United Nations: Overview

Introduction

The United Nations (UN) is a global association of governments that facilitates cooperation in international law, security, economic development, and social equity. It was founded in 1945 and counts 193 nations as members. One of its six main bodies is the UN Economic and Social Council, which includes five regional commissions—the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), the Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA)—that promote growth in nations around the world.

The United States is a charter member of the United Nations. There has been increasing friction between the United States and the UN since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s, to the extent that some have advocated complete US withdrawal from the organization. Most critics, however, seek reform rather than withdrawal. Areas of contention have included internal corruption, dues assessments and US arrears in dues, UN weakness in peacekeeping and human rights, a perceived anti-US and anti-Israel bias, the International Criminal Court, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, a perceived unwillingness to push back against China, and a fear of the loss of US national sovereignty.

For years, the United States deliberately maintained arrears in its assessed dues in protest against the UN. Bills have been introduced to Congress to cut US contributions to the UN unless reforms are enacted, but these bills have not come to a vote. Other bills have called for the United States to withdraw from the UN.

Even many supporters of the UN agree that reform is needed to remove corruption and inefficiency. However, many of these supporters maintain that the United States has done no more than any other member state to bring about these reforms. They also argue that because peacekeeping efforts rely on the willingness of the participants to seek peace, it is not fair to blame the UN for failing to maintain peace when disputants think war will better serve their interests.

Understanding the Discussion

Arrears: An overdue payment or payments.

Cold War: The unarmed ideological conflict that took place between the United States and the Soviet Union from approximately 1947 to 1991.

General Assembly: The principal organization of the United Nations, composed of all member states, which sets budgets and supervises the other bodies.

International Criminal Court: An international court established to try war crimes.

National Sovereignty: The right of a nation to govern itself without interference.

Security Council: The fifteen-member body charged with peacekeeping. The five permanent members of the council are the United States, the United Kingdom, France, the People’s Republic of China (formerly represented by the Republic of China, also known as Taiwan), and the Russian Federation (formerly the Soviet Union), any of which can veto a Security Council resolution. The other ten members of the council rotate on a staggered basis.

Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD): Weapons capable of causing death and/or widespread damage on an immense scale; may be nuclear, chemical, radiological, biological, or other.

History

The United Nations was founded in 1945, the brainchild of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom. After World War II ended in 1945, world leaders and governing bodies established organizations such as the World Bank, the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, and the International Monetary Fund in order to prevent the economic depressions and instability that had characterized the years following World War I. The United Nations, which was the successor to the failed League of Nations, was intended to keep the peace and to promote human rights, justice, and social progress.

Under the rules of the United Nations Charter, member states must, within their own territories, afford the UN and its representatives “such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the fulfilment of its purposes”; however, the UN is expressly forbidden from intervening in domestic disputes. Further, peacekeeping troops can only be deployed if the main disputants consent, and they are only authorized to use force in self-defense or defense of their mandate.

While early observers reported that Americans were more optimistic about the UN than were officials of other nations, there was also ambivalence from the beginning. The United States was often reluctant to grant diplomatic visas to officials from communist countries, and Congress was concerned about loss of sovereignty. In particular, it was feared that US troops could be committed to war against the desire of the US government. In the same year the UN was founded, Congress passed the UN Participation Act, which required the president to obtain approval from Congress before sending US troops on UN military missions.

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan withdrew from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), charging that the organization was corrupt and anti-American and that it politicized cultural issues. Critics of the UN called it dysfunctional and argued that American taxpayers should not pay UN dues until the organization reformed itself. The United Kingdom and Singapore also withdrew from UNESCO soon after, though both subsequently rejoined, as did the United States in 2003.

A total of thirteen peacekeeping missions were sent out between 1945 and 1990, including to the newly established state of Israel, the Suez Canal, and the Belgian Congo. But overriding all other situations were the tensions of the Cold War. The sudden collapse of the Soviet states in Eastern Europe in 1989 changed the expectations and duties of the UN as armed conflicts broke out throughout the region, straining the UN’s resources and organization. In 1990, eight peacekeeping missions were sent to trouble spots, and the UN was sharply criticized for failing to stop the violence in Bosnia in particular.

Toward the end of the twentieth century, UN peacekeeping efforts faltered. Although a UN-sanctioned military force, led by the United States, successfully repelled Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1991, subsequent missions failed to end the violence in Somalia and Bosnia. Also during this period, US officials began demanding that dues assessments for the United States be reduced from 25 percent of the UN’s operating budget and 31 percent of its peacekeeping budget to 22 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Arrears had risen to US$1.6 billion, and the UN threatened to censure the United States and revoke its voting privileges for nonpayment of dues.

In February 2001, after the UN reduced the US assessment to 22 percent of the operating budget and 26.5 percent of the peacekeeping budget, the Senate approved payment of US$582 million in back dues. In May, however, US officials were infuriated when, for the first time, the United States did not win reelection to the UN Commission on Human Rights, while the four African seats on the commission were all occupied by countries with poor human rights records. This angered UN supporters and critics alike and led the US House of Representatives to vote to withhold payment until the United States was reinstated. The measure was not passed by the Senate.

In August, the House had yet to approve the first payment, and the Republican-controlled Congress, led by House Majority Whip Tom DeLay, attempted to link payment of the debt to a bill that would exempt US troops from war-crimes prosecution by the new International Criminal Court, which would begin operations in The Hague the following year. After the September 2001 terrorist attacks, however, the House quickly and unanimously approved the US$582 million payment in order to make it easier for President George W. Bush to enlist the organization’s support.

The United States and the United Nations clashed again in 2002 over Iraq. Although the Security Council responded to Bush’s request for action by passing Resolution 1441, which issued an ultimatum to Iraqi president Saddam Hussein to comply with previous resolutions and returned UN inspectors to the country to search for weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the council would not authorize military action. The Bush administration later argued that UN approval of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq had been implied by the terms of Resolution 1441.

In 2005, Democrats and some Republicans refused to allow a vote on Bush’s nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN, charging that Bolton, an outspoken critic of the organization, would only worsen relations between it and the United States. Bush appointed Bolton during Congress’s recess. Bolton served for one year before announcing his resignation in December 2006, when it became clear that he would not receive congressional approval.

In 2009, for the first time in more than a decade, the United States cleared its debt to the UN, paying all dues owed under the direction of the newly elected President Barack Obama. However, infighting in Congress hampered subsequent efforts to maintain payment in full; Congress must approve the amount of money the various federal agencies are authorized to spend each fiscal year, and often the amount authorized for payment of UN dues is less than the amount owed, though sufficient to maintain the United States’ vote in the General Assembly. In 2014, the United States owed approximately US$800 million to the UN’s regular budget and $337 million to its peacekeeping budget; by 2021, the US owed the UN a total of nearly $2 billion.

In December 2016, the UN Security Council declared that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem violate international law and demanded an end to further construction. The condemnation made waves particularly because US ambassador Samantha Power abstained from the vote, rather than vetoing in support of Israel. Power and Secretary of State John Kerry defended the decision, stating that without an end to settlements, the two-state solution for peace is greatly imperilled. This action infuriated Israelis, who felt betrayed by the Obama administration. Then president-elect Donald Trump, Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, and leading Democratic senator Chuck Schumer all criticized the move as well.

Trump has argued that the United States contributes too much to the UN budget. According to PolitiFact, by 2017, the United States was paying about $3.3 billion toward the UN, constituting 22 percent of its regular budget and about 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget. In March 2017, President Trump put forth a budget blueprint that would stop funding UN climate funds and restrict US contributions to the peacekeeping budget to 25 percent. Human Rights Watch and UN diplomats feared that such cuts would devastate world humanitarian programs.

In December 2017, despite warnings from the Trump administration, the UN General Assembly voted 128–9 to condemn the controversial US decision to move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. In the wake of this vote, the Trump administration continued to press for cuts to US funding for the UN; while Congress was able to block many of these proposed cuts, the US did plan to withhold more than $25 million from UN human rights programs in 2018.

United Nations Today

In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic spread to many countries around the world, the US began to sharply criticize the pandemic response of the World Health Organization (WHO), a UN agency dedicated to international public health. In particular, the US felt that the WHO had failed to hold China accountable for its handling of the initial outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Wuhan, China. Amidst mounting criticism of the WHO from the Trump administration, the US submitted its formal withdrawal from the WHO in July 2020.

After Joe Biden was elected president in the 2020 US presidential election and took office in January 2021, he attempted to reaffirm his country's commitment to the UN. On his first day as president, Biden reversed the US withdrawal from the WHO. He also restored much of the UN funding previously cut by the Trump administration, and at the UN Climate Summit in November 2021, pledged to recommit the US to the organization's efforts to combat climate change.

At the end of February 2022, the US was also involved in the UN's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24. As a permanent member of the Security Council, the US voted in favor of a resolution to condemn the invasion and call for an immediate Russian withdrawal from Ukraine; however, Russia, exercising its own privilege as a permanent member of the Security Council, vetoed the resolution. On February 28, the US expelled twelve Russian UN diplomats from the country, accusing them of spying on behalf of the Russian government.

The UN continued to officially support Ukrainian soveriegnty and condemn the Russian invasion as the conflict dragged on throughout 2023 and into 2024; during that time, multiple UN agencies provided humanitarian aid to Ukraine. Other conflicts during the early 2020s drew the UN's attention and provoked discussion over the agency's ability to mediate conflicts, as well as debate over the relationship between the US and the UN. Perhaps most notably, starting in October 2023, the UN drew significant criticism from different quarters for its response to a major escalation of the conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian political and military organization designated as a terrorist group by the US, Israel, and a number of other nations.

This major escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict was sparked by a series of Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians and military forces on October 7, 2023, which resulted in 1,200 deaths and hundreds of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas; in response, Israel began bombarding Gaza and eventually launched a ground invasion of the territory. By March 2024 roughly 30,000 Palestinians had been killed, over half of them civilians, and, according to the UN, another 1.9 million, or 85 percent of the population of Gaza, had been displaced.

The intensity of Israel's military response and the high number of civilian casualties caused significant global controversy. In December 2023 South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), one of the UN's six major bodies. While dozens of countries backed South Africa's case and the court conceded that some actions of Israel's military met the conditions of genocide, the case also led some supporters of Israel to accuse the ICJ, as well as the UN as a whole, of having an anti-Israel bias. Another scandal during this time, namely the accusation by Israel that some employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, which was the largest aid organization in Gaza, had assisted Hamas during its October 2023 attacks against Israel, was held up as further evidence of this alleged anti-Israel bias.

In response to the UNRWA scandal, a number of countries suspended funding to the organization; notably, the US, which was the UNRWA's largest financial supporter and provider of $344 million for the organization in 2022, halted funding. Meanwhile, the US remained one of Israel's most powerful allies in the UN; for example, in February 2024, the US vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. In March 2024 the government of Israel and a number of US lawmakers praised a report by the UN which offered evidence to support claims that Hamas militants had committed acts of sexual violence against Israelis during the October 7 attacks. By that time, many Palestinians faced severe food shortages, and some UN representatives warned of a famine in Gaza and accused Israel of not allowing enough aid in for the population to survive.

Much US opposition to the UN has been fueled by a fear that the organization is a threat to the nation’s sovereignty. A few bills have been introduced calling for the United States to withdraw from the UN and to expel the UN from the United States, though these measures have not had much support. On the other side of the issue, some UN supporters charge that the United States has used the organization for its own purposes and applaud what they describe as brief, sporadic attempts by the UN to oppose the imperialism of the world's only surviving superpower. Many failures of the UN, some argue, are largely due to US actions and pressures.

These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

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