Existing Law Requires US to Cut Funding if UN Rejects Israel’s Credentials

Excerpt

Leading members of Congress have recently sent letters and introduced bills threatening to cut UN funding if the General Assembly votes to support a rumored Palestinian move to reject Israel’s credentials to participate in that body. Surprisingly, neither the letters nor the bills mention that U.S. law already requires the U.S. to slash UN funding if Israel’s participation is halted. The best way to deter the General Assembly from taking such an outrageous step is to make it clear that U.S. defunding is not a mere possibility, dependent on the bills passing, but a certainty.

Buried deep in the statutory notes section of the U.S. code is a legally binding provision, passed in 1983, which specifies that “[i]f Israel is illegally expelled, suspended, denied its credentials, or in any other manner denied its right to participate in any principal or subsidiary organ or in any specialized, technical, or other agency of the United Nations, the United States shall suspend its participation in any such organ or agency until the illegal action is reversed.” The provision adds that “[t]he United States shall reduce its annual assessed contribution to the United Nations or such specialized agency by 8.34 percent for each month in which United States participation is suspended pursuant to this section.” 

This existing law’s consequences are comparable to those contained in the bills introduced, with dozens of cosponsors, in the House on August 16 and in the Senate on November 13. The existing law is more robust in that it would require the U.S to suspend its participation in (and not merely defund) the offending UN organ or agency, and slightly less robust in that it would reduce the U.S. contribution by 8.34 percent per month rather than immediately to zero. Neither the existing law nor the bills provide the president with the ability to waive the specified consequences. Most importantly, the existing law is already in place, in time to deter the General Assembly from acting in December.

Orde F. Kittrie is Senior Fellow of Foundation for Defense of Democracies and law professor for Arizona State University.