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+ - THE UNITED NATIONS: URGENT PROBLEMS THAT NEED CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
+
+[House Hearing, 112 Congress]
+[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
+
+
+
+ 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/
+
+ ______
+
+
+ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
+64-009 WASHINGTON : 2011
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------
+For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office,
+http://bookstore.gpo.gov. For more information, contact the GPO Customer Contact Center, U.S. Government Printing Office. Phone 202�09512�091800, or 866�09512�091800 (toll-free). E-mail, [email protected].
+
+ COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
+
+ ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida, Chairman
+CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
+DAN BURTON, Indiana GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York
+ELTON GALLEGLY, California ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American
+DANA ROHRABACHER, California Samoa
+DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey
+EDWARD R. ROYCE, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
+STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
+RON PAUL, Texas GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
+MIKE PENCE, Indiana RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
+JOE WILSON, South Carolina ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
+CONNIE MACK, Florida GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
+JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
+MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas DENNIS CARDOZA, California
+TED POE, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
+GUS M. BILIRAKIS, Florida BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
+JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio ALLYSON SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
+BILL JOHNSON, Ohio CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
+DAVID RIVERA, Florida FREDERICA WILSON, Florida
+MIKE KELLY, Pennsylvania KAREN BASS, California
+TIM GRIFFIN, Arkansas WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
+TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
+JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina
+ANN MARIE BUERKLE, New York
+RENEE ELLMERS, North Carolina
+VACANT
+ Yleem D.S. Poblete, Staff Director
+ Richard J. Kessler, Democratic Staff Director
+
+
+ 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
+
+
+ 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.
+ ``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 Ros-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 hard-earned 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:]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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 Gingrich and Senator George
+Mitchell. The fruits of the Gingrich-Mitchell 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 anti-
+Israel 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, 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.
+
+ 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 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-IN-RESIDENCE,
+ 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.
+ 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,
+Secretary-General 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:]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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.
+ 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:]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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 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.
+ [The prepared statement of Mr. Yeo follows:]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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 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.
+ [The prepared statement of Mr. Quarterman follows:]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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 Oil-for-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 8\1/2\ 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 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:]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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.
+ 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 Division 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 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 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.
+ 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 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.
+ 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?
+ 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 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 anti-Colonial, 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.
+ 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 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 al-Qaeda 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.
+ 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 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.
+ 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 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.
+ 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 priorities, 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 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 Cash-for-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 1\1/2\ 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.
+ 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 47 countries, you would have more
+yes votes than no votes. So actually 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.
+ 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 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 one-on-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 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
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