UNITED NATIONS: Voting Membership at U.N. Shrinks

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Sep 10 1996 (IPS) - When the new session of the U.N. General Assembly opens Sep. 17, the voting membership of the world body would have shrunk from 185 to 173.

Twelve countries would have no voting rights at the United Nations’ highest policy-making body since they have not paid their dues — either in part or in full — for the last two years.

Nine of the 12 are from Africa: Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, the Gambia, Mali, Niger, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia. The other three defaulters are the Dominican Republic, Iraq, and the rump state of Yugoslavia.

Bosnia-Hercegovina had also been in danger of losing its voting rights, but escaped the penalty when it paid part of its dues Tuesday.

Article 19 of the U.N. Charter says a member in arrears in the payment of its financial contribution shall have no vote in the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of contributions due for the preceding two years.

The Assembly, however, may permit such a member to vote if it is satisfied that failure to pay is “due to conditions beyond the control of the member.”

U.N. Spokeswoman Sylvana Foa says that five countries — Rwanda, Liberia, Tajikistan, Georgia, and Comoros — have been exempted from the penalty “based on the country’s inability to pay.” The five countries — which are either politically or economically troubled — will continue to have voting rights even though they have failed to pay their dues.

Last March, as many as 35 member-states lost their voting rights for non-payment of dues.

The number has since decreased, because most member states want their voting rights restored for a new General Assembly session when scores of resolutions are voted on.

Foa says the defaulting countries last month numbered 16, but three of them — Latvia, Guinea and Madagascar — paid up last week. “So we’re happy to see the list getting smaller and smaller,” she added.

The amounts countries pay to retain their voting rights vary. For some, it is small — anything from 40 to 4,000 dollars. But others make larger payments.

Yugoslavia has to pay more than 9.8 million dollars before it can regain its voting rights, while Georgia has to cough up more than 3.5 million dollars.

Iraq has said it is unable to pay its dues because of the U.N. sanctions imposed on the Saddam Hussein regime immediately after the 1991 Gulf War.

The U.N. Committee on Contributions meets periodically to decide on appeals by some countries seeking exemptions. And they are “turning a sympathetic ear to those countries that are having serious problems,” Foa says.

The United States, which currently owes the largest amount — 1.65 billion dollars both to the U.N. regular and peacekeeping budgets — has not lost its voting rights since it has made payments towards 1994.

The other major defaulters, who owe money to both budgets, are: Russia (332 million dollars), Ukraine (252 million dollars), Japan (106 million dollars), and Germany (69 million dollars).

In 1996, Washington is expected to pay 25 percent of the regular budget, followed by Japan (15.4 percent), Germany (9.0), France (6.4), Britain (5.3), Italy (5.1), Canada (3.1), Spain (2.3), Russia (4.4), and Brazil (1.6).

The assessments are based on “the real capacity” of countries to pay. The General Assembly has fixed a maximum of 25 percent of the budget for any one contributor and a minimum of 0.001 percent, a level that is paid by most developing nations.

Seeking a long-term solution to the United Nations’ ongoing financial crisis, Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has called for a change in the current scale of assessments which stipulates how much each of the member states pay to the regular budget of the world body.

“The realities of international relations today differ from those which pertained at the time of the United Nations’ founding,” Boutros-Ghali has said. “The scale of assessments should reflect current political and economic realities.”

Boutros-Ghali has said that a ceiling of 15 or 20 percent on the contribution of any state would better reflect the fact that the United Nations was “the instrument of all nations.”