United Nations Parliamentary Assembly - Funding

Funding

Heinrich opines, "It is essential that the salary and travel costs of UN parliamentarians should be paid by the institution of the UN Parliamentary Assembly from its own budget (which would be part of the UN budget), and not by the national governments individually. This is both to assure the independence of the UNPA politicians in their service to the UN and to assure equality of participation." Article 17 of the UN Charter stipulates, "The expenses of the Organization shall be borne by the Members as apportioned by the General Assembly." Thus, unless funded by private donors (as the land for UN headquarters was in 1946), presumably the UNPA would be funded like the rest of the UN system, with larger economies such as the U.S. paying larger shares of the contributions. This disparity might be offset by weighting members' votes according to their gross national product or their contributions to the UN system. A Vancouver Sun article notes, "Another point of opposition would involve the notion of adding bureaucracy and complexity to the UN. Estimated cost of the new outfit runs $140 million to $280 million a year."

A 1993 Parliamentarians for Global Action survey showed that a strong majority of parliamentary respondents thought that the public would support the idea of a UN Parliamentary Assembly, but they were less sure the public would be prepared to finance it. The analysis pointed out, "The possibility of a greater financial burden to support an enlarged UN is unlikely to evoke support unless it can be demonstrated that the return on investment is significant. Citizens are often known to express lofty globalist sentiments when questioned on general principles, and to surrender them when costs or trade offs are concerned." A 1995 United Nations University report claimed, "it is difficult to see how the Parliamentary Assembly would be able to pay for the salaries and travel of what could be over 1,000 representatives; this proposal could increase the duplication and waste that already exist within multilateral bodies."

CEUNPA's response to this objection is that "it is true that a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations would be another player in the diplomatic scenery which governments and their executives in international organizations would have to take into account to a certain degree. On the other hand, being composed of elected parliamentarians, the assembly would be closer to the citizens and as such it would lend more credibility and legitimacy to international decisions in which it is involved. In this way, the parliamentary assembly actually would contribute to an increased efficiency of international action."