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Introduction
Claims of a U.S. "debt" to the United Nations have been around for quite some
time. Supporters of that claim cannot seem to agree on the amount, however. The United
Nations Association asserts, for example, that, as of January 1998, the United States owed
$1.6 billion to the UN, yet the U.S. Department of State requested just $1.021 billion to
cover alleged arrears to the UN. More recently, UN secretary general Kofi Annan put the
amount at $1.3 billion.1 Such a wide range of estimates by itself should create skepticism
about the validity of the debt.
In his state of the union address to Congress on January 27, 1998, President
Clinton highlighted the debt issue, saying, "It's long past time to make good on our debt to
the United Nations.2 Television coverage of the speech showed that most Democrats
stood and applauded the president's remarks. But the United Nations Association, a pro-
UN group, detected bipartisan support for the president, noting that Rep. Newt Gingrich
(R-Ga.), Speaker of the House of Representatives, "responded affirmatively to the
President's comments."3 Indeed, Gingrich also stood and applauded.
At a World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a few days later, Gingrich
enthusiastically endorsed payment of the "debt," saying, "I believe passionately that we
should pay our funding of the United Nations. I think the United States has an obligation
to keep its word when it gives it."4 It was also reported that Gingrich and Kofi Annan
discussed the U.S. "debt" to the United Nations, in what a UN spokesman said was an
"encouraging talk."5
President Clinton is counting on the speaker to guide through the House legisla-
tion to pay the alleged debt. In a February 2 letter to Gingrich, President Clinton pro-
posed paying $1.021 billion in U.S. "arrears" to the United Nations and other international
organizations.6 In a subsequent statement, the State Department insisted that payments of
such arrearages would "meet obligations of membership in international multilateral
organizations, pursuant to treaties ratified pursuant to the advice and consent of the
Senate, conventions or specific acts of Congress."7
Thus, the administration's position is that paying the so-called debt is a legal or
treaty obligation and that Congress has no alternative except to pay up. That position is
also taken by the United Nations Association and seven former secretaries of state who
signed a letter to Rep. Benjamin Gilman (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House International
Relations Committee, contending that payment of the "debt" constitutes fulfillment of
"legal obligations" to the United Nations. Signers included Henry Kissinger, George P.
Shultz, James A. Baker III, Warren M. Christopher, Alexander M. Haig, Cyrus R. Vance,
and Lawrence S. Eagleburger.8