[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 151 (Wednesday, October 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12903-S12904]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LAW PROFESSOR RICHARD N. GARDNER

 Mr. MOYNIHAN. Mr. President, I rise to offer my 
congratulations to the former United States Ambassador to Spain, 
Richard N. Gardner who earlier this year received the Thomas Jefferson 
Award for his service during his tenure in Madrid.
  Since its inception in 1993, the Thomas Jefferson Award has been 
given annually by American Citizens Abroad to the State Department 
employee who has ``done the most for American citizens overseas.'' 
After consulting American clubs, Chambers of Commerce, and individual 
Americans around the world, American Citizens Abroad announced in 
Geneva that Richard Gardner was this year's recipient. The Ambassador 
was commended for his assistance to U.S. business, his establishment of 
twenty new scholarships for young Spaniards to study in the States, and 
for his frequent and informed articles in Spanish publications.
  Richard Gardner currently serves as the Henry L. Moses Professor of 
Law and International Organization at Columbia University Law School. 
He has spent a lifetime devoted to promoting international stability. 
He recognizes as only too few do the value of international law in the 
world.
  I ask that his article ``Why U.N. Dues Aren't Optional'' from The 
International Herald Tribune be printed in the Record and with 
appreciation and admiration I extend my congratulations to Ambassador 
Gardner and his wife, Danielle, on this most splendid and deserved 
award.
  The article follows:

         [From the International Herald Tribune, Mar. 11, 1998]

                      Why UN Dues Aren't Optional

                        (By Richard N. Gardner)

       New York.--A top priority for the Clinton administration is 
     to persuade Congress to

[[Page S12904]]

     pay more than $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations. 
     Failure to do so would undermine critical UN 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, accepted by many members of Congress, that 
     America has no legal obligation to pay its UN debts.
       Last fall the Senate Foreign Relations Committee declared 
     that the UN Charter ``in no way creates a `legal obligation' 
     '' on the U.S. Congress to provide 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.''
       Those statements reflect a dangerous misunderstanding of 
     the relation between international and domestic law.
       The UN Charter is a treaty that legally binds every UN 
     member. 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, 
     America still has a legal obligation to other countries, and 
     refusal to live up to U.S. commitments can have legal 
     consequences.
       There is no international police force to enforce 
     international law, but nations generally observe treaty 
     obligations because of a 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 United States go to the World Court to get 
     an advisory opinion that the Soviet Union had a legal 
     obligation to pay.
       The U.S. brief to 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 UN 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. 
     Nevertheless, the assembly recently has regularly applied the 
     loss-of-vote sanction.
       We are not just dealing here with legal technicalities, but 
     with realpolitik in the best sense of the word. If nations 
     were free to treat their UN assessments as voluntary, the 
     financial basis of the organization would quickly dissolve.
       Some Americans would not mind it if the United Nations' 
     financial support unraveled. They do not seem fully to 
     appreciate how important the United Nations' work in conflict 
     resolution, peacekeeping, sustainable development, 
     humanitarian relief and human rights can be for America.
       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 America, whether to open 
     its domestic market, reduce its nuclear arsenal, provide 
     basing for U.S. ships and aircraft, extradite or prosecute 
     terrorists or refrain from poisoning the global 
     environment.

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