UN HRC Ceiling Mural ... at $23 million
The New York Times reports on budget season at the UN and various battles hotting up. It’s a good piece by Neil MacFarquhar, dated November 7, 2009. As the article says, that fact that
it costs the United Nations an average of $2,473 per page to create every single document in its six official languages, while outside contractors complete the same work for around $450, prompts diplomats to accuse the organization of running amok during a global financial crisis.
It goes on to discuss the practicalities of the negotiations among the diplomats — the multiple sources of conflicts. It is well sourced — as the article says, anonymous sourcing, understandable under the conditions — from many diplomats and explains the process by which the budget is reached. The conflicts? They include the perennial fight between the large majority of states that don’t pay and the minority that do; the amount that BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) pay in relation to wealthy but smaller GDP states such as Canada; objections to UN Secretariat add-ons; there are others.
My view has long been that the US interest is to starve the General Assembly and most of its direct appendages of funds, while giving voluntary funding to those parts of the UN that work passably well and serve US interests and ideals (yes, there are parts of the UN that the US should financially support strongly, such as the World Food Program). In effect, undertake a buyout of the parts of the UN that work, and seek budgetarily to contain the parts that don’t or are repositories of anti-US activism (the Human Rights Council, for example).
In any case, whatever one’s view, I’m always surprised by how many experts and partisans of the United Nations are uninterested in its internal budget and money issues. Paul Kennedy wrote an entire book in praise of the UN, but preferred to stay either in the diplomatic histories of 1945 or up in the clouds of The Parliament of Man — he did not manage to devote even a page to money and budget issues. That is my experience with most academic UN observers; there are important exceptions, usually people like John Ruggie who have been UN officials, but it mostly holds true; academics tend not to be interested in the accounting and financing. The basic rule, follow the money, does not seem to apply to the UN — meaning, follow-the-money as a fundamental, obvious way of explaining the UN. So much for historical materialism?
The reasons are complicated, but include a combination of the distaste of those who follow public law and organizations for accounting combined with a sense that what matters is not the money but the grand ideals of the institution. ‘UN platonism’, as Michael Glennon once memorably called it.
Indeed, when one raises even a handful of the many, many scandals surrounding the UN and money, the reaction among international law observers tends to be, in my experience, not shock and a resolution that the organization needs to be better held to account, but a general sense that those who dwell on the sordid details are somehow demeaning the institution.
(Who among international law academics, for example, followed the saga of the $23 million (!) ceiling mural in the chambers of the Human Rights Council in Geneva - unveiled in 2007?
I’m in favor of public art and spending money on it, even at the UN. Then there’s the kind of extravagance one might hope would cause, say, special rapporteurs and the US delegation and the NGOs that pressed for the embarrassment of the Council to replace the Commission in 2005 to stare up at the ceiling during meetings and think about what $20 million of that $23 million would do for World Peace or Human Rights or something. The UN’s Climate Adaptation Fund, for example, which started in 2008 to help poor nations with climate change issues currently $18 million — not enough to pay for the current round of Copenhagen talks.
I mentioned it at a couple of academic meetings offhand, and the audience comments were that I was either mistaken or merely expressing hostility, because the only people who had talked about this (in English, anyway) were FoxNews and UNWatch, or that it was unworthy to dwell on such minor things. If you looked at these kinds of issues, you were mistaking the forest for the trees.)
Whereas I would have said that after a certain point, these apparently minor details tell you about the nature of the organization, especially when it is an organization that has so little capacity to address even questions of embezzlement, fraud, or similar crimes. So when it just comes to spending 23 million dollars on a mural — that is, “mere” mismanagement of financial resources — yes, I think it tells you something about the nature of rent-seeking and organizational priorities. Particularly when it turns out that Spain — it was a Spanish artist doing the HRC ceiling — apparently raided its international development budget to help pay for “the Sistine Chapel of the 21st century.” I think it does tell you something about incentives, motivations, public choice, institutional capture, and many other things that give a far better understanding of the organization than one gets by reading the UN Charter or the academic literature.
These are big questions, after all. The reason why the organization can’t address corruption has largely to do with the protection that member states offer to their citizens, for example, which tells you something about the way in which states view the organization and themselves. The reason why, for example, international development NGOs or even, come to it, human rights NGOs, did not make an immense ruckus over 23 million dollars that could have been spent on some Jeff Sachs development project tells you something about the relationship of the NGOs to the UN, and the other way around. Or possibly how the “actually existing UN” actually feels about Professor Sachs’ MDGs, when it comes to the organization’s own budget priorities. Why it is that the Secretary General couldn’t actually fire anyone even if he wanted, or why so many of the senior staff make well in excess of, for example, what the US Secretary of State makes, well, all of that is not a matter of minor details — why sweat the small stuff, we’re told, when the organization is about the glories of global governance? — but instead tells you crucial information about agency failure, institutional capture, public choice, rent-seeking, and the internal dynamics that those who focus on The Parliament of Man never quite want to know about.
(Update: Thanks Glenn for the Instalanche! I should add that I am finishing a book on this subject, Returning to Earth: When and How the United States Should Engage, and Not Engage, with the United Nations. My editors have shown the patience of saints, but I am finally finishing the darn thing. Meanwhile, part of it is an this SSRN paper on the parallel global security systems provided by the US and the UN, as well as the one linked above on The Parliament of Man. And then there is this discussion of legitimacy, global civil society, and the United Nations, which will be appearing as a book chapter soon, but here is a working version at SSRN. I’ve also added the photo of the HRC mural — it seemed to be in the public domain.)
David Welker says:
Kenneth Anderson,
I think you are absolutely right to point out waste. Spending $23 million on a ceiling mural is a waste of money. Couldn’t that money be used to bring fresh and safe water or food to people who lack such things, for example? I am not against public art either, but I do not think that extravagant public art should take a high priority when it benefits so few and when there are obviously more pressing needs.
However, while I agree with you concerning this particular expenditure, I don’t think you can generalize from that about the UN. (Which doesn’t mean you can’t make such generalizations. Only you would need a lot of other evidence. Unfortunately, I am far from an expert on UN finances.)
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November 8, 2009, 9:42 pmPeteP says:
Not to worry — the UN has a remarkable quantity of ideas about how to finance themselves via ‘universal taxes’ on ‘carbon ’ global warming’, financial transactions, etc, etc. They can easily gain a trillion dollars a year to have at their disposal, if we just do what they want ....
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November 8, 2009, 10:50 pmthe few the proud says:
PeteP,
Haven’t you disgraced yourself enough yet here to stop commenting?
To take just one example, you stated recently that because China has severe problems in the administration of criminal justice, we shouldn’t bother to address criminal justice problems in the United States.
Do yourself a favor and look up non sequitur in the dictionary. You would learn from it.
Thanks,
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November 9, 2009, 12:01 amTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » UN Budgets and Follow the Money -- Topsy.com says:
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[...] UN and money … starve the [...]
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[...] UN and money … starve the [...]
Sotiredofitall says:
DUH!! It’s a collection of elite professional bureaucrats; since when has a bureaucrat ever done anything other than make their own life (and their entourage) better. It’s a joke and has
been since inception.
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November 9, 2009, 10:35 amroger h says:
I often wonder if a inefficient UN is the goal. An effective world body could be a threat to to the sovereignty of well adjusted independent nations.
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November 9, 2009, 11:39 amke_future says:
the few the proud...do you actually have a refutation of what PeteP said in regards to this article? or are you taking the time honored tack of attempting (rather lamely) to paint the poster as an idiot so that you don’t actually have to respond the the substance of his statement?
and i do not believe that non sequitor means what you think it does.....
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November 9, 2009, 11:50 amra_8secs says:
roger h:
Aubsolutely. The point of the UN, I think, is to be as ineffective and inefficient as possible, but still a tea-kettle spout of steam. While the the non-payer tyrant, etc. useless state potentates who get to live high on its waves of grandeur get to spout fury and such, signifying nothing, the real working world goes on. (OK, so I really warped up Shakespeare.)
To be efficient would be to call them to task. Perhaps the WWII winner states and their successful democratic brethren just want to keep the barbarians down on the farm. Or the lid on the boiling pot.
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November 9, 2009, 1:43 pmRich Rostrom says:
UN accounting is notoriously bad. Millions of dollars are spent without records, or simply disappear.
Donald Trump was interviewed on the subject of the recent (ongoing?) rehab of the UN Building, and he was scathing, without even trying. Huge fees had been paid to architects (far more than Trump had paid for the complete design of a new building), and yet there was no final plan. The head of the project did not even know what the building’s heating system was. The rents paid for temporary space were grossly excessive.
ISTM that the U.S. should have the CIA infiltrate the UN, copy records, hack computers and accounts, and trace all the money — producing the sort of real accounting the UN bureaucracy doesn’t want. Besides exposing boondoggles, it would also identify a great many thieves. The U.S. could use that information to “shape” UN policies and activities (IYKWIMAITYD).
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November 9, 2009, 1:57 pmAssistant Village Idiot says:
Each country sends its self-appointed elites to the United Governments. Kleptocracies send sons of well-connected families, tyrannies send spies, and the West sends arts & humanities bloviators.
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November 9, 2009, 2:11 pmAnthonyH says:
I’d rather the US tone down our support for the UN and create an Organization of Democratic States, essentially a mutual defense treaty organization for democratic states, much like that created in the Orson Scott Card “Ender” books.
Membership was only by plebiscite, and each member country had to adopt a constitution that guaranteed individual freedoms, democratic process within the country, human rights, etc. Once a country (or portion of a country) became a member of the organization, there would be a military mutual defense obligation on all other member states against non-states. Member states could not maintain a military, but were part of the group military.
I’d much rather see that than the UN any day.
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November 9, 2009, 3:03 pmHRC BS « ruddyie says:
[...] this short piece from TVC. A reason why I think the UN (United Nations) and the HRC (Human Rights Commission) are a pile of [...]
Ryan Waxx says:
the few the proud:
Perhaps if you can’t help but bring previous discussions into new threads, it is you who should leave.
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November 9, 2009, 4:43 pmFat Man says:
Move them to Kinshasa.
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November 9, 2009, 4:54 pmThe Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Reading While Traveling, Hard Copy and No Internet says:
[...] in human rights majesty listening to some special rapporteur drone on beneath the HRC chamber’s $23 million ceiling consisting, alas, of money partly diverted from Spain’s international development aid budget for, [...]
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November 18, 2009, 1:31 pm