Bolton proposes, will a GOP Congress dispose?
John Bolton is out with a new jeremiad, this one arguing that the decades of effort to reform the U.N. budget system have come up all but empty, and that the best available course is for the United States to insist on a switch to voluntary contributions. The accumulated evidence of decades proves that only ...
John Bolton is out with a new jeremiad, this one arguing that the decades of effort to reform the U.N. budget system have come up all but empty, and that the best available course is for the United States to insist on a switch to voluntary contributions.
John Bolton is out with a new jeremiad, this one arguing that the decades of effort to reform the U.N. budget system have come up all but empty, and that the best available course is for the United States to insist on a switch to voluntary contributions.
The accumulated evidence of decades proves that only a major shift in attitudes within the U.N. system can lay the foundation for sustained improvements in U.N. performance, accountability, and transparency. That shift must entail breaking the grip of one-country, one-vote decision making and the entitlement mentality that have long pervaded the U.N. system. There is only one reform that can accomplish these objectives: shifting from today’s predominant financing system, which relies on assessed contributions to defray the costs of U.N. agency budgets, to voluntary contributions.
Bolton argues that some of the more effective independent U.N. agencies operate on the basis of voluntary contributions and that such a change need not cripple the organization. He acknowledges, as he must, that there is almost no support for this reform within the broader U.N. membership and that it would only occur if the United States threatened to withhold its annual payments. That threat would in turn engender a gigantic diplomatic fight that no administration focused on substantive policy goals would choose lightly. The chances of the Obama administration doing so are precisely zero. But the chance that Congressional Republicans might pick a fight with the Obama adminstration over the idea is considerably higher. As Bolton warns, "The Obama administration and the Democratic majorities in Congress should consider their options carefully before deciding to oppose withholding on principle."
David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist
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