Growing U.S. Debt to the UN

The U.S. government is by far the largest debtor to the United Nations and is falling further behind in dues payments to the UN and its affiliated agencies.  As detailed in the chart below, the U.S. begins 2008 with $1.5 billion in arrears at the United Nations.  The President’s proposed budget for FY 2009 will likely push permanent U.S. debt to more than $2 billion.

Yet due to the fact that the U.S. typically pays its bills to the UN one year late, by which time new bills have already come in, the result is that the U.S. is rarely less than $2 billion behind in its payments to the United Nations.  Click here to view a presentation on U.S. debt to the UN.

Anticipated FY 2009 Budget Request for UN Peacekeeping 

*BWC estimates.  Press reports estimate State Department needs to be $1,979 million.

Debt in UN Peacekeeping

The first and largest source of permanent U.S. debt to the United Nations is U.S. government under-funding of UN peacekeeping missions.  This is debt that is being absorbed by allies that are providing troops for U.S.-endorsed peacekeeping missions—countries like India, Kenya, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.  It is growing even as the U.S. actively presses for more, renewed, and expanded UN peacekeeping missions, most notably of which is the joint UN-AU peacekeeping mission to Darfur. 

Congress and the Administration have taken some actions to address shortfalls to UN peacekeeping over this past year.  In the final FY 2008 appropriations deal, Congress increased the UN peacekeeping account by $583 million, $390 million to help address $724 million in supplemental FY 2008 funding needs for the UN-AU mission in Darfur and $193 million for peacekeeping shortfalls overall. 

Yet the final FY 2008 funding bill did not include $334 million still needed for Darfur.  And $861 million in other debt has not even begun to be addressed.  On top of this, the Administration’s FY 2009 budget request underfunds the UN peacekeeping account by another $610 million.  If left unaddressed, the U.S. will be headed well beyond $2 billion in permanent debt at the UN by the end of 2008. 
 
U.S. dues for UN peacekeeping are obligations undertaken by signing the UN Charter and by voting for peacekeeping missions in the Security Council.  The current situation—where the U.S. calls and votes for the UN to undertake more and bigger peacekeeping missions while not paying its bills—is not sustainable and not consistent with U.S. treaty obligations.  Given that the UN’s total regular and peacekeeping budget is only about $10 billion per year, these arrears have the potential to destabilize the UN’s operations, including already-overstretched peacekeeping operations, and threaten the only lifelines available to citizens in some of the most dangerous and unstable regions of the world.   

Debt in UN Regular Budget

U.S. debt in the regular UN budget has also increased recently; the U.S. has $291 million in permanent arrears—an amount that is growing from recent exchange rate losses and other shortfalls.  The permanent arrears in the regular budget stem from past under-funding to the State Department’s Contributions to International Organizations (CIO) account.  This account covers U.S. treaty obligations at the UN and 43 other international treaty organizations, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), NATO, and the World Health Organization (WHO).