Congressman Mike Pence on United Nations Reform

WASHINGTON D.C. – Mike Pence is one of the authors and the primary sponsors of the “tough” version of United Nations reform currently under consideration by Congress. During a question-and-answer session with Congressman Pence, I had the chance to ask him if he believes that United Nations reform will pass this year.

Congressman Pence thinks that there will be United Nations reform this year, partially through legislation, and partially through the tenacious efforts of John Bolton. Pence characterized the House UN reform bill as setting a timeline for reforms that the United Nations has already embraced on issues like accounting, transparency, and human rights.

Congressman Pence believes that the US must use the power of the purse to implement UN reform with teeth and that his bill does that. He hasn’t seen the latest iteration of the Senate bill, but the Congressman believes that the House and Senate will come together to pass a tough reform bill.

According to Congressman Pence, the UN has “consistently been an utter failure in its core mission, which was to bring the free nations of the world together to confront tyranny in a collective way” evidenced most dramatically by the unwillingness of the UN to follow through on sixteen separate resolutions throughout the 1990s; "it wasn’t that diplomacy failed, it wasn’t that America failed, it was the United Nations that failed".

Congressman Pence believes that if these reforms are not achieved, then the US needs to "seriously consider putting our heads together with the other nations of the earth that are committed to freedom and consider a new forum for the twenty-first century" – a forum that won’t spend "an enormous amount of time trying to tie down this great nation".