US Debt to UN

Lois sent us interns an e-mail the other day about a document (initiated by the Better World Campaign) that urges the United States government to pay our past debt and present obligations to the UN and other  international organizations.  From the document:

"As of February 1, 2008, the United States was $2.8 billion behind in its payments to the UN.   U.S. debt to the UN includes $1.2 billion in so-called permanent debt—unpaid bills that remain unaddressed by the Administration’s FY 2008 supplemental and FY 2009 regular budget requests.   This permanent debt will increase by another $600 million unless the Congress includes UN funding beyond the amount requested in the Administration’s FY 2009 budget.   The rest of our debt results from the regular U.S. practice of paying virtually every international organization a year or more late, by which time new bills have already come in."   

What does this mean practically?  It means that the US is not honoring its commitments.  The growing debt shortchanges peacekeeping missions that the US has already approved and voted for, and lessens the ability of the UN to implement other agreed upon reforms.

You can find more information at the Better World Campaign site here.

To take action, you can write to your state senators and representatives asking them to call for more funding to pay off our debts to the UN.  To find the address of your representative click here, for senators click here.

Any responses or comments?  The issue can be a controversial one, and there haven't been a lot of articles  in the press recently about the subject.  What do you think?

(Photo courtesy of flickr user Christopher Chan under a creative commons license.)