Global Policy Forum

By Christopher S. Wren

United Nations - With fewer than 100 days left before the United States faces losing its General Assembly vote for not paying its dues, some members of Congress said on Monday that sufficient support exists on Capitol Hill to pay much of what is owed to the United Nations.

But they said that President Clinton as well as the Republican leadership in Congress had to give the problem higher priority in negotiating a budget that would begin releasing the nearly $1 billion in payments that already has been appropriated. "I think the president is going to have to be a little more outspoken," Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., said. If Clinton presses Congress on the arrears, Shays said, "his efforts will pay off." But Shays added: "He's going to have to make it clear that this has to be in the budget."

Rep. Nita M. Lowey, D-N.Y., said that Congress needs a wake-up call. "To be the biggest deadbeat at the U.N. is wrong, is embarrassing, is outrageous," Ms. Lowey said. Shays and Ms. Lowey visited the United Nations on Monday to focus attention on paying the American debt to the world organization. They were joined by Rep. Eliot L. Engel, another New York Democrat, and Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio.

By the end of August, the United States had run up $1.739 billion in unpaid dues and other assessments, according to Joseph E. Connor, the U.N. undersecretary for management. By the end of September, he said, he expected some American payments to trim the arrears to $1.546 billion. Washington estimates that it owes $1.025 billion, the amount that Congress and the administration agreed to set aside.

The remaining $521 million in dispute includes $324 million in differences over how much the United States should be assessed for peacekeeping missions, $97 million in costs that the United States has refused to pay for its own policy reasons, and $100 million tied up in a dispute about double taxation of Americans employed by the United Nations. The U.N. Charter says that member states whose arrears total more than their assessed dues for two years automatically lose their vote in the General Assembly, which could happen on Jan. 1, 2000.