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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2009
Several categories of suggestions have been put forth in recent years aimed at the relief of the financial problems of the United Nations. Major attention in the United Nations itself and in many writings has focused on modification of budgetary procedures, assessment criteria, and collection administration designed to induce adequate support from Members. Paralleling this, some Members and the Secretary-General as well have called for strict economy, a stabilized level of UN conferences and activities, and even some retrenchment. The principal alternatives proposed seek new sources of UN financing analogous to those open to governmental fiscal policy, including direct or indirect UN levies on the citizens of Member States and further development of UN deficit financing. Others call for intensified exploitation of potential sources of direct “independent” income to the Organization. Aside from the encouragement of gifts from private and public sources and the admittedly limited potential profit from tourism, rentals, and sales at the UN site, proposals for an independent UN income have concentrated on UN exploitation of the “new sources of wealth which are being opened by advances in science and technology, preferably outside the jurisdiction of national states …” in outer space, the poles, and the seas. This study seeks primarily to evaluate this last alternative.
1 For a review and analysis of the UN financial problem and suggested remedies, see Padelford, Norman J., “Financial Crisis and the Future of the United Nations,” World Politics, 07 1963 (Vol. 15, No. 4), pp. 531–568CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 See Staley, Eugene, Direct Revenue for the United Nations(an offset memorandum) (Stanford: Stanford Research Institute, 11 13, 1961)Google Scholar.
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5 See U.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Hearings, The Antarctic Treaty, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, June 14, 1960; The Conference on Antarctica, Department of State Publication No. 7060 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960)Google Scholar and various documents Nos. 1 ff. (mimeo); Taubenfeld, Howard J., “A Treaty for Antarctica,” International Conciliation, 01 1961 (No. 531)Google Scholar; Hanessian, John, “The Antarctic Treaty, 1959,” International Comparative Law Quarterly, 07 1960 (Vol. 9, No. 9), pp. 436–480CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Hayton, Robert D., “The Antarctic Settlement of 1959,” American Journal of International Law, 1960 (Vol. 54), pp. 349–371CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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9 Major international conferences were held concerning the regime of the seas in 1958 and 1960. On the 1958 conference, see UN Documents A/CONF.13/37–13/43. For comment, see, e.g., Jessup, Philip C., “The United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea,” Columbia Law Review, 02 1959 (Vol. 59, No. 2), pp. 234–268CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Sorenson, Max, “Law of the Sea,” International Conciliation, 11 1958 (No. 520)Google Scholar. On the 1960 conference, see UN Document A/OONF.19/8. For comment, see, e.g., Bowett, D. N., “The Second United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea,” International Comparative Law Quarterly, 07 1960 (Vol. 9, No. 3), pp. 415–435CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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11 Letter from Congressman Rosenthal, (New York), New York Times, 07 15, 1962, Section 4Google Scholar; see also New York Times, 07 7, 1962, p. 19Google Scholar.
12 For evidence that a “mid-ocean” concept is taken seriously, see U.S. Congress, House, Committee on Science and Astronautics, Report, Ocean Sciences and National Security, Serial H, 86th Congress, 2nd Session, 1960, pp. 49–50.
13 See Certain Expenses of the United Nations (Article 17, paragraph 2, of the Charter), Advisory Opinion of July 20, 1562: I.C.J. Reports 1962, pp. 151–308. For comments, see Gross, Leo, “Expenses of the United Nations for Peace-Keeping Operations: The Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice,” International Organization, Winter 1963 (Vol. 17, No. 1), pp. 1–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
14 See, e.g., Eisenstein, Louis, The Ideologies of Taxation (New York: Ronald Press, 1961)Google Scholar, passim.
15 On UN assessment policy and standards, see Egger, Roland, The Revenue Side of the Budget (mimeo) (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Study on Financing the United Nations, 1963)Google Scholar. On fiscal policy in general, see Rolph, Earl and Break, George, Public Finance (New York: Ronald Press, 1961)Google Scholar.
16 Mushkin, Selma, “Federal Grants and Federal Expenditures,” National Tax Journal, 09 1957 (Vol. 10, No. 3), pp. 205–207Google Scholar. Note that comparison of the relative division of the “benefits” and contributions to federal activities also yield similar results. Indeed the capacity to effectuate personal and regional redistributions is used as one index of the degree of integration achieved by a society. See Myrdal, Gunnar, An International Economy (New York: Harper, 1956)Google Scholar; Myrdal, Gunnar, Economic Theory and Under-Developed Regions (London: G. Duckworth, 1957)Google Scholar.
17 See, e.g., General Assembly Official Records (17th session), Supplement No. 10, pp. 3, 8. Roland Egger, in his review of the various upper limits now applied to the assessment formula, criticizes “the essential shortsightedness of the United States position on the contributions formula.” The lower limit is now.04 percent. United States pressures have resulted in a maximum of 33 1/3 percent. (Egger, , op. cit., P. 41.)Google Scholar
18 In determining ability to pay, the UN Committee on Contributions uses total national income and per capita income, as well as other criteria. The former is a better index of national power.
19 For an attempt at a definition of fiscal equity in a federal system, see Buchanan, James M., Fiscal Theory and Political Economy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960), pp. 170–189Google Scholar. Buchanan stresses that equality of treatment in a federal system requires lower contributions from all income groups in poorer states than from their income counterparts in richer states to compensate for the lower level of local (in this case, national) governmental public services the poor states can afford to provide. This suggestion is more relevant for fiscal policy in the international community than it would be in a long established, well-integrated federal government where central action to support more uniform governmental services is a more practical alternative.
20 See Padelford, , op. cit., pp. 559–560Google Scholar, and Gardner, Richard N., “Financing the U.N.,” Department of State Newsletter, 04 1963, p. 23Google Scholar.
The United States has stated that “other factors than so-called relative capacity to pay” should determine “sound public policy in an organization of ‘sovereign equals.’” (United States Delegation to the United Nations, Press Release of December 11, 1946.)
21 Calculations are based on Estimates of Per Capita National Income in United States Dollars (ditto) (New York: Statistical Office of the United Nations, 01 1963)Google Scholar. Such statistical comparisons are of course imperfect and per capita income is in any case only one criterion of a nation's capacity to pay. Only eight Members, including the United States and Kuwait, but not France ($9OO–$989) or the Soviet Union ($600–$699), showed per capita incomes over $1,000 per annum. For a direct tax on individuals in favor of the UN, personal income would be the relevant measure of ability and there are wealthy people even in poor countries. Per capita income is nevertheless a good measure of the distribution of human poverty by country.
22 Of course voting weights are officially unequal in the International Bank and the International Monetary Fund and are weighted in favor of heavy contributors. “Voting weights” in an integrated free international market would also be weighted according to the initial distribution of achieved wealth and income.
23 See Buchanan, James M. and Kafoglis, Milton Z., “A Note on Public Goods Supply,” American Economic Review, 06 1963 (Vol. 53, No. 3), pp. 403–414Google Scholar, which offers, as an example, community programs against contagious disease supported exclusively by the wealthy which could cost them less than less effective personally acquired medical protection. Disease, like war, is difficult to limit to those “responsible.” See also Rolph and Break, op. cit., Chapter 5.
24 Baumol, William J., Welfare Economics and the Theory of the State (London: Longman's, 1952)Google Scholar; Buchanan, James M. and Tullock, Gordon, The Calculus of Consent (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1962)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
25 See sources cited, supra, note 3.