The United States, as the country with the greatest GDP in the world, has the highest assessed payments for UNESCO. The rate is set for the United Nations as a whole, and currently is 22 percent of the regular budget of the organization. That is more than $60 million per year.The Obama administration proposes the appropriations but under the American Constitution, the budget power lies in the Congress. Thus the annual appropriation for UNESCO depends on an agreement between the Senate and the House of Representatives. The State Department can argue for a budget figure, but can not decide for the Government.
There are factions in the United States who are strongly opposed to UNESCO. They include some who are afraid of international influence on our locally controlled school boards, some who are afraid of international influence on our national parks and bioreserves, and some who just don't like international organizations of any kind. In the administration of Ronald Reagan these factions combined and were reinforced by others concerned with the administration of UNESCO by Amadou M'Bow, and still others who were concerned by the debate over the "New World Information Order" taking place in UNESCO. Together their influence was sufficient to cause the United States to withdraw from UNESCO.
One candidate for the post of Director General of UNESCO worries me because his election might catalyze the creation of a similar coalition in the next few years. Farouk Hosny's record as Minister of Culture of Egypt has caused a number of organizations defending freedom of the press, notable Reporters Without Borders, to oppose his candidacy. Those groups have considerable support and influence within the United States.
He also has a history of making apparently anit-Israeli and anti-Jewish statements, and his candidacy has been met with fierce opposition on that basis, lead by organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League. These groups also have considerable influence in Congress.
What if these and other groups opposing Hosny combine to lobby Congress to starve UNESCO's finances until he leaves?
The problem is compounded by the fact that the constituencies in the United States that support UNESCO are much less organized than those mentioned above, and not very effective in influencing legislation.
Congress need not refuse to fund UNESCO to have an impact. The United States Congress frequently allows arrears to build up in its contributions to United Nations organizations, and apparently sometimes uses that as a tactic to force changes that it desires. The last time I looked, the U.S. arrears to UNESCO were in excess of $90 million. For an organization with a regular budget of some $300 million per year, that deficit causes grave management problems.
This situation is quite difficult for U.S. diplomats to explain without appearing to be making threats. However, the statement
If UNESCO's governance elects Farouk Hosny to head the organization the U.S. Congress may impose financial sanctionsis no more a threat than to say
If you fail to get a flu shot you may catch the fluBoth are simply realistic predictions
The reality, as I see it, is that U.S. diplomats have a responsibility to inform their diplomatic colleagues from other delegations how the Congress may respond to their actions. In fact, I think the Obama administration is far more open to majority decisions by the member states of international organizations than are the Congressional budget processes. Those Congressional processes are subject to influence by organized lobbying groups; coalition of relatively small groups not only may impose their strongly felt positions on the unorganized majority, but often do.
6 comments:
So does all of that seem normal? That Unesco members should vote under the duressto of blackmail from powerful lobby groups and bigots in Congress who are dogmatically opposed to multilateralism? So much for democracy! God help us.
I don't know about "normal" but it does seem to occur often. Unfortunately we elect real people to political office, not saints. As compared with the current debate on health care, the UNESCO budget debate is blessed by the absence of those with huge financial interests, by the absence of lobbyists for those interests, and with the absence of opportunities for grandstanding before the press.
As Churchill suggested, the only justification for democracy is that it is better than the other systems of governance we have so far invented. The squeamish should avoid seeing how laws and sausage are made!
um, yes, but the whole thrust of your article is clearly to suggest that if Hosny is elected, the most powerful lobbies of all in Congress will act to cut off funding - that is if they don't manage to force another withdrawal of the US all together. And so I repeat my question: is it normal for the members of Unesco to be held to ransom in their choice of director by the threat and blackmail of one member state's domestic lobby groups, however powerful the state in question may be?
Six countries provide 2/3rds of the UNESCO regular budget, so there are few countries that have the power to exercise financial influence over UNESCO.
My impression is that they and other countries do lean on the organization to get their way. Indeed, that is why the governance of UNESCO is entrusted to representatives from member states.
The United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore actually did quit UNESCO. Russia refused to join for several years after UNESCO was founded. In the McCarthy years, the United States forced seven American members of the secretariat out on charges that they were Communists.
Of course the influence of the powers that pay the UNESCO bills pales before the influence of the G77 countries that vote as a block. Those countries too act in response to domestic pressures.
Incidentally, the anti-UN, pro-freedom of speech and pro-Israeli lobbies are not in my opinion the most powerful lobbies in the American Congress. Think about the AARP, the financial industries or the military-industrial complex.
The U.S. contribution to UNESCO is lost in the noise in the U.S. government appropriations. Because it is comparatively small, I believe a few small but committed lobbies can impact the UNESCO appropriation, since they are unlikely to be balanced by countervailing pro-UNESCO forces.
My flu analogy was carefully chosen. If you don't get the immunization you still probably won't get the disease, and even if you do get the shot, you may get the flu anyway. The election of Hosny may have negative impacts and electing another doesn't guarantee (in this economic climate) that the Congress will pay our arrears.
I recently read an Egyptian publication that reviewed a long series of public gaffs made by Hosny that would have long ago destroyed the career of a Western politician, and summarized his performance as Minister of Culture as mediocre. It seemed surprised that the U.S. would oppose such a candidate. I am not. Nor would I characterize the possibility that the Congress would respond negatively to his election as "holding UNESCO to ransom."
But again, my point was not to make a threat. I have much more experience as a Congress watcher than most people and I wanted to share the impression based on that experience as to what the legislature might do in response to a Hosny election.
Woops! I hit the wrong button and accidentally rejected this comment from an anonymous reader.
"Sorry, but are you seriously suggesting that the AARP is a more powerful lobby than AIPAC - the lobby group that gave Congress the reputation of being "Israel's other occupied territory"? And the whole thrust of your article, I repeat, is to help scare any wavering voter into turning against Hosny by invoking the prospect of a lobby-driven cut-off of US budget contributions or an outright withdrawal. Incidentally, this is the very argument David Killion has been using in Unesco to strong-arm the swing-voters into voting for someone else. But then he has a long history of serving AIPAC's interests from the days when he worked for Berman and Lantos. But then are you going to censor this information the way you censored it on your "neutral" election page? The irony is that Hosny as DG would probably do far more to advance Israel's true interests than anyone else precisely because of his background in an Egyptian government that has actually made peace with Israel and who would be far better placed than a Bulgarian to bridge the divide in that region. A further irony is that you make great play of censorship in Egypt and yet are quite happy to practise it on your own websites. Now print that if you dare!"
The United States Congress, composed of 535 elected members and thousands of staff members should not and can not be understood as if it were a single person. When it passes a bill, that action is best understood as the result of a complex process of interaction of many forces. And I admit that there are thousands of people more expert on the Congress than I, including incidentally David Killion.
A lobby such as AARP and AIPAC will tend to be influential on some issues and not on others. AARP, with over 35 million dues paying members, focuses on issues such as retirement pensions and health care. When its members are virtually unanimous on an issue within its area of interest, AARP is very powerful indeed. I think the likelihood of Congress changing Social Security entitlements over the objection of the AARP is virtually nil.
AIPAC is also very powerful on issues relating to Israel on which its constituents agree. This is in part due to wider support that Israel has in the American public and in part due to the lack of opposition lobbies exercising countervailing influence.
How do you compare the power of two lobbies focusing on different issues. People? AARP's members control most of the wealth in the United States and are on average much more politically active then the average citizen; AIPAC has fewer people with fewer resources. Influence over government resources? The entitlements to older citizens influenced by AARP dwarf the amount spent on subsidies to Israel.
And finally, yes I believe it is likely that Ambassador Killion may have been explaining to his colleagues in Paris, based on his long experience in the Congress, what the Congress is likely to do under different circumstances. My point is that a prediction of a consequence of Executive Board action is not a threat but a prediction.
You predict that Hosny will do more good for Israel than would Bokova, now the most likely alternative candidate. Your argument that an Egyptian cultural expert who has opposed normalization of relations with for decades would be more likely to promote Israeli interests than an experienced senior diplomat from a neutral country is interesting but not convincing to me.
What do you think are the the likely comparative impacts on the relations between Russia and the West? Between China, India and Pakistan? Among African nations and among warring tribes within African nations.
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