Who Really Owns the United Nations?
Here is a question most people never think about. The United Nations belongs to all countries equally, right? One country, one vote. That is the theory. But in practice, the countries that pay the most money get to call the shots. And they have gotten very good at making sure it stays that way.
This is part of my retelling of “50 Years of Singapore and the United Nations” (Tommy Koh, Li Lin Chang, Joanna Koh, 2015, ISBN: 978-9814713030).
A Diplomat Who Saw Both Sides
Chapter 11 is written by Tan York Chor, a veteran Singapore diplomat. He worked in both bilateral diplomacy (country-to-country) and multilateral diplomacy (the big international forums). He served as Deputy Permanent Representative in New York and later as Singapore’s Permanent Representative in Geneva and Vienna.
New York gave him a front-row seat to the Security Council and General Assembly. Geneva and Vienna showed him how international organizations actually work day to day. These are the agencies that deal with health, nuclear energy, human rights, and other things that affect billions of people.
His conclusion? Small states are “price-takers.” They don’t set the agenda. They can’t really push outcomes. The major powers run the show on security matters in New York. And the rich developed states dominate most international organizations in Geneva and Vienna. The North-South divide is real and it is clear.
The Cold War Kept Things in Check
During the Cold War, Western countries had a reason to be nice to developing nations. They needed the Third World’s support against the Soviet bloc. There was competition for influence. That competition meant money, attention, and at least some respect for smaller countries.
When the Cold War ended, that calculation changed fast. Rich countries no longer needed to compete for the support of poorer nations. At the same time, many Western states were dealing with expensive social programs at home that were politically hard to cut. So they started squeezing international organizations instead.
The approach became cold and calculating. The “North” started pulling harder on the purse strings. They demanded that international organizations focus narrowly on what interested them. And they kept most of this power play out of public view.
The Human Rights Council: Where Hypocrisy Goes Public
Tan York Chor says that sometimes the double standards come out into the open. The Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva is a prime example.
His view is that human rights progress works better through good example and calm conversation. Not through lecturing other countries from a position of moral superiority. But that is not how it plays out. NGOs and Western media constantly pressure their governments to act “tough” on targeted countries. So Western officials feel forced to take hard stances, even when it does not help.
By 2005, the old Commission on Human Rights had become so toxic that it was basically useless. The fighting was so bad it risked spilling over into other areas of UN work. In 2006, they replaced it with the Human Rights Council. But the same countries that made the old commission a mess were the same ones joining the new council. It did not take long for the old behavior to come back.
The Food Crisis Session That Almost Didn’t Happen
In 2008, the African Group wanted the HRC to hold a Special Session on the global food crisis. World food prices had spiked sharply. Bad harvests, high oil prices, commodity speculation, and some big countries panic-buying food stocks all combined. Millions of people in developing countries suddenly could not afford to eat.
Western states opposed the session. Germany led the pushback, arguing about costs and relevance.
Think about that for a second. Western countries are always happy to call Special Sessions when it is about criticizing specific countries. But when millions of people are starving because of a preventable crisis? Suddenly it costs too much and it is not relevant enough.
HRC resolutions are not even binding. Nobody was going to be forced to do anything. So what was the real reason? Tan suggests the Western states were showing firmness in opposing the very idea that access to food is a human right. Their NGOs were watching, and they did not want to set a precedent.
Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers
The second incident Tan recalls happened in 2009. The Sri Lankan army was close to finishing off the Tamil Tigers after 26 years of civil war that killed or wounded hundreds of thousands. The Tigers showed no interest in peace. Every previous ceasefire had failed.
Right at the end, some Western countries suddenly got urgent about human rights concerns. They pushed for a HRC Special Session to pressure Sri Lanka to stop.
Here is the problem with that logic. If the Tigers had been given time to recover, the renewed fighting would have killed far more people down the road. Tan compares it to how people who push to abolish the death penalty sometimes ignore the lives destroyed by crime syndicates.
Behind the humanitarian talk, some saw a pro-Tiger lobby in Western countries making a last-ditch play. In the end, Sri Lanka won the support of a majority of UN member states. After the Tigers were defeated, Sri Lanka could start working on healing its ethnic divisions in peace.
As a side note, Tan points out that Sri Lanka’s troubles are a warning about the danger of divisions over race and religion. Singapore has worked hard to build bridges between its ethnic and religious communities. That is a job that never ends.
Follow the Money: How Rich Countries Really Control Things
This is the core argument of the chapter, and it is worth paying attention to.
International organizations have two main funding sources. There is the regular budget (RB), which all member states contribute to and collectively decide how to spend. Then there are voluntary contributions (VCs), which are extra donations that mainly come from rich countries, their NGOs, and other wealthy donors.
Here is the trick. Developed states have blocked increases to regular budgets for years. This starves international organizations of the money they control democratically. To survive, these organizations become dependent on voluntary contributions. And the donors get to decide where that voluntary money goes.
The result? The regular budget of many organizations is now way smaller than the voluntary contributions. At the WHO, voluntary contributions outweigh the regular budget by 3 to 1. At the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the ratio is even worse. Around 80% of the Office’s money comes from developed states and NGOs. That raises an obvious question about who that Office really answers to.
Since most of the regular budget goes to basic overhead costs like salaries and buildings, donors effectively control the work programs through their voluntary contributions. They decide what gets studied, what gets funded, what gets attention.
Rich People’s Diseases vs. Neglected Diseases
Here is a concrete example of what this funding imbalance means. When rich countries control where the money goes, international health agencies end up focused on diseases that affect rich people. The diseases that mostly kill poor people get labeled “neglected diseases.” They are neglected because nobody with money cares enough to fund research on them.
That worked fine for rich countries until Ebola showed up. Suddenly a “neglected” disease threatened to spread everywhere. When the world looked to the WHO for a strong response, the WHO stumbled. Its initial response was poor. Why? Because deep budget cuts in recent years had gutted its capacity. Top WHO officials had warned that something like this would happen. They were right.
Tan is fair about this. He does not claim international organizations are perfect at using their money. But he has respect for the professionals who try to do good work under difficult financial and political conditions. Diplomats with good contacts inside these organizations have heard plenty of stories about how powerful states manipulate things behind the scenes.
The Nuclear Energy Tug of War
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) faces its own version of this fight. Developed countries want the IAEA to focus on verifying that nuclear technology is used peacefully. Basically, they want a watchdog. Developing countries want the IAEA to help them use nuclear technology for practical things like industry, farming, and hospitals.
Both sides have a point. But with a limited budget, it becomes a tug of war. And the side with more money usually wins.
Tan shares one episode that captures the disconnect perfectly. The US delegation once proposed a UN resolution on protecting critical infrastructure. Officials from poor developing countries were confused. Some asked what this “critical infrastructure” even was. Others pointed out the obvious: you need to actually have infrastructure before you can protect it.
Singapore’s Approach
So what does a small country like Singapore do in a system run by the big players?
Singapore tries to be a voice of reason. It puts forward ideas to bridge the gap between developed and developing countries. It shows solidarity with the developing world, including by sharing what it has learned about economic development. Since 1992, the Singapore Cooperation Programme alone has trained over 90,000 officials from developing countries. Singapore also partnered with Novartis to set up the Institute for Tropical Diseases, taking on the “neglected diseases” problem directly.
Why This Matters
Tan York Chor’s chapter is a reality check. The UN system sounds democratic on paper. Every country gets a vote. But when rich countries control the money, they control the agenda. And when they use that control to focus only on their own interests, it weakens the ability of international organizations to solve problems that affect everyone.
Climate change, pandemics, food crises: these are global problems. They need global cooperation. But global cooperation is hard when trust between North and South keeps getting worn down by the same funding games.
The good news? Everyone still needs the UN. No country, however powerful, can solve these problems alone. That gives Tan some hope that things can change for the better. But it will take more honesty about who really owns the system and how that ownership gets exercised.
About the Author
Tan York Chor joined Singapore’s Civil Service in 1985. He worked across the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, including postings in Paris, Bangkok, and Canberra. From 2002 to 2005, he was Deputy High Commissioner in Canada and Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN in New York. From 2007 to 2010, he was Singapore’s Permanent Representative in Geneva and to the IAEA in Vienna. At the time of writing, he was serving as Singapore’s Ambassador to France and Portugal.
Previous: Singapore and the Birth of the WTO Next: Why Multilateralism Still Matters for Small Countries