Ileana Ros-Lehtinen Unveils UN Funding Reform

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the chairwoman of the House Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee, brought back a bill withholding American funding of the United Nations until waste is reduced and anti-Israel bias are eliminated. 

Ros-Lehtinen reintroduced her “United Nations Transparency, Accountability and  Reform Act” on Thursday. The bill also moves UN funding to more voluntary contributions.

The South Florida congresswomen insisted tyrannical governments had too much power in the UN. 

“As the UN General Assembly continues its 70th session, we are reminded again that this broken institution is in dire need of reform,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “Repressive and corrupt regimes like Cuba, Iran, Russia, China, Syria, and North Korea have effectively taken the United Nations hostage, shielding each other from accountability and justice while doing serious harm to the UN’s stated objectives. The Palestinian Authority continues to exploit the UN system to pursue unilateral statehood outside of direct negotiations with Israel, an effort that not only circumvents the rule of law and the Palestinians’ international agreements and obligations but is counterproductive to the peace process itself. Some of the world’s most authoritarian states have commandeered the Human Rights Council in order to deflect attention away from their human rights violations and have done lasting damage to the cause of human rights in the process. With over 250,000 dead in Syria and Assad continuing to use barrel bombs and chemical warfare against his own people, the Human Rights Council has maintained its anti-Israel bias, passing almost twice as many resolutions against the democratic Jewish state as it has against Assad in recent years.

“My bill would help reform the UN by conditioning US contributions and shifting from an assessed to a voluntary funding mechanism,” Ros-Lehtinen added. “By incentivizing transparency, accountability, and reform, we can stop rewarding the bad behavior that has led to the UN’s current state of dysfunction and ensure it gets back to working on the goals it was created for: international peace, security, and human rights.”