[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 35 (Wednesday, March 25, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E467]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     THE CASE FOR PAYING U.N. DUES

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                       Wednesday, March 25, 1998

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to bring to the attention of 
my colleagues an excellent op-ed Ambassador Richard N. Gardner wrote in 
the March 4th edition of the Los Angeles times.
  The article is entitled ``There's more than politics at stake in 
unpaid U.N. dues.'' At its heart, the issue is that if the United 
States has no legal obligation to live up to its treaties and other 
international agreements, then the message we send is that any nation 
is free to violate any commitment made to the United States or to any 
other nation. That is not a world in which we should want to live.
  The op-ed by Ambassador Gardner follows:

               [From the Los Angeles Times, Mar. 4, 1998]

        There's More Than Politics at Stake in Unpaid U.N. Dues

                        (By Richard N. Gardner)

       A top priority for the Clinton administration is to 
     persuade Congress to pay more than $1 billion in back dues to 
     the United Nations. Failure to do so will undermine critical 
     U.N. operations in peacekeeping and development and further 
     diminish U.S. influence in the world organization.
       Complicating the administration's task is a new and 
     fallacious idea that has been accepted by many members of 
     Congress; that the United States has no legal obligation to 
     pay its U.N. debts. Last fall the Senate Foreign Relations 
     Committee declared that the U.N. Charter ``in no way creates 
     a `legal obligation' on the United States Congress to 
     authorize and appropriate'' the money to pay the dues. In 
     justification, the committee wrote: ``The United States 
     Constitution places the authority to tax United States 
     citizens and to authorize and appropriate those funds solely 
     in the power of the United States Congress.''
       These statements reflect a dangerous misunderstanding of 
     the relation between international law and domestic law.
       The U.N. Charter is a treaty that legally binds us as it 
     does other U.N. members. Of course, a treaty cannot override 
     the U.S. Constitution. Congress is free as a matter of 
     domestic law to violate U.S. obligations under international 
     law.
       But these truisms do not alter the facts: If Congress 
     exercises its constitutional right to violate a treaty, the 
     United States still has a legal obligation to other 
     countries; and our refusal to live up to our commitments can 
     have legal consequences.
       There is no international police force to enforce 
     international law, but nations generally observe their treaty 
     obligations because of their desire for reciprocity and fear 
     of reprisal.
       In 1961, when the Soviet Union refused to pay its 
     assessments for the Congo and Middle East peacekeeping 
     operations, Republican and Democratic members of Congress 
     insisted that the U.S. go to the World Court to get an 
     advisory opinion that the Soviet Union had a legal obligation 
     to pay. The U.S. brief of the court, in whose preparation I 
     had a part, stated: ``The General Assembly's adoption and 
     apportionment of the Organization's expenses create a binding 
     legal obligation on the part of the member states to pay 
     their assessed shares'' In 1962, the court agreed with that 
     proposition, and the General Assembly accepted it.
       Article 19 of the U.N. Charter provides that a country in 
     arrears of its assessments by two full years shall lose its 
     vote in the General Assembly. The Assembly in an unfortunate 
     failure of political will, failed to apply that sanction to 
     the Soviet Union when it became applicable in 1964. Never the 
     less, the Assembly recently has regularly applied the loss of 
     vote sanction.
       We are not just dealing here with legal technicalities, but 
     realpolitik in the best sense of the word. If nations were 
     free to treat their U.N. assessments as voluntary, the 
     financial basis of the organization would quickly dissolve. 
     Some would not mind it if the U.N.'s financial support 
     unraveled. They do not seem fully to appreciate how important 
     the U.N.'s work in conflict resolution, peacekeeping, 
     sustainable development, humanitarian relief and human rights 
     can be for the United States.
       If the United States has no legal obligation to live up to 
     its treaties and other international agreements, neither do 
     other countries. Then, any country would be free to violate 
     any legal commitment it has made to us, whether to open its 
     domestic market, reduce its nuclear arsenal, provide basing 
     for our ships and aircraft, extradite or prosecute terrorists 
     or refrain from poisoning the global environment. Congress 
     must focus on all of the consequences of its failure to honor 
     our U.N. obligations.



     

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