On Wednesday, June 22, 2005, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, co-chairs of the Task Force on the United Nations, testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science, State, Justice and Commerce (SSJC). Gingrich and Mitchell discussed the findings and recommendations of the task force report, which was released on June 15. SSJC Chairman Frank R. Wolf (R-VA), who authored the legislation mandating the report, presided.

The following is a summary of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's statement made before the subcommittee. The views expressed below are those of the author, not the U.S. Institute of Peace, which does not take positions on policy issues.

Chairman Wolf, Ranking Member Mollohan, and members of the Subcommittee:

I appreciate the opportunity to testify today, along with Senator Mitchell, on the consensus findings of the task force on U.N. reform, which was mandated and funded by this subcommittee.

Let me, first of all, on behalf of the entire task force, thank and salute Chairman Wolf for his leadership. I have served with Frank in a number of positions and I think it's hard to overstate how much of a moral force he is.

I agreed to participate and co-chair this task force on U.N. Reform with my friend Senator Mitchell because I share the belief that a dramatically reformed U.N. can be an effective instrument in the pursuit of a safer, healthier, more prosperous, and freer world - all goals which serve American interests and the interests of our democratic allies.

As the largest stakeholder in the U.N., the American taxpayer has every right to expect an institution that is at once effective, honest and decent. That United Nations - a very different body from the one that stands today in New York - could be a valuable instrument to promote democratic political development, human rights, economic self-sufficiency and the peaceful settlement of differences.

Before I go on, I would like to stress that this report is the product of serious negotiation. We got here because of a firm integrity and commitment to hammering out a consensus document. There are people on the right, including myself, who might have said other things in a different setting. Accordingly, there are people on the left who might have said other things in a different setting. Nevertheless, we were able to come together in a very positive way to provide leadership and put forth a set of recommendations to show how, with the right kinds of reform, the U.N. can become an effective institution.

However American efforts to reform the U.N. should always be conditioned on three principles.

• First, that telling the truth and standing up for basic principles is more important than winning meaningless votes or conciliating dictators and opponents. It is time to end the appeasement strategy of a soft diplomacy which fails to insist on honesty. Telling the truth is only confrontational to those whose policies cannot stand the light of day.
• Second, all reform proposals should emphasize what is right and necessary, not what is easy and acceptable. In any given session the United States may only win a few victories. However in every session the United States should proudly affirm the truth and fight for principles that matter. Ambassadors Moynihan and Kirkpatrick were exemplars of this kind of direct tough minded principled advocacy. The repeal of the infamous "Zionism is Racism" resolution in 1991 was an example of courageously doing what was right rather than doing what was comfortable. The time for appeasing the vicious, the dictatorial, the brutal and the corrupt has to be over.
• Third, the members of the U.N. must be made to understand that the United States wants to reform the U.N. and is committed to doing all it can to achieve that reform. However, the problems there are so deep, in order that they might be fixed, we must confront roadblocks put up by dictators and other entrenched interests who will want to defend the status quo and reject reform.

Failure, while not desirable, can be an option for the United Nations. It cannot be one for the United States. There must be an effective multilateral instrument for saving lives and defending innocent people, and we should be prepared to explore new avenues for effective action if the U.N. refuses to reform itself. America can never be trapped by the unwillingness of others to do the right thing.

This statement does not address the details of the task force findings, but rather stresses five themes that I think the Congress should keep in mind as it considers the future relationship of the United States with the U.N.

One: By any reasonable measure, it is fair to say that there exists an unacceptable gap between the ideals of the U.N. Charter and the institution that exists today.

Today, notwithstanding the Charter's goals, the civilized world is in the fourth year of a new global war against a committed ideological foe bent on using terror. Thousands of innocents have been murdered and maimed in New York, Washington, Madrid, Beslan, Bali, Jerusalem, Baghdad, Istanbul and many other cities. The terrorist Ayman Al-Zawahiri is explicit about Al Qaeda's "right to kill four million Americans---two million of them children--and to exile twice as many and wound and cripple hundreds of thousands."

And yet, four years after 9/11, the U.N. General Assembly still has not reached agreement upon something as basic to the war on terror as a comprehensive definition of terrorism.

At the same time, genocide continues unstopped in Darfur ten years after the world vowed that Rwanda would be the last genocide.

Our faith in the UN's fealty to fundamental human rights is once again shaken, not only by the egregious paralysis by the U.N. in the wake of mass killings in the Balkans, Rwanda and Sudan but also by the existence of a 53-member U.N. Human Rights Commission whose process for membership selection has become so distorted that countries with appalling, even monstrous, human rights records -- Sudan, Syria, Zimbabwe, Libya, and Cuba, to name a few -- have been seated there. This has led to a substantive failure to hold many nations accountable for abysmal human rights records.

Also, an insidious dishonesty can be found in the Oil for Food Scandal, the rapes and sexual abuses by U.N. peacekeepers of the very people they were sent to protect, and the consistent failure to admit failure and assign responsibility within the senior bureaucracy.

Without very substantial reform, there is little reason to believe the U.N. will be able to realize the goals of its Charter in the future. Indeed, the culture of hypocrisy and dishonesty which has surrounded so many U.N. activities makes it very likely that the system will get steadily worse if it is not substantially confronted and reformed. Without fundamental reform, the UN's reputation will only suffer further, reinforcing incentives to bypass the U.N. in favor of other institutions, coalitions, or self help.

Two: Notwithstanding these and other failures, the United States has a significant national interest in working to reform the U.N. and making it an effective institution.

The United States took the lead after World War II in establishing the U.N. as part of a network of global institutions aimed at making America more secure. It was intended to serve as, in the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a "Good Neighbor," by helping other people achieve safety, health, prosperity, and freedom. It was that generation's belief that a freer and more prosperous world was a better world for America.

Today, a freer and more prosperous world most certainly remains a fundamental interest of the United States. We believe that if it undertakes the sweeping reforms called for in the task force report, the U.N. will be in a much better position to be a Good Neighbor to help all nations achieve a larger freedom.

Three generations of Americans have demonstrated not only a strong preference for sharing the costs, risks, and burdens of global leadership, but also an acute recognition that action in coordination and cooperation with others is often the only way to get the job done.

Perhaps there is no more important illustration of this practical recognition than in the security challenge facing the United States and the rest of the world from our terrorist enemies and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The current proliferation trends are alarming. North Korea continues to enhance its nuclear capabilities. Iran is building a uranium enrichment facility that could be used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. Pakistan has nuclear weapons and we now know that one of their leading scientists has provided critical equipment and technologies to Iran, North Korea, Libya, and perhaps other countries or terrorist organizations. Even worse, Pakistan's internal stability is constantly in question. If fundamentalist Islamists were able to take control of that country and their nuclear arsenal, the potential threat that would emerge is unimaginable.

As protecting America and preserving freedom are this government's primary missions, I agree with the fundamental conclusion of this task force that countering proliferation and terrorism effectively is significantly enhanced by broad international participation, which can be greatly facilitated by an effective U.N.

In addition, if it works, the U.N. can be an effective cost multiplier that can help achieve humanitarian aims in places where nations might be unacceptable and in ways which enable the United States to have other countries bear more of the burden than they would in a purely ad hoc world. For all these reasons and despite the grievous and real failures the U.N. is a system worth reforming rather than a system to be abandoned.

Three: Another theme is the overriding importance of the task force's consensus recommendation to abolish the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

We are all well aware of the U.N.'s and the international community's failures in Rwanda in 1994 and in Sudan today.

The U.N.'s response to the crisis in Sudan is a shocking example of its current institutional failures. For over two decades the government of Sudan has been an active participant in the genocide of its non-Muslim population. Since 1983, the government in Khartoum has been responsible for the killing of over 2 million Christians and animists and the displacement of 4 million more during the "jihad" it waged in southern Sudan. According to the U.N.'s own calculations, recent violence in the Darfur region has resulted in the killing of at least 70,000 people and the internal displacement of over 1.5 million civilians. Some analysts are estimating, however, that the true death toll could be four or five times higher.

Despite these facts, the U.N. and member states have done virtually nothing to stop it. Indeed, there has been a consistent effort to describe the mass murders dishonestly because an honest account would require measures that many member states want to avoid. Former Secretary of State Powell concluded that genocide has been and continues to be genocide committed in Sudan and that the government bears responsibility.

Failure to deal with genocide around the world and continued inability to address honestly the situation in Sudan is a problem that has its roots in the internal institutions of the UN, specifically the Human Rights Commission, which has been corrupted by political games that have allowed some of the world's worst human rights abusers to sit in judgment of others - and to shield themselves from criticism.

The plain and simple facts are that known human rights abusers have served on the U.N. Human Rights Commission, illustrated by the fact that today the Government of Sudan is currently serving its second term on the Commission. In 2003, Libya was elected to chair the Commission by a bloc of African and Middle East nations. Between 1987 and 1988 Iraq was a member in good standing of the Commission at the very time that Chemical Ali was using mustard gas and Sarin nerve agents upon Iraqi Kurds.

Current U.N. policy is that the human rights records of the 53 countries that sit on the Commission may not be assessed as a prerequisite to serving on the panel, which means there is no mechanism to protect the Commission from being manipulated by governments that routinely abuse human rights.

In effect, the dictators and the murderers have systematically come to dominate the institution designed to bring them to justice.

This policy completely undermines the integrity and decency of the entire U.N. and should be offensive to free peoples everywhere. Even Secretary-General Annan recognizes that "we have reached a point at which the commission's declining credibility has cast a shadow on the reputation of the U.N. system as a whole and where perceived reforms will not be enough."

It is for these reasons that the task force has unanimously called for abolishing the current Human Rights Commission and replacing it with a new Human Rights Council.

The task force recognizes that it would be folly to abolish the Commission only to have it replaced with a new body with a new name but which would suffer from the same inherent flaws; nations that are human rights violators cannot serve to set the standard for global justice.

Therefore, it was the consensus of the task force that a new Human Rights Council must be established that is ideally comprised of democracies. Democracy is, by its nature, transparent, accountable, and committed to freedom and liberty. Totalitarian regimes are, in contrast, not. Therefore, what we have said is that only those who have demonstrated their own commitment to human rights and the rule of law should be assigned the responsibility to tell the world truths about governments that rape, torture, and murder their citizens.

Four: A true test of whether there is meaningful U.N. reform is whether there is a dramatic reform of the way that the U.N. treats Israel.

A U.N. General Assembly partition plan resolution in 1947 made the establishment of Israel possible, but since that time the U.N. has treated Israel as a second class citizen. In many ways the U.N.'s consideration of Israel is a continuing case study of political manipulation, mistreatment, and dishonesty.

As stated in our report, "Israel continues to be denied rights enjoyed by all other member-states, and a level of systematic hostility against it is routinely expressed, organized, and funded within the U.N. system." Ever since Israel's establishment, member states who have been fundamentally opposed to its existence have used the General Assembly forum to isolate and chastise this democratic nation. At the opening session each year these nation's challenge the credentials of the Israeli delegation. Of the total ten emergency special sessions called by the General Assembly, six have been about Israel. Surprisingly, none has been held on the genocide in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, or Sudan.

More than one quarter of the resolutions condemning a state's human rights violations adopted by the Human Rights Commission over the past 40 years have been directed at Israel. Israel is the only nation to have its own agenda item dealing with alleged human rights violations at the Commission in Geneva. All other countries are dealt with in a separate agenda item.

The most vivid historical example of Israel's mistreatment by the U.N. goes back to 1975, when the General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. This resolution declaring that "Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination... [and] is a threat to world peace and security" was solely meant to deny Israel's political legitimacy by attacking its moral basis for existence. It was only repealed in December 1991, following massive efforts by the U.S. government, particularly President Bush, Secretary Baker, and Ambassador Kirkpatrick. Its mere existence however, shows how the General Assembly has often become a "theatre" for bashing Israel.

We also made clear in this report that the U.N. cannot presume to be the arbiter of international human rights and justice when Israel is discriminated against and excluded from any regional grouping in Geneva. Its preclusion means that an Israeli judge can never be elected to the International Court of Justice and Israel cannot even vote on the makeup of the court. Also, while the task force did not develop any specific recommendations regarding structural reforms of the Security Council, it did state that any reforms measures that are adopted must extend to Israel. There is no legitimate basis for allowing rogue dictatorships such as Syria to sit on the Security Council while denying representation for the only current functioning democracy in the Middle East.

Accepting Israel as a normal member should be considered a benchmark test of any U.N. reform program and would demonstrate that the U.N. is committed to the equality of rights that are enshrined in its charter.

Five: We must recognize that there are limits to America's ability to render the U.N. infrastructure and its decisions compatible with American values and interests through any reform initiative. There are inherent limitations of the U.N. that are not subject to "reform."

Any organization that has no democratic pre-conditions for membership, a majority of whose members are not full-fledged democracies, and which provides a platform to divide democracies by facilitating coalitions with non-democracies in an effort to trump the United States will likely remain an imperfect instrument in adjudging and protecting human rights fairly and accurately, spreading democracy to the darkest places in the globe, and combating terrorism and nuclear proliferation or the major threats to the security interests of the United States (and our democratic allies). Moreover, while full democracies make up an increasing share of the 191 U.N. member states, they do not constitute a majority. But even democratic states often will sacrifice fundamental interests such as human rights at the U.N. altars of false consensus and regional solidarity.

In this regard, it is only necessary to note that the first seven words of our Constitution - We the People of the United States - accurately reflect our founding belief that governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" and the fact that that the sovereign will of the people of the United States was expressed in the Constitution itself and in our ongoing system of government created by it.

By contrast, the first seven words of the U.N. Charter - We the Peoples of the U.N. - are only accurate as they apply to its democratic members. The peoples of countries like Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Iran, and North Korea, to name a few examples, have no say in what their governments do in their name, especially in the U.N. Countries in which criminal gangs and ruthless dictators impose their will without the consent of the people are inherently less defensible and morally less sovereign than countries which have earned the respect of their citizens by deriving their just powers from the consent of their people.

As such, Americans can hardly be surprised if such states attempt to block U.N. action that would hold them accountable for violations of human rights or organize through the General Assembly highly publicized meetings such as the 2001 U.N. World Conference against Racism in Durban, where illiberal and antidemocratic interests prevailed.

This ongoing reality that the U.N. is a mix of democratic and non-democratic states explains why a primary conclusion of the task force is that the challenges and problems faced by the U.N. can only be addressed through consistent and concerted action by the world's genuine democracies, which is why the task force recommends strengthening the Caucus of Democracies as an operational entity capable of organizing concerted political action to counter gross violations of human rights and to save lives and creating or strengthening alternative channels of influence outside the institution, such as the Community of Democracies. Effective and deep reform will result if there is a coalition of democracies, the United States chief among them, that want to create a new accountable, transparent, honest and effective U.N.

A coalition of genuine democracies can help to reaffirm a fundamental faith in human rights, which is why the task force recommends abolishing the Human Rights Commission and replacing it by a new Human Rights Council ideally composed of democratic states that respect human rights.

A coalition of genuine democracies can affirm what the task force calls on the U.S. government to affirm, that sovereignty belongs to the people of a country and governments have a responsibility to protect their people. And that if a government fails in its primary responsibility to protect the lives of those living within its jurisdiction from genocide, mass killing, and massive and sustained human rights violations, it forfeits claims to immunity from intervention such intervention is designed to protect the at-risk population.

Likewise, a coalition of genuine democracies can affirm that when a government's abnegation of its responsibilities to its own people is so severe that the collective responsibility of nations to take action cannot be denied. While the U.N. Security Council can and should act in such cases, in the event it does not, its failure must not be used as an excuse by concerned members, especially genuine democracies, to avoid taking protective measures.

Because so much of the U.N. behavior and culture would be indefensible if described honestly, there is an overwhelming tendency to use platitudes and misleading terms to camouflage the indefensible. There is no institution on earth with more Orwellian distortion of language than the U.N. The very dishonesty of the language helps sustain the dishonesty and destructiveness of its institutions. A coalition of genuine democracies with representatives willing to speak straightforwardly can do much to reform these institutions by simply telling the truth.

A coalition of genuine democracies can move to replace the emphasis on bureaucratic and often corrupt state to state aid programs with a consistent emphasis on the rule of law, private property rights, incentives for private investment in and trade with developing countries, private charities and supporting the growth of a civil society beyond the control of dictators and bureaucracies.

A coalition of genuine democracies can explicitly and consistently reject any effort in the General Assembly, in special conferences and meetings, and in any U.N. Organization to adopt rules, treaties and systems which would infringe on American constitutional liberties.

A coalition of genuine democracies can explicitly and consistently reject a growing anti-democratic international movement that seeks to create a system of rules and "laws" which will circumscribe American liberty and coerce America into taking steps which the people of America would never take. The use of large international meetings to create new systems of "law" and new "norms" of international behavior are a direct threat to the American system of Constitutional liberty and must be rejected.

During the Second World War, the American system responded magnificently to defend freedom.

During the Cold War, the Congress and the Executive Branch sustained collective security for 44 years with amazing stability despite the stresses of Vietnam and other difficulties.

Now, faced with a very complex world in which people are starving to death, being killed viciously, being tortured, brutalized and mutilated by truly evil people, there is a new need for sustained consistent American leadership at the U.N. if that organization is to become an effective instrument in protecting the safety of the American people safety and dignity of peoples worldwide.

The threat of terrorists with weapons of mass murder and weapons of mass destruction makes this a pressing need of national security (indeed of our national survival) and the security of our democratic allies. The ongoing genocide in Darfur and the need to address humanitarian crises makes reforming the U.N. a pressing need to save lives.

Just as the United States took the lead after World War II in forging the consensus that led to the creation of the U.N. sixty years ago, we believe the United States, in its own interests and in the interests of international security and prosperity, can and must help lead the U.N. toward greater relevance and effectiveness in this new era. Without change, the U.N. will remain an uncertain instrument, both for the governments that comprise it and for those who look to it for salvation.

With a President and a Congress united in their desire to advance our national interests, a reformed U.N. can be fashioned to more effectively meet the goals of its Charter and the new challenges that it confronts.