Sec. 231. Findings on multilateral engagement
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/bill/117/hr/3524/rh/section-231·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
Congress finds the following: Every UN member state is legally required to finance the UN’s core budget in order to ensure that these missions are properly resourced, and assessment rates are renegotiated every three years by the UN General Assembly. While the United States is the largest single financial contributor to the UN system, the current model is beneficial because it requires all UN member states, no matter how big or small, to help shoulder the UN’s regular and peacekeeping budgets at specified levels.
Failing to meet our financial commitments to the UN also empowers the PRC, which has raised our annual shortfalls to claim we are not a reliable partner and is seeking to leverage its own contributions to the regular budget and peacekeeping in ways that run counter to United States interests and values. The People’s Republic of China is now the second largest financial contributor to UN peacekeeping, having gone from an assessment rate of just 3 percent in 2008 to more than 15 percent today, and is the ninth largest troop-contributor to UN missions, providing more personnel than the other four permanent members of the Security Council combined.
With greater engagement comes greater influence, and PRC diplomats have sought to use their expanded clout to push back against the human rights, civilian protection, and gender-based violence aspects of UN peacekeeping mandates, using United States funding shortfalls as a pretext. The PRC has also used its growing clout to fill key posts at UN agencies: Chinese nationals currently occupy the top posts of four of the UN’s 15 specialized agencies, while the United States occupies only one.
From 2021 to 2022, there will be 15 elections for the heads of UN specialized agencies and five for major UN funds and programs. With the exception of the World Food Programme, none are currently led by Americans. A 2020 Department of State Inspector General Inspection found that the Bureau for International Organizations did not have a standard operating procedure for tracking and promoting the employment of American Citizens in the UN system, and their recommendation to the department to establish one remains open.