During my time in graduate school, I plan on learning as much as I can, but I also plan on challenging myself. That was my motivation in covering the Heritage Foundation’s panel on reforming the United Nations this morning.
Admittedly, my knowledge of the UN is limited. If I have any regrets in my choice, it’s that I decided to cover a story about a topic that I did not have background knowledge to go off of.
In the end, while I probably should have chosen a topic I know better, I am grateful that I had this opportunity to get out into Washington, DC and cover a story featuring well-known newsmakers.
The Heritage Foundation and the UN
The United Nations has received of ample criticism in recent years, much of it coming from the Heritage Foundation. The conservative think tank hosted a discussion on what it sees as the organization’s needed reforms to coincide with the release of the book, “Conundrum: The Limits of the United Nations and the Search for Alternatives.”
Kim Holmes, vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the heritage foundation and assistant secretary of state under George W. Bush, gave his theory as to why the United States has had such a hard time instituting reform in the United Nations.
“All too often, the failures and inefficiencies of the UN are tolerated because to many people in New York . . . the United Nations is really more of an idea,” Holmes said. “It’s a process; it’s a way of life that’s actually an ideological cause more than it is a real institution that’s supposed to be held accountable for solving problems . . . and when it falls short, many people who look at it that way, say . . . ‘whatever you do, don’t hold it accountable because you’ll discredit the idea.’”
In addition to criticizing the United Nations, the speakers offered solutions they asserted would increase the accountability and transparency of the organizations’ programs.
Multiple panelists commented that the only way to force reform was to threaten the UN with financial consequences.
John Bolton, George W. Bush’s controversial pick for U.S. ambassador to the UN, has been pushing to make the funding the member organizations provide voluntary – meaning Congress can decide whether to allocate funds. He said, “If we push for this idea and Congress doesn’t see progress, Congress can withhold the funding.”
Bolton explained, “The record of existing UN agencies that have voluntary funding, I think, shows the wisdom [of making funding of the UN voluntary] – in the World Food Program, the High Commission for Refugees and others – these are some of the most efficient and effective and transparent UN agencies because their managers know that if they don’t perform, member governments can take their funding elsewhere.”
The Heritage Foundation has a history of criticizing the United Nations. According to Edwin Feulner, the Heritage Foundation’s president, foundation members began working on reforming the institution in 1982. He explained some of the findings.
“Our critical assessments [on the United Nations] have contributed to exposing mismanagement, inefficiency and abuse in the system and helped to advise the Congress in multiple administrations on strategies to address those challenges,” Feulner said.
Despite the criticism all the panelists offered of the United Nations, no one advocated for the United States pulling out of the organization completely. Regardless of the weakness they see in the institution as a whole, the speakers will willing to admit, as Holmes said, “the UN’s not a cause, it’s not just an idea. It’s a diplomatic tool like any other.”
“Just because we are critical, just because we say there are flaws, doesn’t mean . . . we can’t work with the UN, but it also means there may be other ways we have to work around it, to bypass it because at the end of the day, the very ideals the UN stands for – international peace, human rights and prosperity – these ideas are actually bigger than the UN,” Holmes said. “The UN alone cannot provide them, and if we’re going to exercise leadership by the United States, we have to find ways to work both in and outside the UN.”
