondary activities staffed by a bloated bureaucracy more 
     intent on advancing its own goals than the cause of world 
     peace. Today, lines of authority are confused, blurred and 
     duplicated. Basic missions and activities have ballooned into 
     plodding exercises that produce mountains of paper and 
     little, if any, real results.
       Despite this harsh assessment, we consider ourselves 
     friends of the United Nations. The U.N. detractors are far 
     less generous or forgiving, and they are prepared to draw the 
     purse strings to a close. If we fail to meet this urgent need 
     for bold reform, we will witness the slow death of the one 
     institution that can direct both the international 
     community's attention and its resources toward the common 
     problems before us and can provide the moral and legal 
     authority to build coalitions that serve our common 
     interests.
       One way or another, change will come. Congress is prepared 
     to compel changes in the U.S. role at the United Nations by 
     continuing the piecemeal approach to U.N. reform that we have 
     employed for many years. We believe, however, that the time 
     has come for a comprehensive reorganization. Legislation now 
     before Congress would call upon the President to develop a 
     plan for the ``strategic reorganization'' of the United 
     Nations. We hope the president will join with us to seize 
     this opportunity. Reforming the United Nations is too 
     important and too complex a job for Congress to undertake 
     alone with only the blunt instruments at its disposal.
       We propose several areas on which to concentrate reform:


                         Focus on Core Agencies

       Today the United Nations has more than 70 agencies under 
     its umbrella. They range from the high-profile International 
     Atomic Energy (IAEA) to the obscure U.N. Research Institute 
     for Social Development (UNRISD). At a time when we are 
     eliminating low-priority programs from our own foreign policy 
     institutions, we need to take similar bold steps at the 
     United Nations.
       We must focus resources and energy on a handful of core 
     agencies that are most important and best reflect the range 
     of purposes of the U.N. system. These core agencies would be 
     an integral part of that system and would report directly to 
     the secretary general. Three agencies that already serve core 
     purposes of the U.N. system should be strengthened: the IAEA 
     to combat the threat of weapons of mass destruction, the 
     World Health Organization to deal with all important trans-
     national health issues and the High Commission for Refugees, 
     which ought to be empowered to deal with all refugee and 
     humanitarian relief issues.
       The United States should finance only core agencies rather 
     than the long list of U.N. organizations that now find their 
     way into appropriations bills. Other agencies should be 
     abolished, merged or financed at the discretion of one of the 
     core agencies. This prescription is dramatic, but we believe 
     that only triage can save the institution as a whole.


                              Peacekeeping

       Expectations for U.N. peacekeeping have grown far beyond 
     what is rational, and there has been a corresponding rise in 
     ambiguity about peacekeeping's nature and capabilities. 
     Peacekeeping is diplomacy with light arms. It is not designed 
     to fight wars. We believe that recent failures show that 
     ``peace-enforcement'' should be struck from the U.N.'s 
     vocabulary and that future peacekeeping should be limited to 
     classic operations in which ``Blue Helmets'' stand between 
     suspicious parties only after diplomacy has secured a peace 
     to be kept.
       Peacekeeping is successful when it respects these 
     limitations, as it did in Namibia, Cambodia, Mozambique and 
     El Salvador. Situations that require more robust military 
     action are better handled directly by the member states, as 
     we learned in the effective response to Iraq's invasion of 
     Kuwait.


                              Conferences

       We fear that the United Nations is in peril of becoming 
     little more than a road show traveling from conference to 
     conference. If an issue is serious, a conference will not 
     solve it; if it is not serious, a conference is a waste of 
     time.
       The number and cost of U.N. conferences have exploded--the 
     recent ``social summit'' in Copenhagen may have cost $60 
     million--and they often focus on subjects usually reserved 
     for domestic politics. Conferences are seen by many as a 
     cheap way to placate narrow but vocal constituencies. But the 
     truth is they carry a steep price. The domestic backlash 
     against conference-produced agreements has been strong, not 
     because Americans oppose their noble purposes but because 
     people doubt that international agreements are the best means 
     for securing them. The price is paid in diminished public and 
     congressional support for the U.N. system as a whole and in 
     the diversion of scarce funds from more pressing needs.
       We propose ending U.N.-sponsored conferences. To the extent 
     countries deem a specific international conference essential, 
     it should be organized and financed on an ad hoc basis, 
     outside the U.N. system, with user fees paid by countries 
     that choose to participate.


                             Accountability

       Today, the United Nations is accountable to no one. Despite 
     thousands of pages of

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     budget documents produced each year, we don't know how many 
     employees it has, how funds are spent or which programs work. 
     After a decade of ``no real budget growth,'' the budget has 
     almost doubled. Sexual harassment, mismanagement, and 
     cronyism are all too common at the U.N. Those engaged in such 
     practices are not punished, but those who report them are.
       Congress tried to address these problems by mandating the 
     establishment of an inspector general at the United Nations. 
     To date, this office has been a disappointment. We are 
     prepared to take strong measures, including withholding 
     funds, until this office is strengthened and functions 
     properly. The U.N. must be accountable to the nations that 
     pay its bills.
       We also believe the time has come to inject more 
     accountability into the Secretariat by reforming the process 
     by which the secretary general is selected. Unlike a head of 
     state, the secretary general is a chief administrative 
     officer--not a chief executive. Skills and administrative 
     ability, not nationality or political connections, should be 
     the decisive qualifications for the secretary general. It is 
     important that the selection process become more open and 
     transparent.
       We offer these proposals to kick off a debate that must 
     occur soon. The United Nations as it exists today is not 
     sustainable. The Cold War excuses for inaction are gone. If 
     the United Nations does not begin to fulfill its true 
     potential, it will be left to suffocate in endless debates 
     over meaningless issues or will become a side show in the 
     realm of international politics. The danger of irrelevance is 
     imminent.
       The preamble to the charter sets forth bold objectives To 
     ``save succeeding generations from the scourge of war . . . 
     to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights . . . to 
     establish conditions under which justice . . . can be 
     maintained, and . . . to promote social progress and better 
     standards of life in large freedom.'' These purposes remain 
     as important today as they were half a century ago. The task 
     for our generation is to ensure that the machinery of the 
     United Nations works. Today it does not.

     

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