The Senate Foreign Relations Committee unani­mously approved legislation (S. 392) on June 27, 2007, that would pay the United Nations more for peace­keeping than current U.S. law allows. The legislation would increase the 25 percent cap to 27.1 percent for 2005 through 2008 to enable the United States to pay the U.N. an estimated $157 million more than the U.S. would otherwise pay for its share of the U.N.'s peacekeeping budget. The key sponsor of the legisla­tion, Senator Joseph R. Biden (D–DE), justifies the leg­islation with the assertion that we should not "fail to pay our bills" to the United Nations.

This argument not only misrepresents the situation and misreads history, but also does a grave injustice to people who were abused by the U.N. peacekeepers that should have protected them. The cap on U.S. dues was created to spread the costs of peacekeeping more equitably among the member states and to prompt the U.N. to adopt specified reforms. This leg­islation would reward the U.N. even though it has failed to adopt critical reforms to prevent sexual abuse and other misconduct by U.N. peacekeepers and to enhance transparency, accountability, and oversight of U.N. procurement.

• Remove the key incentive for the U.N. to honor its promise in 2000 to lower the U.S. peacekeep­ing assessment to 25 percent.
  
  
• Throw away an opportunity for the U.S. to use its financial leverage to pressure the U.N. to adopt rules, procedures, and practices that would prevent mismanagement and corruption, discourage peacekeeper misconduct, and require member states to punish sexual abuse and crim­inal acts by their nationals participating in U.N. peacekeeping operations.
  
  
• Increase the cap far above the 26.0864 percent for 2007 and 25.9624 percent for 2008–2009 that the U.N. has decided to assess the U.S., thereby opening up the possibility that the U.N. would increase the U.S. assessment in the future.
  
  
• Surrender the key principle that nations pos­sessing equal privileges in the U.N. should assume equal responsibilities, including bud­get responsibilities.

Although the Senate has a full calendar after the August recess, the Biden legislation may be consid­ered independently or as an amendment to the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2008 (H.R. 2764), which covers U.S. contributions to the U.N. peacekeeping budget and already includes language to increase the peacekeeping cap for 2008. Con­gress should keep the 25 percent cap, both to lever­age much-needed reform of peacekeeping rules and practices and to support efforts to assess U.N. mem­ber states more equitably for U.N. expenses.

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