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“THE UNITED NATIONS REFORM ACT OF 2005” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4376-H4377 on June 13, 2005.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
THE UNITED NATIONS REFORM ACT OF 2005
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kuhl of New York). Under a previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the Members about the United Nations Reform Act of 2005, which the House will be considering on Thursday of this week. I would like to commend the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde), whose skillful leadership was essential in both crafting and moving this important bill through committee, and I would like to thank the House leadership, whose commitment and support to this legislation of global importance has been critical to moving it swiftly to the House floor for consideration.
The United Nations Reform Act of 2005, Mr. Speaker, aims to institute long-overdue U.N. reforms by addressing and correcting the numerous scandals and institutional failings that have characterized the United Nations, a flawed structure that gives rise to discrimination and negligence at best, and corruption, profiteering, and collusion at worst.
The Oil-for-Food scandal is a primary example of these failings. As a result of the mismanagement of the contracts, out right graft and corruption when the administration of the Oil-for-Food program by the U.N. staff and by Saddam Hussein was implemented, it not only made a mockery of the humanitarian aid program, but it collected an estimated
$20 billion while the U.N. turned its head. Yet the Oil-for-Food program is but one example of an institution that is rife with financial scandal.
Some other notable examples include in 1995, for example, scandal consumed the Kenya office of UNICEF, the U.N. body created to provide assistance to the world's disadvantaged children, when that office defrauded or squandered up to $10 million in agency funds. Another example, in 1996, a senior U.N. official at the United Nation's Conference on Trade and Development, the body providing technical assistance for the least developed countries, was investigated on suspicion of embezzling between $200,000 and $600,000.
Another example, in 1997, 16 past or present employees of the United Nations Development Programme, which was created to help countries design and carry out development programs in poverty eradication, employment creation, and sustainable livelihoods, they were placed under investigation after more than $6 million was siphoned off over an 8-year period.
To combat these deficiencies, the United Nations Reform Act before us this week has built in budget certification requirements, accountability provisions to address the mismanagement and the corruption, including: holding the United Nations Secretary General accountable to certify that the United Nations' budget is maintained at the approved level; two, requiring that the U.N. budget be more transparent by requiring more details on the budget categories; three, creating an Office of Internal Oversight Services and the Board of External Auditors, including the ability to appoint a special investigator and staff to investigate matters involving senior United Nations officials and also creating an Office of Ethics which will be responsible for creating and managing a code of ethics for all United Nations employees, including education and annual training and publishing of U.N. staff salaries.
The scandals involving U.N. peacekeeping are even more horrible than these. One example, Mr. Speaker, while I finish this Special Order, of these terrible crimes is appalling and unacceptable, but, unbelievable, the appearances of crimes involving sexual misconduct on the part of U.N. peacekeepers over the past decade have become frequent to include incidents of, for example, the Congo, where the U.N. peacekeepers and civilian personnel stand accused of widespread exploitation in a sexual manner of refugees; two, Burundi, where two U.N. peacekeepers were suspended following allegations of sexual misconduct; three, Sierra Leone, where U.N. peacekeepers were accused by Human Rights Watch of systematic rape of women; and, four, Bosnia, where the U.N. police mission was accused of misconduct, of corruption, and sexual trafficking.
This is just horrendous. The U.N. repeatedly and reportedly quashed an investigation into involvement of U.N. police in enslavement of Eastern European women in Bosnian brothels.
In response, the bill before us, Mr. Speaker, is going to have some provision to deter these horrible incidents and bring a level of respect to the United Nations, and I hope that our colleagues will support this Hyde bill this week.
Among others, it includes provisions that mandate the: adoption of a minimum standard of qualifications for senior leaders and managers; adoption of a uniform Code of Conduct which applies equally to all personnel serving in U.N. peacekeeping operations regardless of category or rank; written acknowledgement by personnel sent as peacekeepers that misconduct may include immediate termination of participation in an operation; and establishment of a permanent, professional, and independent investigative body dedicated to United Nations peacekeeping.
It is monstrous that an international organization charged with operating peacekeeping missions around the world and with assisting nations to rebuild after major turmoil has experienced an alarming number of scandals involving sexual exploitation, rape, sex trafficking, misconduct, harassment, and other criminal acts.
However, not only has systemic mismanagement and corruption been a recurring characteristic of the United Nations, but the U.N. organization is being corroded by discrimination against Israel and anti-Semitism as never before.
The viciousness with which Israel continues to be attacked at the U.N., and the reluctance of Member states to defend Israel or to accord it the same treatment as other countries, suggests that there is a considerable anti-Semitic component behind the policies pursued in U.N. forums.
In addition to multiple manifestations of anti-Semitism at the U.N., the most notorious being the 1975 U.N. General Assembly resolution equating Zionism, the national liberation movement of the Jewish people, with racism, Israel continues to be subject to debilitating forms of discrimination within that organization.
Israel is not allowed to present candidacies for open seats in any U.N. body, is not able to compete for major U.N. bodies, and cannot participate in U.N. conferences on human rights, racism and a number of other issues.
By contrast, there are several U.N. groups devoted to ``Palestinian Rights,'' and a disproportionate representation of Palestinian issues through different committees and commissions.
This Act seeks to end discrimination against Israel in the United Nations system and ensure fairness and objectivity in the United Nations' handling of Israeli-Palestinian issues by: expanding WEOG to afford Israel permanent membership in this group with full rights and privileges; mandating a State Department review and assessment of the work performed by the various United Nations commissions, committees, and offices focusing exclusively on the Palestinian agenda, followed by the submission of a report recommending areas for reform, including proposals for the elimination by the U.N. of such duplicative entities and efforts; and withholding proportional U.S. contributions to the United Nations until such time as the recommendations are implemented.
The Commission on Human Rights and its feeder body, ECOSOC, are also emblematic of these deficiencies within the U.N. system.
There remains great difficulty in securing support for condemnations of gross human rights violators, when the worst offenders sit on the actual Committee, dictate the agenda and block any meaningful resolutions from being adopted.
Yet, there have been few condemnations and measures, if any, addressing the continuing gross human rights violations by serial abusers such as Iran and Syria.
While gross human rights offenders such as Syria, Libya, Iran, and Saudi Arabia have been members of this U.N. human rights body, these regimes have not been censured, condemned, or held accountable in any way for their deplorable human rights record.
In response, among other provisions, this Act stipulates that: a Member State that fails to uphold the values embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or are under U.N. Security Council sanctions be ineligible for membership on any United Nations human rights body; secret voting in the Economic and Social Council should be abolished, and a recorded vote must be conducted to determine such membership of the Commission; and countries that meet that criteria should be ineligible for membership on the Commission.
Similarly at the IAEA we remain concerned that serial proliferators continue to be accorded full rights and responsibilities within this organization.
A few years ago, proliferators such as Iran and Iraq, who was under Security Council sanctions at the time, were scheduled to serve as Chairs of the Conference on Disarmament.
Iran, a nation who continues to be under investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) due to its breaches and failures of its safeguards obligations, served on the Board of Governors of the IAEA.
Countries who are in non-compliance of their obligations under international agreements and in violation of the rules that serve as the basis for individual U.N. bodies, cannot and must not be entrusted with the enforcement of those very rules and obligations.
This Act addresses these and other concerns by seeking the establishment of: an Office of Compliance and Enforcement within the Secretariat of the lAEA to function as an independent body of technical experts that will assess the activities of Member States and recommend specific penalties for those that are in breach or violation of their obligations; and a Special Committee on Safeguards and Verification to advise the IAEA Board of Governors on additional measures necessary to enhance the agency's ability to detect undeclared activities by member nations.
Furthermore, it seeks the suspension of privileges for Member States that are under investigation, or are in breach or non-compliance of their obligations, and seeks to establish Membership criteria that would keep such rogue states as Iran and Syria from serving on the IAEA Board of Governors.
The IAEA section of this Act reinforces U.S. priorities concerning the safety of nuclear materials and counter proliferation by: calling for U.S. voluntary contributions to the lAEA to primarily be used to fund activities relating to Nuclear Security or Nuclear Verification and inspections; by seeking to prioritize funding for inspection to focus on countries of proliferation concern; by seeking to prevent states-sponsors of terrorism, proliferations, and countries under IAEA investigation from benefiting from certain IAEA assistance programs.
The United Nations Reform Act of 2005 also ensures transparency in the IAEA budget process by calling for a detailed breakdown of expenditures.
The U.N. is accountable to neither taxpayers nor voters.
As a safeguard, the United Nations Reform Act of 2005 targets crucial areas of the U.N. organization to ensure that U.S. taxpayer money hauled off to Turtle Bay is spent in an efficient, transparent, and accountable manner.
Additionally, the bill empowers the Administration to fix the U.N. by making it very clear that U.S. funding to that body will be drastically cut unless the U.N. takes the appropriate actions to save itself.
I look forward to Thursday's debate and ask my colleagues to render their full support to this much-needed legislation.
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