The US State Department has gone on the offensive to counter efforts by Republicans in the US House of Representatives to cut off funding to the United Nations unless specific reforms are made.  In a lengthy address to the US Institute for Peace (September 8), senior official Esther Brimmer called such efforts ‘backward’.

“We cannot turn back the clock to a time when the world was simpler and less interconnected, and multilateral engagement was less essential to core US interests,” said Brimmer, Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs. “And we cannot dispatch US diplomats to the United Nations to pursue our 21st century foreign policy objectives hobbled by a 19th century worldview, one that ignores the role multilateral bodies play in so many of our most pressing challenges.”

Brimmer noted that multilateral diplomacy has traditionally been central to American foreign policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations. “Important issues will be decided at the United Nations whether or not the United States chooses to be actively engaged,” she said.

She cited a list of issues that can no longer be dealt with on a unilateral basis: nuclear non-proliferation, climate change, pandemic diseases, and counter-terrorism. Not to mention war and peace issues in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya where the UN has played a key role.

As for criticism that UN organs are paralyzed by politics, she singled out the Geneva-based Human Rights Council as one example where “we have seen a dramatic improvement in that body’s effectiveness.”  In recent years the Council was heavily criticized by Washington for focusing on Israel, but Brimmer noted that in the past year alone the Council has also addressed human rights violations in Libya, Syria and Belarus.

Withholding funding for the Human Rights Council is one of the provisions in the House Republican bill introduced last week. It seeks to curb funding until the State Department can certify that the Council does not include member states subject to Security Council sanctions, either for human rights abuses or for being state sponsors of terrorism.

Other provisions in the bill would withhold half of the $3 billion annual US contribution to the UN budget unless the dues collection process is made voluntary.  It would also block funding for the UN anti-racism conference, seen as anti-Israel, or for any UN entity granting Palestine an elevated status at the UN

The bill is likely to pass in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives but is expected to face opposition in the Senate and a veto by President Barack Obama.