An indiscreet view on the budget of multilateralism | Part 2: What about the General Assembly?
The General Assembly
The General Assembly is the most representative and democratic organ of the United Nations, while its resolutions cover almost all issues of global interest. It is not just the conscience of humankind, the highest moral authority, but also it handles through various subsidiary organs the codification of international law. In addition to the conventions and agreements agreed, which turn into binding law, the General Assembly is the source of hundreds of recommendations and the proponent of major global agendas. The General Assembly actually draws the borders between good and evil in international relations.
So, the contribution of all categories of Member States of the United Nations to regular budget deserves some attention.
A first relevant fact is that more than half of the regular budget is covered by only four countries.
United States | 22.000 % |
China | 20.004 % |
Japan | 6.930 % |
Germany | 5.692 % |
Total | 54.626 % |
If four countries pay 54.626% of the bills, one may like to see what happens with the rest, that is, 189 member states.
United Kingdom | 3.991 |
France | 3.858 |
Italy | 2.813 |
Canada | 2.543 |
Republic of Korea | 2.349 |
Australia | 2.040 |
Total | 17.594 |
Spain | 1.895 |
Brazil | 1.411 |
Mexico | 1.137 |
Netherlands | 1.298 |
Saudi Arabia | 1.217 |
Switzerland | 1.029 |
Total | 7.987 |
The next table encapsulates the situation at the top of the scale of contributions.
Category | Number of Member States | The total of their contributions (%) |
Member States that contribute more than 20 per cent | 2 | 42.004 |
Member states that contribute between 5 and 7 per cent | 2 | 12.622 |
Member States that contribute between 2 and 4 per cent | 6 | 17.594 |
Member States that contribute between 1 and 2 per cent | 6 | 7.987 |
Total | 16 | 80.207 |
This is a fact: 16 member states cover over 80 per cent of the regular budget of the United Nations. The General Assembly works on the principle of one country, one vote. The resolutions are adopted by a simple or qualified majority. The power of making decisions in the General Assembly belongs to a qualified majority. That invites having a brief look at the bottom of the scale of assessment. Can we have a qualified majority without the vote of the 16 biggest contributors? Or, far that matter, without 60 contributors from the top downwards? Yes, we can!
Level of contributions | Number of states at that level | The total of their contributions |
Contribution at the fixed floor level (0.001 %) | 28 | 0.028 |
Contributions smaller or equal to 0.01 (0.00X) % | 62 | 0.354 |
Contributions smaller or equal to 0.100 (0.XX0) % | 43 | 1.834 |
Total | 133 | 2.216 |
The qualified majority in the General Assembly under its current membership is 128 countries. Therefore, we could have at any time a resolution of the General Assembly adopted by the vote of Member States that contribute together 2.216 per cent of the regular budget.1The budget approved by the General Assembly for the year 2025 is $ 3.72 billion. The budget of the New York police department for the same year is $ 5.83 billion. The military aid provided to Ukraine during Biden administration was $ 65.9 billion.
With those figures at hand, the diplomats and political analysts well versed in international political and multilateral organisations could reflect on and possibly answer the following questions:
- Is multilateralism an option compatible with the voluntary moves of the new US administration?
- Will China take the place of the United States as a leading force in the United Nations system?
- Will China put pressure on the United Nations as to the allocation of the budget?
- Will the global agenda be influenced by the new configuration of the funding power?
- Is there a real need to reform the Security Council?
- Would a change in the membership of the Security Council bring more stability, efficiency, and fairness in international affairs?
- Is the United Nations still irreplaceable?
- How can governments mend the collective security system, which is now at an impasse?
- Can we delegate the codification of international law to other organisations?
- Who benefits more from the existence of the United Nations, after all? Major powers, in general? Individual countries? Small and medium-sized countries?
This article is part of our ongoing series on the far-reaching consequences of Trump’s leadership.
To see more articles on this subject, visit our Trump Moment blog collection page.
Dr Petru Dumitriu was a member of the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) of the UN system and former ambassador of the Council of Europe to the United Nations Office at Geneva. He is the author of the JIU reports on ‘Knowledge Management in the United Nations System’, ‘The United Nations – Private Sector Partnership Arrangements in the Context of the 2030 Agenda’, ‘Strengthening Policy Research Uptake’, “Cloud Computing in the United Nations System”, and “Policies and Platforms in Support of Learning”. He received the Knowledge Management Award in 2017 and the Sustainable Development Award in 2019 for his reports. He is also the author of the Multilateral Diplomacy online course at DiploFoundation.
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