Longstanding questions about the United Nations' relevancy and role continue to be issues among the 2012 U.S. presidential candidates. President Obama remains an advocate of the organization, while cautioning that it often fails to honor its ideals. But a number of the Republican candidates have criticized it harshly, with some threatening to pull out of the organization or cut funding, especially at a time of limited resources at home.

Editor's Note: Click here for more CFR Issue Trackers and other 2012 campaign resources, which examine the foreign policy and national security dimensions of the presidential race.

Barack Obama

Democratic Incumbent

Share

--

--

President Obama has reiterated his support for the mission of the United Nations in his annual addresses to the UN General Assembly in 2009, 2010, and 2011. He also touted the United Nations in his Nobel Prize speech in December 2009.

In his September 2009 UN address, Obama spoke of the "extraordinary good" the United Nations does "feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, mending places that have been broken." But he cautioned that the United Nations "also struggles to enforce its will, and to live up to the ideals of its founding."

In 2010 Obama emphasized the UN's role in advancing human rights and international peacekeeping, and also called for making the institution more accountable. In 2011, he repeated the call for UN support of human rights, saying the UN charter "calls upon us to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security."

Ambassador Joseph M. Torsella laid out Obama's UN agenda based on the four pillars of economy, accountability, integrity, and excellence in January 2012 remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations. The plan calls for reduced spending, improved transparency and oversight, standing firm against member states that discredit the UN.

Ron Paul

Republican Candidate

Rep. Paul [R-TX] has been a longtime opponent of the United Nations, seeing it as a threat to U.S. sovereignty. He has repeatedly called for the United States to end its UN membership, and has repeatedly introduced legislation to facilitate this goal. Paul has suggested ending funding to UNESCO, which he says "has been openly hostile to American values, our Constitution, and Western culture."

Paul sponsored the American Sovereignty Restoration act of 2009 to repeal U.S. involvement in the United Nations. The 2009 act was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in March 2011. On Sept. 27, 2011, Paul wrote, "I wish the United States would de-recognize the United Nations." (AntiWar.com) He added, "The UN is a threat to our sovereignty — and as we are the main source of its income, it is a threat to our economic well-being."

Mitt Romney

Republican Candidate

Romney has long been critical of the United Nations, commenting in 2007 that it had been an "extraordinary failure" (USAToday) and suggesting that the United States withdraw from the UN's Human Rights Council. Romney believes the United States should "focus multilateral institutions like the United Nations on achieving the substantive goals of democracy and human rights enshrined in their charters," according to his web site.

"Bodies like the United Nations tend to confuse process with substance, prizing the act of negotiating over the outcomes that negotiations can reach," his October 2011 white paper says. In a February speech, Romney said he would cut off money to the UN Population Fund, which he says supports China's one-child policy.

Newt Gingrich (*withdrew)

Editor's Note: Gingrich withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on May 2, 2012.

Gingrich has long pressed for United Nations reform. In 2005 Gingrich and former Senator George Mitchell served as co-chairs of the Task Force on the United Nations, a bipartisan congressional effort to reform the United Nations. The report included calls for affirmation at the UN of the responsibility of governments to protect citizens from grave abuses, and also called for the creation of a new UN Human Rights Council, two steps which were eventually taken.

In the Republican foreign policy debate on Nov. 11, 2011, Gingrich voiced opposition to United Nations "absurdities," including Agenda 21, a UN action plan on sustainable development.

In August 2011, Gingrich called for possibly suspending UN funding. "We should be willing to say that if the U.N. is going to circumvent negotiations and declare the territory of one of its own members [Israel] an independent state, we aren't going to pay for it. We can keep our $7.6 billion a year," he wrote in a piece for Human Events.

Rick Santorum (*withdrew)

Editor's Note: Santorum withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on April 10, 2012.

As part of his program for "empowering families" and "building economic freedom," Santorum's web site lists cutting funding to United Nations organizations that "undermine American interests." In the September Republican debate in California, Santorum accused the Obama administration of going "along with the Libya mission because the United Nations told him to."

Jon Huntsman (*withdrew)

Editor's Note: Huntsman withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on January 16, 2012.

Huntsman's stance on this issue is unknown.

Rick Perry (*withdrew)

Editor's Note: Perry withdrew his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination on January 19, 2012.

In the October 18, 2011 Republican debate in Las Vegas Perry said, "it's time for us to have a very serious discussion about defunding the United Nations." Perry has argued that the United States and the United Nations should take a strong stand against Palestinians' quest for a "one-sided" endorsement of statehood (WSJ) from the organization.