On Wednesday, the United Nations’ top human-rights official, Volker Turk, practically dared Congress to slash America’s massive contribution to the U.N.’s main budgetary fund, called the regular budget, when he spoke out about “a series of heavy-handed steps taken to disperse and dismantle protests” across U.S. college campuses. He expressed concern that law enforcement was using force in a disproportionate way.
Obviously, anyone is entitled to his view on the anti-Israel college demonstrations and steps taken by university administrations and law enforcement in response, no matter how ridiculous.
But Turk’s statement — in his official capacity as the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights — is an abuse of authority that won’t go over well in Washington.
The holder of that post should be active on human-rights issues involving countries that simply can’t, or won’t, take steps to protect fundamental rights.
To state the obvious, Americans enjoy protections under the Bill of Rights. They can sue police departments and universities if they believe that they’ve been mistreated. Criminal charges can theoretically be brought in response to acts of violence.
That’s not the case in other jurisdictions that the U.N.’s human-rights mechanisms should be scrutinizing, such as Iran and China. The U.N. simply has no legitimate role here.
In this sense, Turk’s statement was patently useless. It won’t change a thing, except to get him a role in this news cycle. So what was the point of it? And why are Americans footing the bill for his work?
The U.S. investment in international organizations is just that — an investment. The premise is that America’s support of multilateral bodies, chiefly the U.N., is broadly within its national interest.
But the rationale for this is challenged each time the U.N. bureaucracy, or its member states, takes a ridiculously scandalous step that advantages U.S. adversaries or wastes valuable time making anti-America political statements.
An hour after Turk issued his statement, Representative John Curtis (R., Utah) took the opportunity to promote his legislation to cut U.S. funding to parts of the U.N. that don’t advance American interests.
“The UN has been unwilling and unable to comment on gross human rights abuses committed by Hamas, China, Russia, or Syria but will leap to its feet to condemn Israel and America. Why are we funding such nonsense?” he wrote in a post on X.
After this year’s revelations about the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, Congress had already blocked new funding for UNRWA.
But if Turk and other U.N. officials keep it up, U.N. critics, possibly on both sides of the aisle, could succeed in getting further funding cuts into must-pass bills such as the National Defense Authorization Act.
These provisions could theoretically decrease, or eliminate, America’s contribution to the U.N.’s regular budget. This scenario is already likely under a future Republican presidential administration, but Turk is tempting Congress to make it happen sooner.
If that happens, Turk and his colleagues will have no one to blame but themselves.