Source: http://www.un.int/usa/06_109.htm http://www.un.int/usa/06_109.htm
Date: May 8, 2006

United States Mission to the United Nations
USUN PRESS RELEASE # 109 (06)   
May 8, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	 	 
Statement by Ambassador John R. Bolton, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, on the Report of the Fifth Committee on UN Management Reforms, in the General Assembly, May 8, 2006
Thank you, Mr. President.
The United States on April 28 gave a statement in the Fifth Committee explaining its vote on this item.  That position still stands.  Since others have taken the floor on the occasion of today’s vote, I would like to make several additional points also.
The United States strongly supports a United Nations that is sharply focused on addressing the challenges of today’s world in efficient and effective ways.
The Fifth Committee’s consideration of the Secretary-General’s report on UN management reforms was supposed to have been an important part of the process leading to a more efficient and effective organization, a process that our leaders started last year with their historic consensus agreement on the World Summit Outcome document.   
Unfortunately, the vote on management reforms in the Fifth Committee, as well as the vote called for today in the General Assembly, raises deep concerns about the breach of the consensus decision-making principle that has been the practice of the Fifth Committee for nearly two decades.
Let me just review for a minute, Mr. President, how that practice developed.  From the perspective of the United States, it developed because in the mid-1980s, the United States was repeatedly and overwhelmingly outvoted in the Fifth Committee on important budget questions.  And the consequence was that the United States Congress withheld substantial contributions from the U.S. assessed contributions.  So that the practice of consensus-based decision-making in this organization on budgetary matters was intended to reflect clearly the opinions of all UN members. 
Now during the past 20 years and indeed as early as the late 1980s and early 1990s, there were doubts whether the consensus budgetary approach was working to fulfill the intentions that had led to its creation in the first place.  And in fact, the current situation as reflected in today’s vote raises that question again.  
The result of consensus-based decision-making in the Fifth Committee is often the same as in today’s vote.  So that we are asked, whether in Congress or elsewhere, what is the real distribution of opinion in the United Nations on budget questions, we can fairly say that it is reflected in today’s vote.  So one might well then ask, what is gained by the consensus process.  
We believe that many comfortable elements of the governance of this organization now need to come under scrutiny as the Secretary-General and others have suggested.  We maintain our view on consensus decision-making on budget matters, but we are carefully evaluating how it actually works, as is appropriate after 20 years.  
Thank you, Mr. President.  
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