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THE UNITED NATIONS: URGENT PROBLEMS THAT

NEED CONGRESSIONAL ACTION

BRIEFING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

JANUARY 25, 2011

Serial No. 112–3

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

DAN BURTON, Indiana 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

RON PAUL, Texas 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

CONNIE MACK, Florida 

JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida 

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio 

BILL JOHNSON, Ohio 

DAVID RIVERA, Florida 

MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania 

TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York 

RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina 

VACANT 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American 

Samoa 

DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

DENNIS CARDOZA, California 

BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut 

FREDERICA WILSON, Florida 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

YLEEM D.S. POBLETE, Staff Director 

RICHARD J. KESSLER, Democratic Staff Director 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

BRIEFERS 

Mr. Brett Schaefer, Jay Kingham fellow in International Regulatory Affairs, 

Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, the Heritage Foundation ................. 10

Ms. Claudia Rosett, journalist-in-residence, Foundation for Defense of Democracies ..................................................................................................................... 32

Mr. Hillel C. Neuer, executive director, UN Watch .............................................. 44

Mr. Peter Yeo, vice president for public policy and public affairs, United 

Nations Foundation and executive director, Better World Campaign ............. 53

Mr. Mark Quarterman, senior adviser and director, Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation, Center for Strategic and International Studies .......... 59

Mr. Robert Appleton, former chairman, United Nations Procurement Task 

Force ...................................................................................................................... 68

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE BRIEFING 

The Honorable Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Florida, and chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs: Prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 4

Mr. Brett Schaefer: Prepared statement ............................................................... 12

Ms. Claudia Rosett: Prepared statement ............................................................... 34

Mr. Hillel C. Neuer: Prepared statement .............................................................. 46

Mr. Peter Yeo: Prepared statement ....................................................................... 55

Mr. Mark Quarterman: Prepared statement ......................................................... 61

Mr. Robert Appleton: Prepared statement ............................................................ 70

APPENDIX 

Briefing notice .......................................................................................................... 102

Briefing minutes ...................................................................................................... 103

(1)

THE UNITED NATIONS: URGENT PROBLEMS 

THAT NEED CONGRESSIONAL ACTION 

TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2011

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 o’clock a.m., in 

room 2272 Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Jean Schmidt (acting chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. I want to call this briefing to order. This briefing 

of the Committee on Foreign Affairs will come to order at 10:06 in 

the morning. Unfortunately, our chairwoman, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, 

is unable to be in Washington this week. She is at her family’s 

side. Her mother is in failing health from complications with Alzheimer’s and so I would ask that we all remember she and her 

mother and her family in this very troubled time. It’s very difficult 

to lose a loved one, especially a parent. So Ileana asked me to chair 

this briefing and I was very gracious and happy to accept. 

I will now recognize myself for 7 minutes to read the chairman’s 

opening statement, which should be considered attributable to her. 

As I said, this is her statement.

‘‘As I said at this committee’s last hearing on United Nations 

reform, ‘With significant leadership by the United States, the 

United Nations was founded on high ideals. The pursuit of 

international peace and development, and the promotion of 

basic human rights are core, historic concerns of the American 

people. At its best, the U.N. can play an important role in promoting U.S. interests and international security, but reality 

hasn’t matched the ideals.’

‘‘Accordingly, U.S. policy on the United Nations should be 

based on three fundamental questions: Are we advancing 

American interests? Are we upholding American values? And 

are we being responsible stewards of American taxpayer dollars? 

‘‘Unfortunately, right now, the answer to all three questions 

is ‘No.’

‘‘Here’s some simple math: With no strings attached, we pay 

all contributions that the United Nations assesses to us—22 

percent of their annual budget—plus billions more every year. 

According to the OMB, in Fiscal Year 2009, the U.S. contributed well over $6 billion to the U.N.—at a time of high unemployment, skyrocketing deficits, crushing debt, and other great 

economic and fiscal challenges to our nation. 

2

‘‘What have we gotten in return from the U.N.? Here are a 

few examples. 

‘‘The U.N. Development Program fired a whistle-blower who 

revealed that the United Nations Development Program’s office 

in North Korea was not being managed properly, and was 

being exploited by Kim Jong Il’s regime. 

‘‘In 2008, a Senate subcommittee found that: The U.N. Development Program’s local staff was selected by the regime, 

and UNDP paid staff salaries directly to the regime—in foreign 

currency—with no way to know the funds weren’t being diverted to enrich the regime; UNDP prevented proper oversight 

and undermined whistleblower protections by limiting access 

to its audits and refusing to submit to the U.N. Ethics Office’s 

jurisdiction; the regime used its relationship with UNDP to 

move money outside North Korea; and UNDP transferred 

funds to a company tied to an entity designated by the U.S. as 

North Korea’s financial agent for weapons sales. 

‘‘The UNDP briefly pulled out of North Korea, but now 

they’re back, and this time they can select staff from a list of 

three candidates hand-picked by the regime, not just one candidate. 

‘‘That’s what passes for reform at the U.N. 

‘‘U.S. taxpayers are also paying over one-fifth of the bills for 

the U.N.’s anti-Israel activities, including the U.N. Human 

Rights Council, a rogues’ gallery dominated by human rights 

violators who use it to ignore real abuses and instead attack 

democratic Israel relentlessly. The council was also the fountainhead for the infamous Durban Two conference and the 

Goldstone Report. 

‘‘One more example: An independent Procurement Task 

Force uncovered cases of corruption tainting hundreds of millions of dollars in U.N. contracts. In response, the U.N. shut 

down the Task Force. When the head of the U.N.’s oversight 

office tried to hire the chairman of the task force, former U.S. 

prosecutor Robert Appleton, as the top investigator, the U.N. 

Secretary-General blocked it. 

‘‘Well, the U.N. may not want him, but we’re pleased to have 

Mr. Appleton here today. 

‘‘Ironically, the U.N.’s current chief investigator—who has reportedly failed to pursue cases—is now under investigation 

himself for retaliating against whistle-blowers! 

‘‘Ambassador Susan Rice says that the U.S. approach to the 

U.N. is, ‘We pay our bills. We push for real reform.’ Instead, 

we should be conditioning our contributions on ‘reform first, 

pay later.’

‘‘In the past, Congress has gone along by willingly paying 

what successive administrations asked for—without enough 

oversight. This is one of the first true U.N. reform hearings 

held by this committee in almost 4 years, but it won’t be the 

last. 

‘‘Right now, the vast majority of countries at the U.N. General Assembly pay next to nothing in assessed contributions, 

creating a perverse incentive because those who make decisions don’t have to pay the bills. So I,’’ meaning Ileana RosVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:44 Feb 24, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\012511\64009 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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Lehtinen, ‘‘am going to reintroduce legislation that conditions 

our contributions—our strongest leverage—on real, sweeping 

reform, including moving the U.N. regular budget to a voluntary funding basis. That way, U.S. taxpayers can pay for the 

U.N. programs and activities that advance our interests and 

values, and if other countries want different things to be funded, they can pay for it themselves. 

‘‘This will encourage competition, competence, and effectiveness. 

‘‘The voluntary model works for UNICEF and many other 

U.N. agencies, and it can work for the U.N. as a whole. 

‘‘One more point: Some of the U.N.’s defenders like to cite 

some good U.N. activities to gain support for funding bad ones. 

However, we’re not here to play ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ with hardearned U.S. taxpayer dollars. Each U.N. office, activity, program, and sub-program, country by country and function by 

function, must be justified on its own merits. 

‘‘UNICEF programs to help starving children cannot excuse 

the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s having members of Hamas on its payroll. The World Health Organization’s 

vaccination programs cannot excuse the Human Rights Council’s biased actions. 

‘‘My colleagues, reforming the U.N. should not be a Republican or Democrat issue. It is in the interest of all Americans. 

And so I hope and trust that U.N. reform efforts will be strongly bipartisan.’’

That concludes the chairwoman’s opening remarks. Following the 

opening remarks by our ranking member, we will follow the protocol of other briefings in this Congress and proceed directly to oral 

statements by our presenters. 

I am now pleased to recognize our distinguished ranking member, Mr. Berman, for his opening remarks. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Ros-Lehtinen follows:]

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Mr. BERMAN. Madam Chairwoman, thank you very much for 

yielding me this time and initially let me say that I think all of 

us, our thoughts and our prayers are with Ileana as she is by her 

mother’s side at this very difficult time and understand why she’s 

not here. 

Madam Chairwoman, the flaws, shortcomings, and outrages of 

the United Nations, both past and present, are numerous and 

sometimes flagrant. These include the Human Rights Council’s obsession with and biased treatment of Israel. As the chairwoman 

pointed out, the membership, a rogue’s gallery of human rights 

abusers who have worked to highjack that organization’s agenda; 

the anti-Israel vitriol spewed from innumerable U.N. platforms, led 

by the Committee on the Exercise of Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People; the oil for food scandal; sexual violence perpetrated by U.N. peacekeepers; the unnecessarily high vacancy 

rates and other problems at the Office of Internal Oversight Services; and the overlapping jurisdiction of agencies, the duplications 

of services, and inefficient procurement practices of the U.N. as a 

whole 

And like almost all Americans, I’m repelled by these examples of 

corruption, mismanagement, and bias. But there is another side to 

the U.N. ledger and it’s wrong to ignore it. The United Nations 

often plays an essential role in supporting American foreign policy 

and national security interests. From UNDP’s work organizing the 

recent referendum in South Sudan to the wonderful work of the 

UNHCR and its efforts to protect and resettle refugees to the Security Counsel resolutions imposing sanctions on Iran, the U.N. acts 

as a force multiplier for U.S. interests. 

During the Bush administration, we saw a significant rise in 

U.N. peacekeeping costs. Why? Because President Bush understood 

that having blue helmets on the ground reduced or eliminated the 

need for U.S. troops. The U.N. peacekeeping presence in Haiti is 

perhaps the clearest example of how the U.N. systems advances 

our own interests at a far lower cost than direct U.S. intervention. 

In an analysis of that U.N. force, the Government Accountability 

Office concluded it would cost twice as much for the United States 

to carry out a similar peacekeeping mission using our own troops. 

So what should we do about the many shortcomings we’ve referenced? I strongly believe that the best way to successfully 

achieve the improvements that are needed is to work with our allies to constructively engage the U.N. on a reform agenda. Experience has shown that this strategy is much more effective than 

withholding our dues. Not only did previous attempts to force us 

into arrears that the U.N. failed to achieve the significant reforms 

that have taken place in the last few years, but they severely 

weakened our diplomatic standing. Had we been in such deep arrears last year, does anyone honestly think it would not have impeded our ability to get an additional round of Iran sanctions 

through the Security Council? 

The many reform efforts currently underway in New York, Geneva, and elsewhere in the U.N. system are a testament to the strategy developed under both the Bush and Obama administrations to 

work with the U.N. to enact common sense reforms, many of which 

were laid out in a 2005 report co-authored by former Speaker Newt 

8

Gingrich and Senator George Mitchell. The fruits of the GingrichMitchell work were clearly evident with the establishment of the 

U.N. Ethics Office 4 years ago. 

The same can be said about the creation of an independent Audit 

Advisory Committee, a body now headed by former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker, to review the activities of the Office 

of International Oversight Services and the U.N. Board of Auditors. 

The recent creation of the U.N. Woman Organization and the 

U.N.’s Delivering as One Pilot Initiative have demonstrated the 

U.N.’s determination to remedy the fragmentation and organizational incoherence that have plagued parts of the U.N. system and 

has resulted in overlapping mandates, lack of coordination, waste 

of resources. 

Much more remains to be done to develop a fully transparent 

and financially accountable budget process. Strengthen program 

monitoring and evaluation, streamline the U.N. Secretariat, promote a strong culture of ethics and accountability, and encourage 

U.N. agencies to work together to achieve greater cost savings. But 

make no mistake about it, there has been progress on the reform 

front. 

I would also like to take a moment to further discuss the issue 

of the U.N. Human Rights Council. As we all know, the council was 

created to replace the thoroughly discredited Human Rights Commission. Unfortunately, the previous administration chose not to 

constructively engage the council in its early days, thus ceding the 

organization to the same block of nations who take advantage of 

every opportunity to attack and to delegitimize Israel in international fora. I supported the Obama administration’s decision to 

join the council in the hopes of reforming the organization and 

transforming it into a serious voice on human rights in the U.N. 

system. 

In less than 2 years, progress has been made on the council. The 

U.S. has used its voice as the leading global advocate for human 

rights to push strong council action on a number of significant 

human rights abuses from the ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan to the 

recent standoff in Ivory Coast. And the Obama administration deserves significant credit for its successful diplomatic campaign to 

deny Iran a seat on the council. 

Notwithstanding these important accomplishments, the antiIsrael vitriol that all too often emanates from the council and the 

inclusion of serious human rights violators among the council’s 

membership remains a deep stain on the U.N.’s reputation. 

Madam Chairwoman, in closing, let me just say again that I 

agree with you that the U.N. needs significant reforms. Where I 

think we differ in our approach is the best way to achieve those 

reforms. Based on our experience in recent years, I would argue 

that we have a much greater chance of success if we work inside 

the U.N. with like-minded nations to achieve the goals that I think 

both sides on this committee and in our Congress share. 

With that, I yield back my remaining time. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much, Congressman Berman. The 

chair is pleased to welcome our six presenters. Mr. Brett Schaefer 

is the Jay Kingham fellow in International Regulatory Affairs at 

the Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom, 

9

focusing primarily on the U.N. He previously served at the Pentagon as an assistant for International Criminal Court Policy from 

March 2003 to March 2004. 

Ms. Claudia Rosett is a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. She previously worked for 18 

years at the Wall Street Journal. 

Mr. Hillel Neuer is an international lawyer and the executive director of UN Watch, a human rights NGO in Geneva. He previously practiced commercial and civil rights litigation in New York 

and served as a law clerk for an Israeli Supreme Court Justice. 

We are pleased to welcome Mr. Peter Yeo back to the committee. 

He is currently the vice president for public policy and public affairs at the United Nations Foundation and executive director of 

the Foundation’s Better World Campaign. Mr. Yeo previously 

served for 10 years as the deputy staff director on the committee’s 

Democratic staff, first for ranking member Sam Gejdenson, then 

for our late chairman, Tom Lantos, and then for our current ranking member, Mr. Berman, while he was chairman. 

Another former Foreign Affairs Committee alum will brief us 

today, Mr. Mark Quarterman. He is currently senior adviser and 

director of the Program on Crisis, Conflict, and Cooperation at the 

Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mr. Quarterman 

previously served at the U.N. in a number of capacities for almost 

12 years, including as chief of staff to the U.N. Commission on Inquiry into the assassination of the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and in the U.N.’s Office of Legal Affairs and Department of 

Political Affairs. Before that, Mr. Quarterman served as a staff 

member for our committee’s Africa Subcommittee and as a program 

office at the Ford Foundation for South Africa and Namibia. 

Last but not least, Mr. Robert Appleton served as the chairman 

of the United Nations Procurement Task Force, a specially-created 

anti-corruption unit that conducted hundreds of investigations of 

fraud and corruption in the U.N. He also served as a special counsel and deputy chief legal counsel to the Independent Inquiry Committee investigation into the U.N. Oil-for-Food Programme, also 

known as the Volcker Committee. More recently, he was selected 

to serve as the lead investigator for the U.N.’s Office of Internal 

Oversight Services, but his selection was not approved, and we’ll no 

doubt hear more about that later. Mr. Appleton served for about 

13 years as an assistant United States attorney in the District of 

Connecticut, prosecuting a wide range of national and international 

Federal criminal offenses. Mr. Appleton presently serves as director 

of investigations and senior legal counsel in the Office of the Inspector General in the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis 

and Malaria in Geneva. Mr. Appleton is presenting his remarks in 

his personal capacity. 

Again, the chair thanks all of our briefers and we remind them 

to keep their respective oral summaries to no more than 5 minutes 

each, and having watched Ms. Ros-Lehtinen for one time, I know 

she’s adamant about the 5 minute rule. So I might give you a few 

seconds over, but don’t test the waters. 

Anyway, thank you all for coming and right now, I believe, Mr. 

Schaefer, we will hear your testimony. 

10

STATEMENT OF MR. BRETT SCHAEFER, JAY KINGHAM FELLOW IN INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AFFAIRS, MARGARET THATCHER CENTER FOR FREEDOM, THE HERITAGE 

FOUNDATION 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I would like to thank the committee for inviting 

me to today’s briefing. 

The past six decades have seen dozens of reform proposals both 

from inside the United Nations and outside. For the most part, 

these reforms have been ignored, cosmetic, watered down or defeated outright. As a result, the U.N. and many of its affiliated organizations remain hindered by outdated or duplicative mandates 

and missions, poor management practices, ineffectual oversight, 

and a general lack of accountability. 

A key reason for the lack of reform in the U.N. is the practice 

of granting equal voting rights to each nation over budgetary management issues, even though they have vastly different financial 

contributions. The bulk of U.N. member states simply do not pay 

enough to the U.N. for mismanagement, corruption, or inefficiency 

to concern them. For instance, Sierra Leone is assessed at 0.001 

percent of the U.N. regular budget and 0.0001 percent of the peacekeeping budget. The U.S., by contrast, is assessed 22 percent and 

27.14 percent, respectively. Therefore, while Sierra Leone and the 

dozens of other organizations with similar assessments pay less 

than $35,000 per year to the U.N. in these budgets, the United 

States pays billions of dollars. 

With this in mind, it’s hardly surprising that the United States 

cares deeply about how the U.N. is managed and how those funds 

are used, but most countries simply don’t care very much about it. 

Yet, these are the countries that possess most of the votes. The 

combined assessments of the 128 least-assessed countries to the 

United Nations, enough to pass those budgets, totals less than 1 

percent of the U.N. regular budget and less than one third of 1 percent to the U.N. peacekeeping budget. These countries, combined 

with influential voting blocks can and do block U.S. attempts to implement reforms and curtail budgets. The U.S. can’t fix this problem with diplomacy alone. 

Moreover, while American administrations are often interested in 

pressing for reform, the reform agenda is frequently abandoned in 

favor of short-term political objectives. That is why the State Department is rarely aggressive in pressing for reform at the U.N. 

The reluctance to press for U.N. reform occurs under most administrations, but it has been particularly apparent over the past 

2 years under the Obama administration as it sought to distance 

itself from the previous administration’s policies at the U.N. Criticism of the U.N. is rarely uttered by Obama administration officials and its U.N. reform agenda is notable only for its lack of detail and enthusiasm. 

Luckily, U.N. reform doesn’t necessarily require an eager administration. Past successful U.N. reform efforts have typically shared 

one thing in common, congressional involvement backed by the 

threat of financial withholding. Congressional intervention led to 

U.S. budgetary restraint in the 1980s and the 1990s. It led the 

U.N. to create the Office of Internal Oversight Services, the first 

11

Inspector General equivalent in the history of the United Nations. 

And it led the U.N. to reduce U.S. assessments earlier this decade. 

Regrettably, Congress has neglected its oversight role in recent 

years. Only a handful of U.N. oversight hearings have been held 

and U.N. reform legislation has not been seriously considered. 

Without Congress spurring action, the U.N. has been free to disregard calls for reform. 

Meanwhile, U.S. contributions are at an all-time high. Congressional scrutiny is overdue. 

Let me finish my statement by highlighting some reforms that 

I think deserve particular attention. First, the discrepancy between 

obligations and decision making is perhaps the greatest impediment to U.N. reform. The U.S. unsuccessfully pressed for weighted 

voting in the 1980s and got consensus voting on budgetary issues 

as a compromise. That compromise has since been shattered and 

the U.N. budget has been approved over U.S. objections. Congress 

needs to revisit the issue and consider options to increase the influence of major contributors over the U.N. budget. 

Second, the U.N. regular budget has grown even faster than the 

U.S. budget over the past decade. A few things could be done to 

curtail that growth and streamline the budget. 1) reestablishing 

the zero nominal growth policy for the United States to the U.N. 

regular budget which would prevent further increases in the future 

and lead to a gradual reduction through inflation. 2) sunsetting all 

U.N. mandates and revitalizing the mandate review. Nearly all 

U.N. mandates remain unreviewed, but if the preliminary reports 

are indicative, up to half of all U.N. mandates could be outdated 

or irrelevant. 

Finally, the Human Rights Council continues to disappoint. The 

key problem with the council is the membership. Congress should 

withhold U.S. funding to the council until credible and serious 

membership standards are adopted, including forcing regional 

groupings to provide competitive slates for elections. 

In conclusion, if the United States does not press this issue and 

back diplomatic carrots with financial sticks, U.N. reform will continue to be sound and fury with little substance. The U.N. is patient. It will publish reports and promise reforms. Action will always be imminent but rarely realized. Nothing perseveres like bureaucratic inertia. I have a whole stack of U.N. reports on my desk 

to prove the point that U.N. reform is always promised, but very 

rarely implemented. 

If Congress wants U.N. reform, it must heed the history and demand quick action and link specific reforms to financial withholding. The U.N. may have five official languages, but the bottom 

line speaks loudest. 

Thank you very much and I look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Schaefer follows:]

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Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much. You are right on time. 

Next we have Ms. Claudia Rosett, journalist-in-residence at the 

Foundation for Defense of Democracies. We’ll begin when you 

begin. 

STATEMENT OF MS. CLAUDIA ROSETT, JOURNALIST-INRESIDENCE, FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES 

Ms. ROSETT. I’m ready to begin. Thank you. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. 

Ms. ROSETT. My thanks to the committee for the chance to be 

here today. 

The United Nations is an enormous, opaque, labyrinthine, and a 

collective in which the United States, as Brett has just described, 

basically sustains the system. The contributions that the United 

States make are more than the sum of their parts. It’s not just 

roughly one quarter of the system-wide budget, whatever that is. 

It’s also U.S. credibility, gravitas, the headquarters, things that basically mean the U.S. provides, in effect, the fixed costs, others hop 

a ride. And this is a system which invites waste, fraud, and abuse. 

But what I’d like to highlight here today is that the problem goes 

well beyond simple theft or waste. The U.N. is not like a pilfering 

clerk. It’s an organization unlike many which operates across borders, with immunities, moving large amounts of goods, personnel, 

services, and so on. It’s basically immune to censure. It’s really 

under no jurisdiction of local law. 

This is a system that invites exploitation and what we have seen 

over the years is that the worst of the worst, regimes like the 

former regime in Iraq, like North Korea today, become very good 

at exploiting this. The problem I would like to describe is the 

United States is sustaining a system in which a lot of harm can 

be done even without drawing directly on U.S. money. That, for instance, was Oil-for-Food. 

Oil-for-Food did not take U.S. tax dollars. It ran on Iraqi oil 

money. But the U.N. via Oil-for-Food, having put sanctions on Iraq 

then provided cover and sustained a program which became the 

world-wide bonanza of graft. It ended up corrupting the U.N. itself 

and corruption thousands—companies around the world, payments 

to suicide bombers, purchase of convention weapons, if not WMD. 

And the head of the program was alleged, in the end, to have been 

on the take for $147,000, peanuts by U.N. standards, but enough 

if it’s somebody who’s running a significant U.N. program so that 

it has at least the effect that he will not blow the whistle. 

How do you find out what’s going on inside the U.N. with that 

kind of leverage? In my experience, it almost always requires some 

kind of very energetic investigation. The U.N. does not readily give 

information up. In Oil-for-Food, we discovered a lot because documents spilled out of Baghdad after the fall of Saddam. In North 

Korea, it took very energetic efforts over strenuous objections from 

the U.N. Development Program by the then Ambassador for Reform, U.N. Management and Reform at the U.N., Mark Wallace, 

who really went to the mat pointing out troubles, and when this 

lone whistleblower came forward who was then fired. And in the 

end what emerged was just this incredible nest of malfeasance. 

33

I’ve described it in my written statement, but you had and Chairman Schmidt described it in her opening remarks. You had North 

Korean employees handling the checkbook and the accounts in 

Pyongyang. You had transfers on behalf of other agencies via an 

entity tied to North Korean proliferation. You had the import of 

dual-use items into North Korea. There’s an exhibit in the back of 

my written testimony showing you how the spectrometers, global 

mapping systems, satellite receiving stations imported by the U.N. 

Development Program into North Korea could have been used to 

make missiles which is one of North Korea’s big proliferation businesses. 

When this all surfaced, UNDP has also been involved in a Burmese currency fiddle which tells us much. I’m happy to answer 

questions on that. It was not broken by the U.N., it was broken by 

a blogger who covers the U.N., Matthew Russell Lee. 

When the Cash-for-Kim scandal broke in North Korea, SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-Moon promised a system-wide inquiry, independent inquiry. He backed off that within a week. It has never 

been held. It was a very good idea. As you just heard, the U.N. 

issues endless promises of reform. I’ve made some recommendations about that in the back. The Secretary-General was just boasting last week that he actually requires senior officials now at the 

U.N. to disclose their financial information. I have two exhibits in 

the back of my written statement which show you what that 

amounts to. One of them is a sheet in which you can check a box 

showing that you choose not to disclose anything at all. The other 

is Ban Ki-Moon’s statement which consists of 18 words, nine of 

which are Republic of Korea with no price at all. That’s public disclosure. 

And I would finally recommend that if there is to be a debate 

over withholding funds from the United Nations as a way of imposing leverage, it would be very useful to keep in mind that this is 

an institution which years ago began to regard $1 billion as a 

rounding error. 

Thank you very much and I would be happy to answer your 

questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rosett follows:]

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Mr. SMITH [presiding]. Thank you very much. Before going to Mr. 

Neuer, I just want to note that Walker Roberts is here—we have 

a number of former staffers—who was a top staffer for Chairman 

Henry Hyde, and Mark Tavlarides, who was chief of staff for the 

Human Rights Committee back in the 1980s and I’m sure there are 

a few others. 

Mr. BERMAN. They’re all here to hear Peter. 

Mr. SMITH. Exactly. We’ll go to Mr. Neuer now. 

STATEMENT OF MR. HILLEL C. NEUER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

UN WATCH 

Mr. NEUER. Distinguished members of the committee, thank you 

for inviting me here today. The urgent problem that I was to address concerns the state of human rights at the United Nations. 

The U.N. Human Rights Council this year undergoes a review of 

its first 5 years of work. How has it performed? 

Let’s first recall the history. In 2005, then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called to scrap the old Human Rights Commission. 

He explained why. Countries had joined ‘‘not to strengthen human 

rights, but to protect themselves against criticism or to criticize 

others.’’ The Commission was plagued by politicization and selectivity. It suffered from declining professionalism and a credibility 

deficit which ‘‘cast a shadow upon the reputation of the U.N. system as a whole.’’

To remedy these fatal flaws the U.N. created the council 1 year 

later. The 2006 resolution promised a membership committed to 

human rights, that would respond to severe abuses, including by 

urgent sessions. Its work would be impartial and nonselective. 

Today, 5 years later, we ask, Has the council redressed the shortcomings of its predecessor? Has it lived up to its promise? 

Let us consider first the council’s current members. They include 

Bangladesh, China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The 

newest member is Libya under the dictatorship of Colonel Qaddafi. 

As measured by Freedom House, 57 percent of the members fail to 

meet basic democracy standards. 

Mr. Chairman, imagine a jury that includes murderers and rapists or a police force, run in large part by suspected murderers and 

rapists who are determined to stymie investigation of their crimes. 

That was said by Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch in 2001, 

but the analogy applies even more today. 

Second, let’s look at the council’s response over the past 5 years 

to the world’s worst human rights violations. Here’s what we find. 

For the one fifth of the world’s population living in China where 

millions have suffered gross and systematic repression, for the minority Uighur who have been massacred, the Tibetans killed, the 

council adopted not a single resolution. Its response was silence. 

For the peaceful, civic activists, bloggers and dissidents in Cuba, 

who are beaten or languish in prison, no resolutions. For the victims of Iran, massacred by their own government while the Human 

Rights Council was actually in session, subjected to torture rape, 

and execution, no action. For the women of Saudi Arabia subjugated, the rape victims, sentenced to lashes, the council looked 

away. For the people of Zimbabwe who suffer under the jackboot 

of the Mugabe regime, no resolutions. 

45

Mr. Chairman, apart from a handful of exceptions, the U.N. 

Human Rights Council in the 5 years of its existence has systematically turned a blind eye to the world’s worst abuses. It has failed 

the victims most in need. 

You may ask then, What does it do with its time? I will tell you. 

To an astonishing degree, the council has reserved its moral outrage for demonizing one single country, Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. 

Consider one, in total, the council has adopted some 50 resolutions condemning countries, of these 35 have been on Israel, i.e., 

70 percent. All have been one-sided condemnations that grant impunity to Hamas and Hezbollah terror and to their state sponsor, 

the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Two, built into the council’s permanent agenda is a special item 

on Israel. No other country is singled out in this fashion. 

Three, the council’s machinery of fact-finding missions exist almost solely to attack Israel. The most notorious example is the 

Goldstone Report, a travesty of justice that excoriated Israel and 

exonerated Hamas. This was not surprising given that the mission 

operated according to a prejudicial mandate, a predetermined verdict, and with members like Christine Chinkin, who declared Israel 

guilty in advance. 

Four, out of ten special sessions that criticize countries, six were 

on Israel, four for the rest of the world combined. 

Five, the council has a permanent investigator, Richard Falk, 

mandated solely to report on ‘‘Israel’s violations of the principles of 

international law.’’ Mr. Falk also happens to be one of the leading 

proponents in this country of the conspiracy theory that the 9/11 

terrorist attacks were an inside job orchestrated by the U.S. Government. Now in response to our protest last week, I’m pleased to 

report that yesterday the Secretary-General sent me a letter stating that he condemns the preposterous remarks of Mr. Falk and regards him as an affront to the memory of the 3,000 victims that 

perished that day. We call on Mr. Ban Ki-Moon to take action to 

remove Mr. Falk immediately. 

Mr. Chairman, the promises of the council’s founding resolution 

improved membership, action for victims, an end to politicization 

and selectivity have not been kept. On the contrary, if we consider 

the fatal flaws identified by Kofi Annan in the old Commission, 

every single one applies equally today to the new council. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neuer follows:]

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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Neuer, thank you very much for your testimony 

and having worked with you, thank you for your leadership at the 

U.N. 

I’d like to now recognize Mr. Yeo. 

STATEMENT OF MR. PETER YEO, VICE PRESIDENT FOR PUBLIC POLICY AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BETTER WORLD CAMPAIGN 

Mr. YEO. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and Ranking Member 

Berman, for inviting me to appear before the committee today. 

Right now, across the globe, the U.N. stands by America as we 

struggle for democracy, human rights, and world prosperity. We 

need the U.N. to run smoothly because we have a stake in where 

the U.N. is headed. We need the U.N. to continue, even hurry, on 

its current course straight toward a more stable and prosperous 

world that serves America’s strategic, economic, humanitarian, and 

political interests. 

As we meet here today, votes in Sudan are being counted to determine whether South Sudan should secede. America has strongly 

backed this process with enormous diplomatic and financial contribution and in that, we are joined by the United Nations which 

has allocated money, more than 10,000 U.N. workers, peacekeepers, and volunteers, to support the referendum. The Cote 

d’Ivoire, where the United States has long sought peace and stability, the entire U.N. system holds fast for democracy and against 

genocide. 

The Security Council has called on the nation’s defeated President to recognize the results of the referendum and U.N. peacekeepers now stand as the sole line of protection for Cote d’Ivoire’s 

democratically-elected President. 

The U.N. has partnered with America to battle the nuclear 

threat Iran poses. Just last summer, the U.N. Security Council imposed its toughest ever sanctions on Iran. Defense Secretary Gates 

heaped praised on the U.N. resolution and EU and others have 

joined America in putting in place tough sanctions that are having 

an economic impact on the Iranian Government. 

In Afghanistan, the U.N. has joined American forces to promote 

security and battle the rise of extremist forces. The U.N. provided 

support for Afghanistan’s independent electoral authorities and has 

facilitated the removal of land mines and weapons, making Afghanistan safer for civilians and American forces. 

And not far from our shores, the U.N. battles mightily to stabilize, reconstruct earthquake-shattered Haiti, a country with close 

ties to America. U.N. peacekeepers patrol the streets, provide security to many displaced Haitians, train Haitian police, and feed 

nearly 2 million Haitians a day. 

And right here at home, the U.N. is promoting American economic interests in creating jobs. For every dollar invested by the 

U.S. in the U.N., American firms receive approximately $1.50 in 

U.N. contracts and other benefits. 

As we’ve heard from the witnesses who preceded me, the U.N. 

is not a perfect institution, but it serves a near-perfect purpose, to 

bolster American interests from Africa to the Western Hemisphere 

54

and to allow our nation to share the burden of promoting international peace and stability. 

The U.N. now has greatly improved its ability to identify and correct waste, fraud, and abuse. The General Assembly created the 

Independent Audit Advisory Committee, a move recommended by 

the Gingrich-Mitchell U.N. Task Force which is now headed by 

David Walker, the former U.S. Comptroller and head of GAO. The 

Secretary-General recently appointed a Canadian with decades of 

auditing and oversight experience as Under Secretary-General for 

Internal Oversight Services. The U.N. has also moved aggressively 

to strengthen its ethical culture. A U.N. Ethics Office is in place 

and all U.N. funds and programs created individual ethics offices 

or agreed to use the Secretariat’s Ethics Office. Led by a U.N. attorney, the U.N. Ethics Office oversees the new financial disclosure 

statements required by U.N. employees above a certain level and 

with fiduciary responsibilities. 

Since 2007, the U.N. has mandated ethics and integrity training 

for all U.N. staff members. 

Over the past 2 years, the U.N. has also taken significant steps 

to ensure that it has the most productive and effective work force 

possible. The U.N. created a professional and independent system 

made up of 15 judges to address employment issues. The U.N. decision to join the Human Rights Council has also produced tangible 

results. The U.S. led 55 other countries in a successful effort to 

criticize Iran for its human rights violations. Effective U.S. diplomacy has also improved the council’s ability to address specific 

countries of concern. Nevertheless, some of the most challenging 

and serious human rights violations continue to go unaddressed 

and the council itself places undo focus on Israel. 

As with any public institution, fine tuning the operation is a continual process, but the U.N. is a very different institution today 

than it was just 5 or 6 years ago. The U.N. has implemented most 

of the reform recommendations made by the congressionally-mandated Task Force on the U.N. and by Paul Volcker’s Independent 

Investigation Commission. But further progress will not happen 

unless the United States is at the table pressing for changes. And 

that means we must pay our dues to the U.N. on time and in full 

without threats of withholding our contribution. When we act otherwise we send a strong and provocative signal that we are more 

interested in tearing the U.N. down than making it better and 

going it alone, rather than working with all sides. 

Over the last few years, as Congress has paid our dues without 

drama and delay, we have been able to work well with the U.N. 

to move forward on many important management changes. And 

polls tell us that this cooperation is what the American people 

want and bipartisan research released by BWC this October, 63 

percent of Americans support payment of U.S. dues to the U.N. on 

time and in full and 70 percent felt the same way about U.N. 

peacekeeping dues. But in the end, we need to our U.N. dues, not 

just because it’s popular, but because it’s necessary, necessary to 

maintain a healthy U.N., ready to stand by America and our deep 

and abiding interest in peace, stability, and democracy around the 

world. 

Thank you. 

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[The prepared statement of Mr. Yeo follows:]


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Mr. SMITH. Mr. Yeo, thank you very much. 

Mr. Quarterman. 

STATEMENT OF MR. MARK QUARTERMAN, SENIOR ADVISER 

AND DIRECTOR, PROGRAM ON CRISIS, CONFLICT, AND COOPERATION, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL 

STUDIES 

Mr. QUARTERMAN. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Berman, distinguished members of the committee, I’m honored to have been invited to appear before you today. 

As the result of my service with the United Nations, I’m well 

aware of the organization’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as 

of its vital role in the world. The U.N. makes real contributions to 

the global good on a daily basis and is often the first responder in 

times of natural or man-made disaster. The World Food Programme feeds 90 million people in 73 countries. The Office of the 

High Commissioner for Refugees supports 34 million forcibly displaced. UNICEF provides immunizations to more than half of the 

world’s children. 

Peacekeeping has often been referred to as a force multiplier for 

the United States, but I believe that in a broader sense, the U.N. 

is an influence multiplier for the United States as well. And it 

plays this role in three ways. First, the U.N. operates in places 

where the United States might have concerns, but not fundamental 

interests. An example includes Sudan where the U.N. helped to 

keep the peace and played a central role in the recent successful 

referendum. This provides for burden and cost sharing. It allows 

U.S. interests to be addressed without U.S. troops being deployed. 

Second, the U.N. talks to people and parties the United States 

will not or cannot talk to. In Sudan, for example, along with the 

African Union, the U.N. has directly applied pressure on the regime in Khartoum to allow the referendum to go forward. 

Third, the U.N.’s legitimacy and credibility around the world enables it to carry out tasks that governments alone are not able to 

do. Thus, the Pakistani Government asked the United Nations to 

undertake an inquiry into the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, 

their former prime minister, which was my last job at the United 

Nations and something I was honored to do. 

The U.S. remains the most influential member of the U.N. and 

it does more to set the agenda of the organization than any other 


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nation. Examples of the United States being outvoted in the U.N. 

come largely from the General Assembly, where the principle of one 

member, one vote pertains, but where resolutions are not binding 

on member states. 

However, the United States has a significant and powerful voice 

in the Security Council, in part because of its status as a permanent member with a veto and in part because of the initiative that 

America traditionally and consistently takes in the council. For example, the last 2 years of the Bush administration was among the 

most active and productive periods for the Security Council and resulted in groundbreaking resolutions. 

An emblematic earlier example of U.S. leadership is the skillful 

diplomacy deployed by the administration of George H.W. Bush in 

response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. A more recent example 

of leadership in the council was the Obama administration’s successful effort to place serious sanctions on Iran. 

U.S. leadership and influence in the U.N. results in part from its 

status as the largest contributor to the organization. We must not 

return to the days of withholding funds as some have suggested. 

Withholding funds hurts the U.N. and doesn’t advance U.S. interests. This does not mean that the United States should not take 

a close look at management and budget issues in the U.N. Congress and the Executive Branch must ensure that America’s contributions which are substantial are used effectively, efficiently, 

and for the purposes intended and approved. 

It’s necessary for the United States to be actively engaged to exercise its influence in the U.N. fully. The Human Rights Council 

is a good example of this. There should be no doubt that the 

Human Rights Council needs reform. Reasonable people can disagree about whether the United States should engage or stay out. 

However, only by being at the table can the United States bring 

about the changes necessary to assist it to evolve into a more credible vehicle to protect and promote human rights around the world. 

No one is fully satisfied with multilateralism. Having working in 

the U.N. I saw that firsthand and felt that. It’s hard. 

Multilateralism is very hard and we use it to tackle the toughest 

issues of the global commons, most of which touch on fundamental 

national interests of many countries. It requires bargaining, negotiation, and compromise. And it requires that in a way that’s not 

unlike the legislative process we see in this venerable institution. 

While most of us are dissatisfied, we have to realize that there is 

no effective alternative method of dealing with transnational problems that do not respect borders and that have the potential of significantly affecting our lives. 

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Berman, distinguished members of the committee, as I stated at the outset, and as has been 

stated, I served with the U.N. for 12 years. I served Because of the 

organization’s ideals and I am proud that they were profoundly 

shaped and influenced by American ideals. I have friends and close 

colleagues at the U.N. who died in the line of duty in furtherance 

of the aims of the U.N. charter, for the global good. I honor them 

for their service and am honored by my time in service at the U.N. 

I believe in the United Nations and I want us to work together to 

help the U.N. to live up to its ideals. Thank you. 

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[The prepared statement of Mr. Quarterman follows:]


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Mrs. SCHMIDT [presiding]. Thank you. 

And now we will hear from Mr. Appleton. 

STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT APPLETON, FORMER CHAIRMAN, 

UNITED NATIONS PROCUREMENT TASK FORCE 

Mr. APPLETON. I’d like to thank the committee for the invitation 

to appear today. I’m deeply honored for the opportunity. 

From 2006 to 2008, I served as the head of the United Nations 

Procurement Task Force, the PTF, a special independent anti-corruption investigations unit the U.N. created in the wake of the Oilfor-Food scandal, the responsibility to investigate fraud and corruption in the operations of the U.N. Secretariat, throughout the 

world, which included all of its peacekeeping missions and overseas 

offices. I reported to the Under Secretary-General of OIOS. 

The PTF was temporary, formed for specific purpose and independent of the U.N. General Assembly for its funding. Over 3 

years, this 26-person investigation unit comprised of lawyers, 

former prosecutors, white collar fraud specialists, and forensic accountants from 14 countries under my direction conducted hundreds of corruption investigations, issued 36 major reports, complete with findings, conclusions and an aggregate total of 187 recommendations which included referrals to national authorities for 

prosecution, legal advice and proposals based on our previous experience to recover losses and damages and recommendations to pursue misconduct charges against staff that violated the rules and 

regulations of the organization or committed fraud or corruption. 

Through these investigations we identified at least 20 major 

fraud schemes, hundreds of millions in losses and waste and more 

than $1 billion in tainted contracts. Forty-seven contractors were 

debarred for corruption and the PTF marked the first time within 

the U.N. that the external investigations of those conducting business with the U.N. were properly and thoroughly investigated. A 

vendor sanctions panel and framework began a function and 

worked well. 

In those cases in which the PTF found fraud or other illegality, 

the results were largely substantiated by national courts. In an 

audit that was conducted by the PTF’s operations in 2008 by the 

U.N. Board of Auditors found our methods appropriate, staff well 

qualified, and its existence served as a deterrent to fraud and corruption. A number of prosecutions by national authorities resulted 

from or were supported by the PTF, all of it explained herein. 

Many more could have been pursued. 

Nevertheless, much success was achieved despite the impediments. One of our most significant cases in the Southern District 

of New York, a senior procurement official and an agent of a large 

U.N. vendor were convicted after a 2-month trial engaging in $100 

million fraud, collusion and bribery scheme in connection with a series of U.N. contracts. The procurement official was subsequently 

sentenced to 81⁄2 years imprisonment and the evidence for this case 

was principally gathered by the PTF as contained in its report. 

However, despite the confirmation of the accuracy of the findings 

of the PTT in many cases, most unfortunately, the efforts of the 

PTF were opposed by certain Member State delegations who came 

to the defense of either citizens or officials who were nationals or 

69

their companies or citizens. The U.N. administration accepted the 

PTF, but showed lethargy in moving forward on many of its recommendations to pursue matters in civil courts or charging wrongdoers with misconduct. 

Prior to the expiration of the PTF at the end of 2008, the General 

Assembly at the behest of a Member State who opposed their efforts commissioned an audit of the PTF which ultimately found 

that we were compliant with U.N. rules, regulations, and standards 

and did not selectively target individuals, regions, or countries and 

the staff was well qualified. 

Hostility to the unique status and independence of the PTF for 

Member States who opposed its investigations finally led to the 

PTF’s demise. In 2008, those Member States were able to successfully block further funding by the unit and the PTF was forced to 

close. Despite an admonition that the expertise and staff were to 

be incorporated into the OIOS, that did not happen. Despite this, 

PTF’s efforts did not diminish and the professionalism to accomplish as much as possible did not wane. In the final months of the 

PTF’s tenure, we identified—we completed five major corruption reports that had identified significant fraud and corruption, including 

a report on fraud in Iraq, significant and pervasive fraud in elections, roads, and rebuilding in Afghanistan, fraud and corruption 

in the Economic Commission of Afraid, and in several matters involving high value contracts for transportation in Africa. Despite 

that, as far as I am aware, and despite the recommendation, significant follow up has only been made in one case. 

The vision of the Under Secretary-General at the time for Financial Crimes Unit has been scuttled in place of a nondescript unit 

simply known as Unit 5 which until recently had but a few investigators and none with serious white collar fraud experience. At 

one time, investigators were informed that they were not going to 

investigate parties external to the organization, including tens of 

thousands of contractors that do business with the organization. 

Even worse, the former PTF investigators were subject to harassment and retaliation. Some were even the subject of investigations 

themselves for wholly spurious reasons, and when they were 

cleared by independent entities, no public mention was made of 

this fact. 

In short, all the achievements and advancements that were made 

by the PTF have since lapsed following its conclusion and the stark 

reality is that the ills that the U.N. experienced in the wake of the 

Oil-for-Food scandal are now distant memories in the halls of U.N. 

buildings and unless serious action takes place, there is no question history will repeat itself. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Appleton follows:]

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Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much, and before I give myself 

my allotted 5 minutes, I think Mr. Berman wants to make a statement regarding his committee’s side. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you very much. Simply to point out that this 

is a briefing, not a hearing because the committee has not yet formally organized. Both sides have a number of new members and 

it’s my intention to wait until that organizational meeting to introduce our side of the new members’ group. We’re glad to have all 

these members, but we’ll wait until the organizational meeting 

which is, as I understand it, now will not occur until after we come 

back from the recess in 2 weeks. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. We wanted to get that piece of housekeeping out 

of the way. 

Okay, I’m going to budget myself 5 minutes, which means I’d like 

your answers to be very short and very concise. 

Mr. Yeo and Mr. Quarterman, you have talked about how important it is for the United States to pay our assessed dues in full, but 

you’ve worked in Congress and you know the biggest leverage we 

have with the Executive Branch is the power of the purse. Past history contradicts your arguments, like the 1990s, when we got substantial reform with the Helms-Biden agreement, which conditioned payment of past dues on specific key reforms. But I’d like 

to ask all of our briefers: If the U.N. agencies and other Member 

States know that we’re going to pay our assessed contribution in 

full, no matter what, why on earth would they agree to real reforms? And the second part: So doesn’t simple facts and logic call 

precisely for using our contributions as leverage and not just as 

paying our dues in full? I’m going to give you about 20 seconds 

each to answer that. 

Mr. Schaefer? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Well, the short answer is that the U.N. regards 

U.S. assessments as an entitlement. They don’t think that the 

United States should use those assessments as leverage and they 

resist reform in general. As I mentioned in my oral statement, the 

U.N. is nothing but patient. It is willing to outlast and wait for certain individuals to turn their attention to other matters. And you 

have to tie financial leverage if you want to get the U.N.’s attention. I mentioned a number of specific reforms in my written statement and I’d like it submitted for the record, if I could. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mrs. Rosett? 

Ms. ROSETT. There are two levers I have seen have any effect, 

shame and money. Money is far more powerful. The two are linked 

and the thing that I think does matter and should be done of the 

main focuses right away is we endlessly talk about transparency at 

the U.N. It is an endless game in which it is promised and again 

I refer you to that financial disclosure form where they disclosed 

nothing. And the Secretary-General boasts about it. 

There are things, especially in the digital age, that are both important for security reasons, important for information, and important for any reform. There should be enormous pressure for the 

U.N. to actually produce intelligible, consolidated databases. If you 

ask everyone in this room what is the U.N.’s system-wide budget 

you will get answers where actually the rounding errors are $5 billion. That’s strange. That needs remedy. 

78

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. 

Ms. ROSETT. Thank you. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mr. Neuer? 

Mr. NEUER. We’ve always supported the United States paying its 

fair share of the dues. There’s no question that U.N. agencies that 

are voluntary are known and U.S. diplomats will tell you to be far 

more accountable and to operate better. It’s something that we see 

in Geneva regularly. 

In addition, there are, of course, U.N. agencies such as the Divi- sion on the Palestinian Affairs which gets some $5, $6 million 

every biennial budget that clearly ought to be anti-funded. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Mr. Yeo? 

Mr. YEO. Over the past 5 to 6 years you’ve seen concrete changes 

in the way the U.N. is run whether it’s in terms of ethics, oversight, personnel, all of which have occurred without any legislative 

threat between dues and reform, so we do not need the threat of 

withholding dues to actually make something happen at the U.N. 

to make it a more efficient institution. 

Second of all, 70 percent of all of America’s assessed contributions to the U.N. each year are for U.N. peacekeeping. As a permanent member of the Security Council, we must actively support the 

creation and the change of any U.N. peacekeeping mission. So we 

already have more power than 187 other states at the U.N. that 

do not have the veto. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. Mr. Quarterman? 

Mr. QUARTERMAN. Thank you very much. The U.S. has multiple 

needs at the U.N. It needs, of course, to oversee the use of its funds 

to make sure that those funds are used effectively, to make sure 

the U.N. is run effectively. It also has diplomatic needs. The United 

Nations, as Mr. Yeo pointed out, puts peacekeeping missions in the 

field, carries out a variety of other tasks as well. The U.S. has substantial influence over the shape and organization and deployment 

of peacekeeping missions, but it needs to—but I’ve seen that U.S. 

influence has lessened when the United States has not contributed 

and the diplomatic atmosphere is less positive. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. Mr. Appleton? 

Mr. APPLETON. Thanks, very briefly, it’s the only legitimate, real 

tool that can be used and it’s what most officials inside the U.N. 

Secretariat are most fearful of. And the irony is that the fear of bad 

news is and its possible effect on donations is the reason why the 

organization is not transparent. Thank you. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. And in keeping with my policy of a 

firm 5 minutes. I’ve got 17 seconds left, so I’m going to yield back 

my balance and give Mr. Berman his 5 minutes. 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman 

and I thank all of you for coming and for your excellent testimony. 

I found a great deal o fit very interesting and educational. Mr. 

Schaefer touches on an issue that I think we have to cope with, the 

notion that 128 of the member countries pay about 1 percent of the 

total U.N. regular budget and can drive in a non-consensus budget 

process. The thing is something that I think we do have to come 

to grips with. 

But Mr. Yeo’s recent comment is—the comment he just made, 

that 70 percent of American expenditures that are assessed, go to 

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the peacekeeping where no peacekeeping occurs if the United 

States doesn’t want it to occur because those are ordered by the Security Council and we have a veto there. 

It adds a little context to what you were saying, Mr. Schaefer. 

I also find your testimony useful in that it told me things I had 

no idea that there were these regional commissions drawing and 

expending apparently significant sums of money and work that I 

have no idea what they do and I’ve never heard anything about 

them before. So I thank you for that. 

But I’d like to ask—and the other thing I might note though is 

if I listen to the harshest critics on this panel regarding the U.N., 

apparently nothing that the U.N. does do they find to be positive. 

It did seem to be the glass is completely empty sort of position. 

Mr. Neuer, I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. Do you agree 

with the opening statement essentially that the United States 

should not have joined the Human Rights Council? That’s sort of 

a yes or no question. 

Mr. NEUER. Thank you. We welcomed the U.S. joining provided 

that they would do certain things. 

Mr. BERMAN. Do you think that the United States should get off 

that council right now? 

Mr. NEUER. No, we have not taken that position and we continue 

to urge the United States to do the things necessary. 

Mr. BERMAN. Do you think the United States should withhold 

the amount of dues one assumes is being spent by the Human 

Rights Council or a proportionate share of that dues? 

Mr. NEUER. It’s not something we’ve taken a position on. 

Mr. BERMAN. You’re not advocating that? 

Mr. NEUER. We haven’t taken a position on that at this time. 

Mr. BERMAN. Okay. Do you think the U.S. role has produced 

some useful changes at the Human Rights Council? 

Mr. NEUER. Yes, there have been some changes in tone. One of 

them is described in my prepared testimony regarding, for example, defending the rights of NGOs and of course, the United States 

has stood with Israel. One example is something that happened 

today regarding the regional groups where the Secretary-General 

Ban Ki-Moon was addressing an Assembly in Geneva of all member states and Israel being excluded from any of the regional 

groups in Geneva, while it is a member of the western group in 

New York, it is excluded in Geneva. It was not represented when 

those five groups made their statements. The United States’ mission stood for principal, stood with Israel disassociating itself from 

the western group’s statement because Israel was excluded and discriminated against in that fashion. That’s, of course, something 

that out to be saluted. 

Mr. BERMAN. In fact, if you don’t mind, I’d like to quote in my 

remaining time that part of your prepared testimony that you 

weren’t able to give because you summed it up. ‘‘The council’s abysmal record’’—and I’m quoting you—‘‘comes in spite of the determined efforts of a few stakeholders. In this regard, we commend 

the dedicated work of the U.S. delegation in Geneva. We have had 

the privilege to interact with Ambassador King, Ambassador 

Donahoe, and their colleagues, and we greatly appreciate their 

leadership and support. When UN Watch brought victims of Libyan 

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torture to testify before the council, a string of repressive regimes 

interrupted and sought to silence them. The U.S. delegation spoke 

out and successfully defended the victims’ right to speak. We equally appreciate the important work of Ambassador Barton and his 

colleagues at ECOSOC in defending the rights of NGOs’’ of which 

your organization is one. So I appreciate you sharing this information and I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you to my good colleague from California 

and now I’d like to turn it over to my good colleague from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, subcommittee chairman on Africa Global Health 

and Human Rights. 

Mr. SMITH. I thank my good friend, the distinguished chair from 

Ohio, for yielding and welcome to the panelists. Thank you for your 

testimony. 

You know, last week, Hu Jintao evaded any meaningful accountability for presiding over some of the most egregious human rights 

abuses and violations in the world. By Friday, the press in China 

and I read much of the press were calling it a master stroke of diplomacy. At a press conference on Thursday, President Obama offered what the Washington Post called in its editorial President 

Obama makes Hu Jintao look good on rights’ excuses for Chinese 

human rights violations. He said ‘‘China has a different culture.’’ 

Yes, it has a different culture. ‘‘A wonderful culture.’’ The people 

of China as expressed in Charter 08, desperately want human 

rights to be protected and tens of thousands of people languish in 

the Laogai simply because they wanted democracy and human 

rights protected, including Lu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize 

winner. 

President said they have a different political system. Yes, it’s a 

dictatorship. And they rule by guns and force and torture. So those 

excuses were at best lame and I think they were very, very enabling and the press in China clearly shows that. 

But for the U.N.’s part, frankly, they have failed repeatedly; the 

Human Rights Council, CEDAW, the treaty body, which should 

have and continues to not hold China accountable. The Convention 

on the Rights of the Child treaty body has failed to hold them to 

account. In instance after instance, China, except for people like 

Manfred Nowak who is a great piece of torture in China, it is largely just brushed aside and the world community looks askance at 

China’s egregious violations of human rights. Nowhere is this more 

egregious in my view than in the 30-year program known as the 

one-child-per-couple policy where brothers and sisters are illegal, 

where forced abortion is pervasive. It is every woman’s story to be 

coerced into having an abortion or an involuntary sterilization. 

I met with Pong Piun, a woman who ran the program in the 

1990s and all she kept telling me was that the UNFPA is here and 

they see no coercion. Last week, Speaker Boehner asked Hu Jintao 

whether or not—about forced abortion—and what did Hu Jintao 

say? There’s no forced abortions in China. When you deny, deny, 

deny and lie and deceive as they do and that’s enabled by the 

UNFPA which has a program there and trains family planning 

cadres, that makes the UNFPA complicit in these crimes against 

women and crimes against humanity. 

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Let me just mention a few final points and Mr. Yeo, you might 

want to speak to this. Ted Turner, in December at the Cancun 

meeting on global climate change, said that the U.N. or the world 

needs a one child per couple policy, again, brothers and sisters are 

illegal in China. The only way you enforce it is with coercion, heavy 

fines, and of course, this crime against humanity which the Nazis 

were held to account for at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal 

as a crime against humanity because they practiced forced abortion 

against Polish women. 

Ted Turner said we need one-child-per-couple policy. Upon questioning, he said I don’t really know the intricacies as to how it is 

implemented. Are you kidding? 

Mr. Yeo, you might want to speak to that. I have held 27 hearings on human rights abuse in China alone, most of those with a 

heavy emphasis on this terrible attack against women. This is the 

worst human rights violation of women’s rights ever and we have 

been largely silent. The U.N. has been totally silent. Beyond that, 

they’ve been complicit. So if you could speak to that and Mr. Yeo, 

you might want to speak to it first. 

Mr. YEO. Sure. Thank you, Congressman, first of all, for your 

passionate interest in this issue. You and I completely agree that 

a coercive abortion, coercive family planning and forced sterilization is absolutely outrageous. It has no place in any type of family 

planning programs anywhere in the world. So we 100 percent agree 

on this. 

Let me make two comments. First of all, in the context of 

UNFPA’s work in China, they have repeatedly indicated to the Chinese that they oppose the coercive nature of the one-child policy 

and in the counties in which UNFPA was operating under its previous plan, the abortion rate went down, forced sterilization rate 

went down, and the rate at which people had access to voluntary 

family planning went up. 

What’s happening now in the context of China is UNFPA is 

working directly with the Chinese Government to continue to emphasize the voluntary nature of their program. 

Mr. SMITH. I’m almost out of time. Let me say very briefly, that 

is contested. And let me also say for everyone, we need to be considering the missing girls. Chai Ling, the great leader of the 

Tianneman Square, activist movement, who thankfully got out of 

China, she’s running a group called All Girls Allowed, trying to 

raise the issue of the missing girls. One hundred million is one estimate. The disproportionate between males and females, completely attributable to the one-child policy. A terrible, terrible crime 

of gender. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much to my good friend from 

New Jersey and to my other good friend from New Jersey—is this 

a New Jersey thing going on here? 

Mr. Sires, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you very much. You know for all the positives 

and the strengths of the U.N., I think it’s overshadowed by its 

weaknesses and I’m not in favor of reducing money for the U.N., 

but I’ll tell you, I’m getting very close. 

As I look at this Human Rights Council, I’m a Cuban-American. 

I lived in Cuba until I was 11 years old. I saw Che Guevara set 

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up the firing squads. I see what’s going on with the prisoners in 

jail. I saw Orlando Zapata die. I read all about it. I read what they 

do to the Women in White. I see what they do with Israel. I see 

that we have Alan Gross in jail for over a year. And the resolutions 

don’t seem to come up. And what is the answer to reform? What 

do they do? They elect the Ambassador from Cuba as vice president 

of the council. 

My friends, it’s not that we need reform. It’s broken. You should 

throw it in the East River the whole committee. I mean it is just 

shameful that you have a Human Rights Commission that elects 

these people and all they do is beat up on the only democracy that 

we have and make a mockery of the human rights conditions in 

Cuba. 

So when you talk about reform, it is just so dysfunctional. It’s so 

shameful. I don’t even know how they can sit in a committee and 

have the Vice President talk about human rights. 

I believe they crank up the propaganda machine, 128 counties on 

any resolution, they vote against the interests of the United States 

all the time. So I guess I am frustrated as my colleague from New 

Jersey is. It’s turning into a tool to beat up on this country. It’s 

turning into a tool to protect themselves from criticism on human 

rights, so how do you reform it? Can anybody tell me? Other 

than—and I’m not advocating taking the money away, but I tell 

you, I’m getting very close. 

Peter, my friend? 

Mr. YEO. Thank you for your question. Obviously, Cuba’s human 

rights record, I couldn’t agree with you more in terms of how dismal it is. I would just note though that since the United States has 

rejoined the council, Cuban influence over certain decisions has decreased significantly and in fact, Cuba opposed the creation of a 

special rapporteur in terms of freedom of assembly and was overruled on that move. 

Second of all, since the United States has rejoined the council, 

the council itself has spoken out on important human rights issues 

around the world, and has done so even over Cuban objections and 

the objections of other countries. By being at the table, the United 

States can stand up for our allies, can stand up for human rights. 

If we’re not there, our voice goes away. And so the United States 

is an imperative to use the Human Rights Council as a way for us 

to stand up for human rights and for us to stand up for democracy. 

Mr. SIRES. Mr. Schaefer, will you comment on that? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. The council hasn’t passed a resolution on Cuba. 

Mr. SIRES. I’ve been a rights advocate for 48 years and I never 

heard a resolution yet. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. The human rights advocates that go before the 

council are repeatedly abused and interrupted, intimidating them 

from speaking freely by Cuba and its allies on the council. The 

council is broken and a big part of the problem is the membership. 

The membership needs to change. There is a review that is mandatory this year for considering reforms to the council to try and improve it. And there needs to be serious membership criteria to keep 

countries like Cuba from getting on the council and influencing unduly its agenda. 

83

Mr. SIRES. How do you do that when they have so much influence, some of these other countries? How do you keep these people 

away from this committee? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Well, one way to do it is to force regional groups 

to offer competitive slates. I’m not saying that Cuba wouldn’t get 

elected, but if there is actually a competitive election the chances 

of Cuba getting elected are diminished, and other countries with 

reprehensible human rights records as well. 

Mr. SIRES. This is an election that elected the Vice President. 

This reminds me of the election in Cuba. Castro gets 98 percent of 

the vote, but nobody else runs. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. If you take a look at the elections they have, most 

regional groups offer clean slates, meaning the only number of candidates that are open slots on the council are put forward. And so 

essentially it’s a rigged election. You need to have competition so 

that viable candidates with better human rights records are on the 

ballot and hopefully they would draw more support. 

Another thing is that the Human Rights Council is funded 

through the U.N. regular budget so it’s an assessed contribution. 

The U.S. can symbolically withhold the U.S. proportional amount 

of that, but it gets spread throughout the U.N. regular budget and 

so the council never really feels it. We need to spin those types of 

activities out of the U.N. regular budget so that if Congress is 

upset with the conduct of the council or its actions, it can directly 

target the council itself for the financial leverage that it has available to it. 

Mr. SIRES. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much. And now I will turn to my 

good friend from California on the Subcommittee on Oversight and 

Investigations, the chairman. It’s your turn, sir. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much. I’ve been trying to get 

a handle on how much money we’re talking about. One of you referenced that it was—when you take a look at the overall picture 

and the very different things that we’re talking about are part of 

the U.N. that was close to $5 billion. What are we talking about 

here? How much are we spending—or how much is the budget of 

all of these U.N.—yes? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Congressman, that’s an excellent question and to 

be honest with you, nobody really had an answer until fairly recently. Congress actually mandated that OMB consolidate all of the 

monies that the United States gives to the United Nations’ organizations in general and the first report on that was produced by 

OMB in 2005. The most recent report by OMB said that the United 

States gave total $6.3-plus billion to the United Nations’ system in 

2009. The legislation——

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Excuse me, is that what the United States 

gave or is that the budget for all——

Mr. SCHAEFER. That’s what the United States gave in 2009. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Oh. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. The best estimate I’ve seen for the entire U.N. 

system including regular budget and extra budgetary figures was 

$36 billion and that was produced in the U.N. report in 2010. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay, and anyone else on the panel have 

more to add to that? 

84

Mr. YEO. I would just add that in terms of U.S. contributions, the 

2.1 that is sent every year in terms of our assessed contributions 

to peacekeeping is all done with American approval through the 

concept of the Security Council. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Yes, through the Security Council which also 

I might add China has a veto over anything that can be done from 

the Security Council. So let’s add that to America’s approval. 

Yes, ma’am? 

Ms. ROSETT. The answer is actually nobody knows. If you call the 

Secretariat which I do periodically and ask them what is the U.N. 

system-wide budget, the answer they do not even systematically 

keep track. And different agencies take in different amounts. The 

OMB figures are missing some items. So even the U.S. $6.3 billion 

answer isn’t obvious. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. All right. 

Ms. ROSETT. The U.N. has gone in for public/private partnerships, trust funds. That’s why I’m saying what is needed is a consolidated, clear database that really tells you not just what they’re 

budgeting but what they’re spending, because right now—some 

years ago, former chairman Henry Hyde said he could not get a 

handle on the total budget. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let’s just note that the chairman of this committee told us earlier, Mr. Berman, that he didn’t even know about 

these regional U.N. operations and he’s chairman of the Foreign 

Affairs Committee, for Pete’s sake. I would say that we’ve got some 

work to do if we’re going to be representing the interest of the 

American people. So maybe $6.3 billion, maybe more, out of a possible $36 billion budget—how much of that is of the $36 billion is 

China paying? 

Yes, ma’am? 

Ms. ROSETT. They pay about a tenth of what the United States 

pays in assessed dues. For the rest, again, we simply don’t know. 

If you ask for a consolidated statement, you can’t get it. Each agency is supposed to keep track in itself. The agencies are opaque. 

There’s no way to know. 

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Let me just note with the answers we just 

got there is a global fund that fights AIDS, for example. And the 

United States has spent in the last 8 years, $4.3 billion. This isn’t 

a U.N. agency. That’s not even included in the $36 billion. So we 

spent $4.3 billion, that’s 28 percent of all the contributions, similar 

to what we’re doing. Yet, China has given $16 million to the fund. 

Let us note for just that fund, China has received $1 billion while 

contributing $16 million and let me just note that they’ve only had 

38 cases a year of malaria and AIDS—or malaria, which is the malaria money that we’re talking about that while the Congo has 

massive death from malaria, it received just $149 million to combat 

malaria is what China received, and the Congo which has massive 

problem, received $122 million. 

So in other words, you’ve got this big country, China, who is not 

contributing very much and receiving great benefits from these 

U.N. programs. We can’t put up with that. This is absurd. When 

we have a $1.5 trillion deficit in this country, we’re not going to 

put up with any more. What we’re doing is loaning—we’re taking 

loans from China in order to give to U.N. programs that then are 

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being ripped off by China. This has got to stop and I would say, 

Madam Chairman, that the U.N. should be one of our prime targets for reducing expenditures in order to bring down this deficit 

in our next few years. Thank you very much. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you very much. And now I’d like to turn 

this over to Mr. Ted Deutch from Florida. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to follow up on 

where the ranking member left off, that is, the Human Rights 

Council and the United States role. The U.S. on a positive note, the 

United States helped block Iran’s membership in the Human 

Rights Council and the United States helped mobilize a statement 

condemning repression in Iran, but I’d like to understand the process a little bit. 

How is it that of the 50 resolutions, Mr. Neuer, that condemned 

countries, 35 condemned Israel? Where do they originate? And ultimately, I’d like to talk about how we reform that. But if you could 

speak to that, please? 

Mr. NEUER. Sure, thank you. The resolutions, the 35 on Israel, 

for example, are all, as far as I can recall, introduced by the Islamic group and the Arab group at the Human Rights Council. 

They control an automatic majority. Of the 47 Member States, approximately 30 will approve anything that is introduced by these 

groups. The resolution could propose that the earth is flat and that 

resolution would be adopted by 30 votes out of 47. So the moment 

anything happens in the Middle East, or doesn’t happen, these resolutions are being introduced and adopted automatically. And 

that’s the problem. 

There’s an automatic majority that is dominated by repressive 

regimes. There are countries who vote for them that are not repressive regimes, countries like India. That’s a democracy, for example, 

or South Africa. Regrettably, they continue to vote along dynamics 

that are either consistent with the non-aligned movement, the antiColonial, anti-Western ideologies and so we have this majority. 

The question is, how can we stop it? And the answer in the near 

term is that we cannot stop these resolutions and it is almost impossible to pass a resolution. As we heard before, the situation in 

Cuba, an organization, Human Rights Watch, has worked with victims from Cuba, like Nestor Rodgriguez Lobaina who has been 

beaten up and was denied permission to attend a human rights 

summit that we organized last year. It’s impossible to pass a resolution on these situations. 

However, and this is a critical point, we spoke here today about 

the power of the purse. Well, at the U.N. that resides in New York 

and the General Assembly. Geneva Human Rights Council has the 

power of shame. It is very significant. It is the power to turn an 

international spotlight on some of the worst abuses of the world 

that would otherwise go hidden and to help victims who have no 

independent voice, no freedom of the press, or free Parliament, or 

free judiciary. And what we have not seen is a determined effort 

by the democracies, the United States, the European Union, and 

others, to introduce resolutions even if we know they’re going to 

fail. And being in the opposition, as members here will know, has 

a lot of tools. 

86

And what we want to see is resolutions introduced on Iran, on 

Cuba, on China, on Zimbabwe. Even if they fail, the attention, the 

diplomatic energy and commotion that is generated would have, in 

our view, the same effect and would take the offensive and put the 

worst abusers on the defense. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Is there some history of that? Are there resolutions 

that have been proposed and rejected that would further our 

human rights agenda? 

Mr. NEUER. Not at the Human Rights Council, but previously at 

the Human Rights Commission under the Bush administration this 

did happen. There were resolutions introduced on China, on 

Zimbabwe that failed. And in our view, had a positive effect. 

Mr. DEUTCH. In the short time left, Mr. Schaefer, you talked 

about membership standards. I’m intrigued. I think that would permit us to have a frank discussion about the nature of the nations 

that are making determinations about human rights standards 

throughout the world. Can you elaborate a bit? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Sure. The resolution that created the U.N. 

Human Rights Council said that countries have to submit a declaration of their dedication to human rights. So you have this farcical process wherein China or Iran submit their human rights 

bona fides to the United Nations General Assembly saying why 

they deserve to be elected to the U.N. Human Rights Council and 

no one pays attention to it. I think that there needs to be an outside evaluation of that, perhaps by NGOs, Freedom House, some 

other organizations could take a look at that and give an assessment, an objective assessment of the actual grades and hopefully, 

that could influence the process. Perhaps if you move away from 

a secret ballot to a recorded vote on some of these things you may 

actually see some changes in votes, but the key thing, I think, is 

moving to a competitive election, rather than a clean slate election 

wherein countries are just locked into it. 

Mr. DEUTCH. I only have a few seconds. Could you speak though 

to the credentials that China, for example, would have put forth to 

justify its membership? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. It said that it had freedom of assembly. It said 

that it was a democracy. It said that they respected freedom of the 

press. I mean you can go——

Mr. DEUTCH. Iran as well? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Iran as well, all across the board. These countries 

basically say they espouse the fundamental freedoms endorsed in 

the U.N. charter and in the universal declaration because that is 

the criteria you’re supposed to meet in terms of being eligible for 

a council seat. 

Mr. DEUTCH. Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you, and now I’d like to give 5 minutes to 

my esteemed colleague from southern Ohio, Steve Chabot, Subcommittee on Middle East and South Asia, chairman. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. Before I get in a 

couple of questions, I want to tell you a personal thing that happened. For a year, I was the Republican representative from Congress to the United Nations. Each year we have one Republican 

and one Democrat. And it was the year after 2001, coincidentally. 

And we happen to be at the U.N. and the topic for discussion at 

87

this U.N. event was human trafficking and international child abduction and that sort of thing. And we spent a lot of the day in 

meetings all over the place. Well, it turned out even though that 

was supposed to be the topic, most of our U.N. diplomats spent 

most of the day behind the scenes trying to prevent the Arab bloc 

from kicking Israel out of the conference. And it seemed to be apparently just a typical day at the U.N. 

The U.N. needs to be completely overhauled. We talked about 

this, the Human Rights Council and you have Cuba and Libya and 

the rest of them on there, probably the world’s worst abusers of 

human rights and I think number one, relative to our dues, we 

shouldn’t give a penny to the U.N. until they disband that Human 

Rights Council and completely overhaul it and completely reform it. 

That’s just one member’s up here view. 

But let me get to a couple of questions. The U.N. Humanitarian 

Agency for Palestinian Refugees, UNRWA, refuses to vet its staff 

for aid recipients for ties to terrorist groups. It doesn’t even think 

Hamas is a terrorist organization. It engages in anti-Israel and 

pro-Hamas propaganda and banks with Syrian institutions designated under the USA Patriot Act for terror financing and money 

laundering. Why is the United States still the largest single donor? 

Why have we given them about $0.5 billion in the last 2 years 

alone? Why hasn’t the United States publicly criticized UNRWA for 

these problems and withheld funding until it reforms, given that 

Hamas controls security in Gaza and that Hamas has confiscated 

UNRWA aid packages in the past? How can we possibly guarantee 

that U.S. contributions to UNRWA will not end up in Hamas’ 

hands? 

And I’d invite any, maybe two folks on the panel to take this before I get to my last question. 

Yes, Ms. Rosett? 

Ms. ROSETT. You can’t guarantee it. In fact, it does. A conversation I had with someone—UNRWA is headquartered in Gaza and 

basically provides support services for what has become a terrorist 

enclave. So they’ve actually created a terrorist welfare enclave 

there. And I asked, ‘‘How do you vet your staff to make sure that 

they are not terrorist members of Hamas?’’ The answer I was given 

was, ‘‘We check them against the U.N. 1267 list.’’ That sounds very 

impressive, unless you happen to know that the 1267 list is alQaeda which is maybe a problem in Gaza, but it’s not the main 

problem. The problem is Hamas. 

The U.N. has no definition of terrorist. Therefore, what that 

means is it does not recognize Hamas or Hezbollah as terrorists. 

In other words, there really is no way. They don’t check—in order 

for you to check, you would have to ask for a full accounting of who 

exactly is spending the money in Gaza. And may I just say in looking at the things that do come out of UNRWA that are visible, I 

pondered—I came across UNICEF country appeal in which they 

were asking donations from inside Iran for a Gaza appeal. Remember, Iranian-back terrorist Hamas runs Gaza where UNRWA is 

headquartered. 

Mr. CHABOT. Let me go to my last question. I appreciate the response. 

Ms. ROSETT. Sure. 

88

Mr. CHABOT. In September, the United Nations is scheduled to 

hold an anniversary celebration of the infamous Durban Conference on racism, taking place only days after the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks on this nation. This Durban III 

Conference is likely to feature the same hateful, anti-American, 

and anti-Israel rhetoric that characterized the previous two conferences. Canada and Israel have both announced that they will 

not attend, but the U.S. administration has refused to announce a 

boycott of the event. 

Shouldn’t the United States immediately join Israel and Canada 

in announcing that it will not participate in or support Durban III 

and isn’t there no hope that the conference will address real issues 

of racism, given that it would be commemorating the biased Durban declaration of 2001? And shouldn’t we finally give up on this 

failed Durban process and seek credible alternatives? 

I’ve got 30 seconds, so yes, sir. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I think that that’s entirely likely. In fact, the 

Obama administration boycotted the Durban II conference because 

of concern that it was not going to be addressing the issues in an 

unbiased fashion in regards to Israel. And that’s likely to occur 

again. I’m kind of startled that they haven’t made a strong statement in that regard and announced a boycott already. 

One thing I will mention is that conference and UNRWA also received money through the U.N. regular budget, so it’s assessed, and 

the U.S. withholding is extremely impeded by this assessed process. If we decide to withhold our proportional amount to UNRWA 

or to this conference from the U.N. regular budget, again it gets 

spread around and therefore the U.S. target of that withholding is 

insulated from that effort. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. So we need to spin these activities outside and 

have them be voluntarily funded. 

Mr. CHABOT. Thank you. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. And now I’d like to turn to my good friend from 

Rhode Island, Mr. Cicilline, for 5 minutes. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to first associate myself with the remarks of our ranking member and recognizing that we have much work to do in reforming the United Nations and thank him for identifying some of those issues. I think 

we all recognize we live in an increasingly complex and interconnected world with a growing global economy and so I think we 

have a responsibility to figure out how we strengthen and improve 

the operations of the United Nations. 

And one of the areas, the question I want to ask relates to the 

peacekeeping function of the United Nations, recognizing that the 

United Nations peacekeepers are in 14 of the most dangerous 

places in the world and has the second largest deployed military 

presence in the world. And looking at kind of the costs because a 

lot of this conversation is about costs. We spent in this country in 

2010 $70 billion in Afghanistan and over the last 10 years we’ve 

spent over $1 trillion in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

There was a GAO study that said that the U.N. is eight times 

less expensive than if the U.S. were to do much of this work unilaterally. The RAND Corporation said that the U.N. has been effective 

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as a peacekeeping force. And so in light of that and in light of the 

fact that under both President Bush, both Democrat and Republican administrations, there seems to have been an increased number of missions in terms of the peacekeeping function. 

I just wanted to hear from the witnesses about, you know, are 

there improvements that need to be made in that area? It seems 

to be effective, certainly cost effective in terms of what we would 

spend if we were to engage in unilateral action and are there—so 

is there some consensus on the panel that that’s a function that is 

bringing peace to the world, doing it in a cost efficient way and 

that it isn’t as if we do nothing? We’d have to respond to some of 

these issues and at a cost sometimes eight times as expensive. Is 

that a fair analysis? 

Mr. YEO. Thank you, Congressman, for your question. I would 

say that first of all there is room for improvement in terms of 

peacekeeping. The Secretary-General has launched a 5-year strategy to ensure that we better have the capability to launch peacekeeping missions quickly and that the cost associated with running 

the missions are shared between missions through regional centers 

so there are concrete measures that are being considered that we 

can move forward with to make the missions themselves more efficient and more cost effective. 

The other point I would note is that the U.N. does have strong 

special political missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. And as we think 

about our extensive involvement in both of those countries and the 

presence of American troops, the U.N. will be there for a decade 

to come, working with the governments, promoting peace and stability and security so that when American troops come home, we 

leave behind strong and effective governments that can combat terrorism in both of those countries. And I think that that’s an important role for the U.N. to play moving forward. Thank you. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. The U.N. peacekeeping operations often support 

U.S. interests. There’s nobody, I don’t think, that would deny that 

characterization. But I think that the analysis that was provided 

by the studies is subject to an inherent assumption that I don’t 

think is true. That is the assumption that the United States would 

be conducting these operations if the U.N. weren’t. I don’t think 

that that’s necessarily the case. I think that the decision would go 

to U.S. interests. But that being said, the U.N. operations there 

often do support U.S. interests, if not U.S. core interests that would 

lead to a U.S. direct intervention. 

But U.N. peacekeeping also has a number of flaws and there are 

a number of things that need to be addressed substantially. An 

OIOS report audit of $1 billion in U.N. peacekeeping found that 

over a quarter of it, $265 million was subject to waste, corruption, 

fraud, and abuse. A 2007 OIOS report examined $1.4 billion in 

peacekeeping contracts and turned up significant corruption 

schemes that tainted $619 million or over 40 percent of that 

amount in terms of the contracts due to corruption. 

An audit of the United States mission in Sudan revealed tens of 

millions of dollars lost to mismanagement, waste, and substantial 

indications of fraud and corruption. So there is a lot that needs to 

be done here and not enough has been done to address these problems. 

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And on the issue of sexual abuse and misconduct, all too often 

the U.N. fails to hold these individuals to account for their sexual 

misconduct and their criminality. They are often sent home, but 

very, very rarely are cases pursued or individuals brought to trial 

or punished for their crimes. 

Mr. CICILLINE. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. Now I’d like to give 5 minutes to the 

gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Duncan. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you, Madam Chairman. First off, let me say 

that I appreciate the comments made by the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Smith, and I thank him for the passion with which he makes them. It hit home with me and actually 

answered one of the questions that I was going to address the 

panel. 

So let’s turn back to the budgeting and financing issues, and I 

want to address my comments to Mr. Schaefer first. I agree with 

many of the members and presenters here today that reforms in 

U.N. financing and budget is an absolute necessity. I think that we 

must ensure as Congress and stewards of taxpayer dollars that 

they are well spent and well accounted for. 

So given the level of support that the United States gives to the 

U.N. and taken with the relatively small amount contributed by 

other Member States, could you address the possibility of a weighted voting system which would assure that the U.S. has more input 

on how taxpayer dollars are spent? I know you addressed those in 

your comments, but I’d like to have those on the record. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. There are a number of different options that 

could be explored in terms of giving major contributors more influence over U.N. budgetary decisions. In the 1980s, congressional legislation led the U.S. to seek weighted voting on U.N. budgetary 

matters so that if the U.S. pays 22 percent of the U.N. regular 

budget, it would have 22 percent of the weighted vote in terms of 

approving that budget. That was opposed by the U.N., but the 

Reagan administration succeeded in getting what was a compromise wherein the U.N. budget would only be adopted by a consensus vote. Through that process and the U.S. policy of a zero 

nominal growth budget, the United States was able to oppose budget increases and constrain U.N. budget growth in the late 1980s 

and 1990s. But it wasn’t actually able to reduce things because 

even though the U.S. could stop an increase, other countries could 

stop a reduction. And so you essentially had a tug of war that kept 

things at a status quo. That consensus-based agreement, the informal agreement of adopting the budget by consensus has been shattered in recent years. 

The U.S. presented a number of proposals for reducing the U.N. 

budget and eventually a budget was proposed that the U.S. opposed. It voted no. And that budget was approved over the objection of the United States and so that consensus process no longer 

exists. And the U.N. could do this without any kind of repercussions because the teeth behind the consensus-voting agreement was 

legislation that said if the U.N. adopted a budget over the objection 

of the United States or without those processes in place, it would 

be subject to financial withholding. That legislation was removed 

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in the early 1990s and so now there are no repercussion for doing 

that. 

So even though the consensus budget was successful in a certain 

way in terms of constraining the U.N. budget growth, it wasn’t successful in what we would like to do, I think, in terms of trying to 

go through the U.N. budget and eliminate funding for duplicative 

or outdated mandates and spinning certain things out of the U.N. 

budget. 

So I would do a couple of things. First, I would try and seek a 

dual key approval of the U.N. budget, one approval by two-thirds 

of the U.N. Member States, but also requiring two-thirds approval 

of the contributions to the U.N. regular budget. So you have major 

contributors having to approve the budget alongside the bulk of the 

U.N. Member States. But more importantly, I would focus on trying to spin as much of the independent activities of the U.N. out 

of the regular budget, so you just focus it on the core support of 

the U.N. Secretariat of the Security Council of the General Assembly of the International Court of Justice and so forth, the core organizations of the United Nations. And spin out activities like the 

Human Rights Council and the regional commissions, the various 

human rights committees, UNEP, UNRWA, all these other organizations that are funded through U.N. regular budget and have 

them be funded voluntarily. That gives Congress much more discretion in terms of financing programs that it thinks support U.S. interests and withholding funding from programs that do not. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you. In the balance of my time, I’d like to 

ask quickly, Ms. Rosett. You made a statement a minute ago that 

struck me that we don’t have a good accounting of how the money 

is spent. 

What’s the process of getting that started? I think congressional 

oversight would like to see a detailed accounting of the number 

spent in the U.N. 

Ms. ROSETT. You would have to find a way to get the U.N. to actually put it in and produce. I would say the more specific request 

or demand is made outlining what really has to be there the better, 

because if you leave it to their discretion, you will end up with the 

again, I refer you to the back of my written testimony, the sample 

one-page document disclosing nothing that pretends to be financial 

disclosure. 

You would probably have to hand them the template, here’s what 

we want and what you will find—I’ll give you one example. The 

U.N. flagship agency, the U.N. Development Program which was 

involved in the North Korea Cash-for-Kim scam. They have procurement Web sites which look—they have a main Web site which 

looks quite neat, if you just look at it, until you start looking for 

things that actually matter. For instance, start asking and what 

exactly did they ship into Iran last year with their U.N. immunities, this agency that shipped missile, dual use parts that could be 

used for missile production to North Korea and you won’t find anything. You would need to specify what—exactly what you want to 

see and I would strongly recommend, we see U.N. budgets and 

even that is like deciphering Sanskrit. 

Mr. DUNCAN. Thank you. 

Ms. ROSETT. You would need to ask spending. 

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Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. Now I’d like to give 5 minutes to the 

gentlelady from California, Mrs. Bass. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you very much and I’d like to thank the witnesses for taking their time to present testimony today. I’m struggling with the idea of the U.S. withholding funding and wanted to 

know if you could articulate a little more. We have done that in the 

past and I’d like for you to elaborate on how we were able to impact reforms when we withheld funding before. And then if we did 

do that, what does that do to our standing internationally? 

And if you think about the Iran sanctions that made it through 

the Security Council, if we were to withhold funding, then what 

kind of position would that put us in when we then obviously want 

the U.N. to have those sanctions? And maybe you have some other 

examples of how we could impact reforms that didn’t involve withholding funds. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I’d be happy to talk about that. My written testimony I actually go through a number of historical instances where 

Congress has used its financial leverage to get the United Nations 

to adopt specific reforms. One was the Kassebaum-Solomon amendment in the 1980s which led to the consensus-based voting process 

which helped constrain U.S. budget growth in the 1980s and 1990s. 

A second was congressional withholding, demanding that the U.N. 

create an Inspector General equivalent organization. That led directly to the creation of the Office of Internal Oversight Services 

in 1994. And third was the Helms-Biden legislation wherein the 

United States agreed to pay U.S. arrears to the United Nations in 

return for certain specific reforms including reductions in the U.S. 

level of assessment for the regular budget and for peacekeeping. 

Under that agreement, the U.N. was supposed to reduce the U.S. 

peacekeeping assessment to 25 percent. It never reached that level, 

although it did get within 2 percentage points back in 2009. More 

recently, the U.N. has actually reversed pace and increased the 

U.S. assessment for U.N. peacekeeping to over 27.1 percent. So 

we’re seeing some back tracking on the part of the U.N. in terms 

of the reforms that they agreed to in return for Helms-Biden. So 

you do see that there are specific pieces of congressional legislation 

and a specific response by the United Nations that is tied to that 

legislative effort. 

Other types of U.N. reform have been pursued, but often it is out 

of a fear that Congress may do something about the issue. For instance, the Volcker Commission was created to investigate the 

Iraqi Oil-for-Food Programme and that was created specifically because Congress was becoming very, very interested in pursuing the 

matter itself and so the U.N. took preemptive action and created 

the Commission. You could also say that U.N. peacekeeping rules 

and regulations, while insufficient still, were adopted in part because Congress was focusing through hearings and other pieces of 

legislation on that problem. 

I think Congress has a vital role to play for pressing for U.N. reform. In terms of how it affects our diplomacy, there’s no doubt 

that pressing for budgetary cuts and U.N. reform ruffles feathers 

at the United Nations. They’d much rather spend their time focusing on other things. But that is a long-term issue and U.S. administrations have historically focused on short-term political priorVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:44 Feb 24, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00096 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\FULL\012511\64009 HFA PsN: SHIRL
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ities, passing a resolution, getting something immediately done to 

address a more imminent problem from their perspective. Congress 

has a longer-term perspective on this and I think that’s where they 

complement each other. Congress can play a bad cop role, the administration and State Department diplomats can play a good cop 

role. Having Congress playing the heavy can actually improve prospects for reform in the United Nations. 

Ms. BASS. So then you’re not necessarily suggesting that we completely defund the U.N.? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. No. 

Ms. BASS. Just threaten? 

Mr. SCHAEFER. No. I think we should withhold to try to spur specific reforms, but I’m not saying withhold every single dime that we 

give to the United Nations. I think that a lot of the things that the 

U.N. does are very useful and support U.S. interests. But there’s 

no doubt in my mind that a number of reforms that have been advocated in the past remain undone. Some talk has been made 

about the U.N. Ethics Office. Yes, they created a U.N. Ethics Office, but almost immediately the authority of that office was challenged by the United Nations Development Program. The Ethics 

Office found that UNDP’s retaliation against a whistleblower was 

illegitimate, demanded UNDP to take certain actions to repair that 

issue. And UNDP rejected the authority of the U.N. Ethics Office. 

The Secretary-General, instead of backing his own Ethics Office, 

backed UNDP. Now you have divergent ethics standards throughout the U.N. system and NGOs that analyzed this issue say they’re 

completely inadequate and weak compared to international standards. 

More recently, the OIOS official in charge of investigations was 

charged with retaliation against two whistleblowers himself and he 

also rejected the authority of the Ethics Office. So there’s a question of whether the Ethics Office even has authority within the 

U.N. Secretariat. 

Ms. BASS. Thank you. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. And now I’d like to give 5 minutes to 

my good friend from California, Mr. Royce, of the Subcommittee on 

Terrorism and Nonproliferation. 

Mr. ROYCE. Brett, Mr. Schaefer, the case you were talking about, 

was that the North Korean case or the——

Mr. SCHAEFER. In terms of UNDP——

Mr. ROYCE. The example you just gave. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. Yes, it was. 

Mr. ROYCE. I’d like to ask Claudia, Claudia Rosett about this because she’s reported for many years on this situation with respect 

to North Korea. One of the things I remember is talking to a defector from North Korea who had worked in the missile program. He 

said every time the regime ran short of hard currency it couldn’t 

purchase on the market the equipment it needed for the missile 

technology, and had to wait until the regime could come up with 

more hard currency. The part that concerns me about this whole 

process is that $6 billion spent by the UNDP per year, and half of 

it goes to authoritarian regimes, according to Freedom House. 

We’re learning more and more about how that money is spent in 

countries like Iran and Zimbabwe. We have concerns about how it’s 

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spent in Syria and Venezuela. But North Korea in particular is a 

case where if we thought that this currency was going for fine wine 

and sushi for the ‘‘Dear Leader,’’ it would be one thing, but the suspicions that the use of the hard currency and the documentary evidence, and that’s what I’d like to get into here for a little bit with 

you Claudia, basically, it was a case of the checkbook for the 

UNDP being turned over to the regime. 

The CFO was picked by the regime. And when somebody blew 

the whistle on this, the UNDP unanimously, just as they have in 

every other case circled the wagons to basically try to cover this up. 

But North Korea was able to use the UNDP to procure dual use 

items in the name of development and then they got their hands 

on equipment that happens to also be used to develop and target 

and test missiles. And that’s the part that really makes us wonder 

about the amount of contribution we made here in the United 

States, I think about $290 million a year or more than that. We’re 

one of the top three donors into this program and yet we have no 

ability to get across to the UNDP that we’re not going to finance 

our own suicide here by allowing hard currency to get in to the development of nuclear weapons or how to deliver them with missiles. 

The questions I’d ask Claudia is—I remember they temporarily 

shut this down and then it started right up. So how much money 

now is moving into North Korea? Is Kim Jong-Il still able to pick 

the CFO for this position? I don’t know the answer to that. What’s 

going on with the program today? How much do we know? 

Ms. ROSETT. Well, once again we don’t know enough. I will tell 

you a few things about the U.N. Development Program which ran 

this office in North Korea and is now running it again. Two years 

ago, its governing body at the U.N., a 36-member executive board 

was chaired by Iran. This was while Iran was having the murderous riots in the streets. Iran still sits on the board. When Cashfor-Kim broke, North Korea was sitting on the board. This is the 

flagship U.N. agency and so on. 

I am actually less concerned with the exact amount that is—of 

dollars that is going into this program in North Korea than with 

the abilities it gives the UNDP Office in Pyongyang and North 

Korea to bring in items or UNDP in Iran which we have no insight 

into right now. These places only become transparent when there’s 

a major inquiry and it took more than 11⁄2 years to pry out of the 

U.N. the information that finally told us that the UNDP had been 

bringing things like a satellite image receiving station into North 

Korea. North Korea is a starving, poor country. Certainly the people there need help. The government there puts the military first. 

You don’t need to be bringing that kind of equipment in. That was 

clearly a North Korea shopping list which UNDP rushed to procure 

for them. 

One thing that Congress might do is ask the Bureau of Commerce to produce something I can’t get. It’s confidential. The export 

licenses for all U.N. purchasing abroad, because that will show you 

what the U.N. is requisitioning, at least in this country. You might 

get a glimpse. I venture to guess it would make your jaw drop. And 

it would be useful if other countries would produce similar lists. 

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The point I think is really important to get across here is the 

U.N. is a brilliant machine for laundering goods and money across 

borders with no oversight. That needs looking at. 

Mr. ROYCE. We will do that, Madam Chair, this committee will 

do that and I appreciate the testimony of the panel. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. And now I would like to turn my attention to our good friend from Missouri, Mr. Carnahan. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I want to thank 

Madam Chair and ranking member for holding this hearing, our 

witnesses for being here. I believe it’s very important that the 

United States is at the table at the U.N., at the table engaged in 

various international organizations. Even though the issues are 

complex, the parties are difficult and the bureaucracies entrenched 

at the U.N. I think we have to be looking at ways to best leverage 

the U.S. involvement and I think also the best exercise, congressional oversight. So I appreciate you all being part of this process. 

I wanted to ask Mr. Neuer, the Human Rights Council has properly come up in this discussion today. Last year, we had a hearing 

on the rise of anti-Semitism around the world and the council 

clearly came up in those conversations. There’s been some very 

well directed and well founded criticisms of the council, but there 

also have been some successes and some improvements in the 

council with our involvement. I wanted to ask your assessment on 

the progress that’s been made since we have rejoined and whether 

or not you think we could have made these improvements if we 

were not at the table. And do you think that were the U.S. to leave 

the council would that stymie further progress? 

Mr. NEUER. Thank you. The changes that have been made in our 

view have been mere specks on a radar screen for a situation that 

is abysmal. As I presented in my oral summary, in my written testimony, the state of human rights at the U.N. is a disaster at the 

Human Rights Council. And so in terms of U.S. involvement, as the 

ranking member read from my prepared statement, we certainly 

salute the determined efforts of the U.S. mission in Geneva. They 

are trying their best. They are doing what they can. They have 

tried to defend principles, to defend human rights groups who 

bring victims and so forth. There have been a number of resolutions which we welcome, on Ivory Coast recently, on Kyrgystan and 

on one or two others. These resolutions haven’t had the strength 

of some other resolutions. They haven’t all been condemnatory. The 

one on Kyrgystan, for example, was introduced regarding a situation that had happened under a previous government, so it wasn’t 

necessarily the most courageous text in condemning a seated government and holding it accountable and that’s been a pattern that 

we’ve seen on some resolutions that appear to be meaningful, but 

in fact, are critical of prior governments. 

So again, we encourage U.S. efforts and we want them to do far 

more. And as we’ve said, we still don’t understand why nothing has 

been introduced on Iran. Actually, we’ve crunched the numbers. As 

you know, there is a resolution in General Assembly that is adopted each year. It’s run by Canada. And it passes in the General Assembly in New York. And if you run the numbers, actually, in theory, if the missions in the Geneva would vote the same way, the 

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tually with significant diplomacy, we could have a resolution on 

Iran that would pass. It wouldn’t be easy. 

Why is it not being introduced? I don’t know the answer to that 

question. I hope it will be introduced and I hope we’ll see the creation of a special investigator on the massacres that have taken 

place in Iran. So to summarize, we have always supported robust 

engagement. UN Watch was founded by a former United States 

Ambassador, Morris Abram, who was a civil rights leader as well. 

We’ve always believed in the value of U.S. leadership and engagement and in our recommendations that we submitted here last 

year which was co-sponsored by bipartisan group, Representative 

Engel and Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen, we set forth numerous 

recommendations for what the U.S. working in concert with the 

European allies need to do and fundamentally it’s to take the offensive. It’s not to allow the abusers to veto and to only introduce that 

which will pass. That will really limit it to countries of little influence. As I said, Iran, China, Syria, the list goes on, have all been 

ignored. That is something that is not satisfactory. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. And quickly to go to Mr. Yeo, with 

regard to the Millennium Development Goals, your colleague, 

Kathy Calvin, testified last year at our hearing. I’d like to hear 

your thoughts on how the U.N. can best partner with the private 

sector and what U.S. engagement has meant to those efforts. 

Mr. YEO. Sure. I would say that as we think about shrinking national budgets for foreign aid and foreign assistance, public-private 

partnerships, including corporations around the world who wish to 

support the NDGs’ and the U.N.’s work, are very important. It’s 

something that we try to facilitate at UNF. Thank you. 

Mr. CARNAHAN. Thank you. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. And now I’d like to give 5 minutes to 

my good friend from North Carolina, Mrs. Ellmers. 

Ms. ELLMERS. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and thank you, 

panel, for being with us today. 

I just want to ask my questions in regard to some of the corruption issues and I’m going to address my question to Mr. Appleton. 

But I would like to state this. You just understand the concerns of 

the American people, the hard-working taxpayers who are the ones 

who are funding you, the U.N. And when it comes to these issues 

of corruption and misconduct, it’s hard for us and I can tell, I 

know, I can tell you the people of North Carolina District 2 are 

very concerned about this issue. 

So again, to Mr. Appleton, you tried to oversee and help reform 

the U.N. and uncover over $1 billion in tainted contracts. And as 

thanks, you got fired and blocked from being hired for further jobs 

there. And many of your cases remain open and unaddressed at 

this time. Is this what generally happens when a U.N. investigator 

takes this course? And can you discuss with us today what happened to your appointment to be the lead investigator at the U.N.’s 

Office of Internal Oversight Services? 

Mr. APPLETON. Thank you very much. I’m honored to have been 

asked to appear. I think in 3 minutes it’s tough to describe the 

overall dynamic of oversight in the U.N. and conducting investigations, but I’ll give it a shot. 

97

I think conducting true, real, deep investigations to ferret out the 

actual facts and circumstances is not a best way of career advancement in the U.N. And the reason why I think you’ll see a number 

of Inspector General-type offices in many of these international organizations that do not—aren’t very aggressive because you can see 

what happens. You do not make a lot of friends. And if you pick 

the wrong subject, it could have very fatal consequences. 

So what’s critical for oversight in the U.N. is complete independence, not just operational independence, but budgetary independence. So ultimately, your funding is not at risk, your career is not 

at risk, your job is not at risk. Because otherwise, if it is, what advantage is it for you to pursue real, honest and objective investigations? 

So historically, I think I would agree with some of what Mr. 

Schaefer said about focus of this Congress. And when there is focus 

it can happen properly. There are episodes where sometimes privileges and immunities have been waived and cases have been advanced, but if there isn’t an eye and a focus and attention on the 

issues, they’re not, in my experience, not going to advance. You’ve 

got to have will and you’ve got to have an apparatus and machinery that protects investigators from retaliation and I’m not saying 

you don’t hold them to a certain standard. There’s no question. The 

investigations have to be genuine, integrous, unbiased. No question 

about that. 

And I think the way to challenge them is through a judicial 

mechanism that is properly functioning, so you need all these apparatus. A strong and effective independent oversight office has to be 

complemented and supplemented by an effective ethics office, a 

sound, judicial machinery, an effective appeals process, and effective sanctions and penalty regime. So all of that needs to be put 

in place. What had been started it seemed to have faltered and 

going into reverse. So the way in which the dynamic is it does not 

set the atmosphere for thorough and deep and intense inquiries. 

With respect to my own situation, I guess I would respectfully 

say that because the case is in the judicial system I really can’t 

speak too much about it other than the fact that this was an example of a lack of independence of the Under Secretary-General who 

attempted to—went through proper procedures, conducted a recruitment exercise, presented my nomination and it was not accepted. So the argument certainly is and she’s a forceful advocate of 

this that there’s a real example of a lack of true independence in 

oversight. You need to be able to appoint your own staff. Thank 

you. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. And now I’d like to give 5 minutes to 

my good friend from Nebraska, Mr. Fortenberry. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, Madam Chair, for the time. 

Thank you all for coming today. Given the drama of the institution, 

perhaps we could start a new reality TV show and call it the U.N. 

Makeover or something like that. 

With that said and seriously, let me say I think it’s important 

for the United States to belong to multi-lateral institutions. The 

world is complex, but without some platforms for the development 

of mutual understanding we could be in a worse off situation in 

98

spite of the effrontery that we sometimes have to endure in this 

particular multi-lateral entity. 

With that said, I’d like to point out what I perceive to be some 

of the U.N. strengths and I think some of you spoke to this. Perhaps you could confirm that. And then I’d like to try to unpack further the reforms that could be engaged that would actually 

strengthen the part of the institution that makes sense, but either 

jettison or rethink the other components that are causing such serious problems. 

I was in the country of Liberia a little while back and had a oneon-one chat with a U.N. peacekeeper, a Nigerian who was in a blue 

helmet, way out on an outpost in the interior of the country. He 

was very well informed as to what his mission was and how he 

would carry it out and I was impressed. And it does seem to me 

that the U.N. peacekeeping forces around the world provide a stabilization factor, sometimes imperfectly, but a stabilization factor. 

That is very important. 

Secondly, the U.N. is very well positioned to provide humanitarian outreach, particularly in crisis times and I think that’s very 

important work and it seems to be a strength of the institution. 

Now with that said, we’ve talked about a lot of the other difficulties, one being the Human Rights Council. Since the United States 

has joined, we’ve not even offered a resolution condemning the 

human rights abuses of China and Cuba. And so with that said, 

how can we unpack this further that looks at the institution from 

the portions of it that are really viable, potentially reforms or gets 

us away from or shames or withholds money as you suggested, Ms. 

Rosett, in the areas that again give real effrontery? 

And third is, are there other multi-lateral institutions that can 

begin to replace that which cannot be reformed in the internal dynamics of the institution? Yes. 

Ms. ROSETT. The internal dynamics have a certain mathematics 

and logic where it would be nice to believe, for instance, that the 

Human Rights Council can be sort of brought around like a super 

tanker. But if you actually look at the makeup of the General Assembly, we need to wait until the change of the character of the 

majority of nations on the planet before that actually happens. And 

the essence of success in the modern world really is competition 

and I think turning to some alternative grouping in which you are 

not obliged to haggle with Cuba and Russia and China over how 

to define human rights is something that might be very productive 

and at the end of the day would also honor the people whose rights 

you’re actually trying to protect. Because as you know, on the 

ground it translates into complete abandonment. These things that 

sound academic when they’re discussed in the council, talk to people from Zimbabwe who live under the kinds of rules that need to 

be addressed. 

So competition makes a great difference. One other note——

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Do you see any current institution that might 

fulfill that role or some emerging fledgling institution that could do 

that in the near term? 

Ms. ROSETT. Absolutely, where you are not constrained by the 

U.N. membership problems. One other note, peacekeeping also can 

have the very dangerous, dangerous drawback, that it sounds as if 

99

something is being done. At the moment, the ramped up UNIFIL 

mission in Lebanon, the peacekeepers in Lebanon who remember 

were needing rescue from their bunkers after Hezbollah built up 

weapons nests around——

Mr. FORTENBERRY. I said albeit imperfectly. 

Ms. ROSETT. They’re re-arming again. And I think it is a question that needs to be very seriously asked, is it more dangerous to 

have them there giving the illusion that they are protecting things, 

waiting until the next rescue. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you, I’m sorry, I’ve run out of time. 

Mr. SCHAEFER. I think it’s just important to note that the U.N. 

is not the only multi-lateral option and that multi-lateral activities 

are not legitimate only if they go through the United Nations. Take 

a look at an organization like the Proliferation Security Initiative 

which was introduced by the Bush administration to counter trafficking in weapons of mass destruction. If you take a look at ad hoc 

interventions by the African Union, by NATO forces around the 

world, you can do peacekeeping, you can do interventions outside 

of the U.N. framework. 

And if the reforms are not adopted to implement membership 

standards for the Human Rights Council, I think the U.S. and 

other countries should seriously consider creating a non-U.N. 

human rights body so that you can keep human rights violators off 

of that body and really dig into the human rights issues and confront human rights abusers. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. That may be the answer here. I’m sorry, I’m 

out of time. Thank you. 

Mr. FORTENBERRY. Thank you and without objection, the full 

written statements of all of our briefers will be made as part of the 

record. Members have up to 5 days to submit their statements for 

the record and to my good friend from California, do you have any 

more witnesses, sir? 

Mr. BERMAN. I do, but I didn’t bring them with me. 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Thank you. In the full interest, do we have any 

more witnesses in the back room? Can somebody check before I 

gavel this down? 

Mr. BERMAN. Members? 

Mrs. SCHMIDT. Members, I mean. I’m new at this. No more members, all right. This briefing is now closed and again, members have 

up to 5 days for written statements and your prepared remarks as 

well. Thank you very much gentleman and lady for your attention 

in this matter. 

[Whereupon, at 12:16 p.m., the briefing was concluded.] 

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A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE BRIEFING RECORD

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