Date: June 15, 2007

Ros-Lehtinen and 17 Members Introduce Legislation 
to Jumpstart Efforts to Reform UN Budget & Accounting
(WASHINGTON) - Citing stalled efforts at the UN to adopt long-sought budgetary and policy reforms, U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) yesterday introduced H.R. 2712, the UN Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act of 2007, legislation that links the estimated $5.3 billion in annual U.S. contributions to broad reform of the international body.
Rather than attempting to micromanage internal UN reform, Ros-Lehtinen said the legislation uses the leverage of U.S. contributions to move the UN regular budget from an assessed to a voluntary basis, and requires UN cooperation with a newly-created U.S. inspector general tasked with monitoring U.S. contributions.
UN budget practices are largely controlled by the General Assembly, two thirds of whose members, taken together, pay less than one percent of the UN's regular budget. This disconnect between contribution levels and management control creates significant perverse incentives to spend without limits or accountability, said Ros-Lehtinen, who serves as Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
The delay, dilution, and defeat of various modest reform proposals by the General Assembly undermines support for the UN's mission among Americans weary of that body's tepid respond to widespread corruption throughout the organization, Ros-Lehtinen warned.  
A February 2007 Gallup Poll found that 66 percent of Americans think that the United Nations is doing a poor job, the UN's lowest job-approval rating ever.
In addition to Ros-Lehtinen, the legislation is cosponsored by U.S. Reps. Christopher H. Smith (NJ), Dan Burton (IN), Dana Rohrabacher (CA), Edward R. Royce (CA), Steve Chabot (OH), Donald A. Manzullo (IL), Jo Ann Davis (VA), Mike Pence (IN), Thaddeus G. McCotter (MI), Jeff Flake (AZ), John Boozman (AR), Connie Mack (FL), Michael T. McCaul (TX), Ted Poe (TX), Luis G. Fortuńo (PR), Mario Diaz-Balart (FL) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (FL).
In 2005, the United States provided an estimated $5.3 billion to the UN including contributions for the assessed budget which funds headquarters operations in New York and UN peacekeeping and for subsidiary organizations such as UNICEF, the UN Development Program, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the World Food Program which rely on voluntary contributions from members states.
The legislation includes: 

·š       Funding of the UN: Requires that the United Nations shift the apportionment of its regular budget to a system of voluntary contributions, rather than compulsory assessments. 
·š       Transparency and Accountability for United States Contributions t
o the United Nations: Creates a U.S. Inspector General for our contributions to the UN system and makes funding of UN entities contingent upon an agreement by the UN to cooperate with the IG. 
·š       UN Human Rights Council: Prohibits the U.S. from fundin
g or participating as a member of the Council so long as it includes Member states that are: subject to Security Council sanctions or human rights investigations; subject to a country-specific resolution of the prior Human Rights Commission within the prior 5 years; state sponsors of terrorism; or designated as countries of particular concern under U.S. law for religious freedom violations. 

·š       International Atomic Energy Agency: Requires that the U.S. seek to advance measures to strengthen the IAEA's ability to monitor member states' compliance with their obligations and to ensure that states not in compliance do not receive nuclear-rela
ted assistance from the IAEA or other countries.  In addition, conditions are placed on U.S. financial contributions to the IAEA to ensure that state sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran, do not receive such assistance.   
·š       Peacekeeping:š Links U.S. s
upport for new missions to reforms in the planning, management, conduct, and accountability of UN peacekeeping operations which have been scandalized by corruption and sexual abuse allegations.  (These provisions are subject to a Presidential waiver based on vital US national security interests or avoidance of genocide). 
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·š       U.S. Policy at the United Nations:  Mandates U.S. policy on various issues relating to the UN (e.g., transparency, reform, Security Council expansion, terrorism, anti-Semitism, treatment of Israel, UNRWA contributions) and ends U.S. funding for duplicative UN entities or offices that promote intolerance.