U.S. Senator Marco Rubio has introduced several bills to combat the Chinese Communist Party and sanction CCP officials complicit in acts of oppression. A July 31, 2024 press release from his office mentions three. House members have introduced companion bills.
● The Falon Gong Protection Act would impose sanctions “on those responsible for, or complicit in, the involuntary harvesting of organs, especially those targeting Falun Gong practitioners.” It would also require the Secretary of State to issue a report on these practices.
● The Stop CCP Act would impose sanctions “on members of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as their family members, who are involved in acts of aggression, oppression, and human rights abuses. This includes blocking property transactions as well as denying visas and entry into the United States.”
● A third bill would prohibit funding of the “Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights.” The clunkily entitled position has been used to argue for “suspension of sanctions against China, in spite of those sanctions being levied for human rights violations.”
The first two bills seem to overlap. The third is peculiarly selective.
Rubio’s press release does not mention that the third-listed bill would also require the U.S. to “urge the United Nations to abolish the position of Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures” in addition to withholding U.S. funding, an acknowledgement that the United States cannot unilaterally instruct the UN to get rid of a position.
Not so special
Assuming that U.S. funding for a particular United Nations post can be withheld, what would this mean, practically speaking, when some other way of paying the salary for the person holding the position could be arranged? Perhaps the thug nations that benefit from the Special Rapporteur’s pro-thug-nation lobbying would be willing to chip in.
In any case, why target just this one bad thing enabled by the United Nations? It has long enabled many bad things, even though people do urge it to stop. If we can withhold funding from this, that, and the other, the legislation should include a very long list of UN activities for the U.S. to no longer fund.
Sometimes the organization’s actions are reasonable, as when it recognizes the reasonably demarcated exclusive economic zones of countries. But the UN is also a chronic enabler of vicious governments, and the United States has been UN’s largest source of financial support. We also need a bill to end all American funding of the United Nations and to kick it out of New York.
