of that body, which, the American government felt, had culminated in
the debate on a new world information and communication order.
This punitive measure, which Great Britain also adopted in 1985, was
not lifted until 2003, when the United States finally rejoined UNESCO.
The second decision was the implementation in 1985 of the American
administration’s policy of delaying the payment of its contribution to
the UN regular budget.^69 Since the United States was the UN’s main
financial contributor, this strategy quickly succeeded in modifying the
organization’s behavior to Washington’s liking. As these episodes
demonstrate, hostility toward the UN – expressed more recently in the
discussions on the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol,
and the war in Iraq – has been a key component of US foreign policy
for an entire generation.
The pressures brought to bear during the 1980s put the UN on the
defensive and produced many changes within the organization. The
UN endeavored to shift the focus of its activities toward security
issues, while in the field of development it assumed a much lower
profile. The very idea of overhauling the world economic order was
dropped, along with plans to stabilize commodity prices or regulate
technology transfers. It is also noteworthy that when the UN initiated
a comeback in the area of development in the 1990s, it adopted an
approach that was plainly less ambitious than before. As they dealt
with topics such as children (1990), the environment (1992), human
rights (1993), women (1995), habitat (1996), or racism (2001), the UN
major conferences of that decade opened new paths for dialogue, but
they deliberately stayed away from the alternative global approach
that was put forward during the 1970s. As the years passed, the UN
increasingly fell into line with the prevalent orthodoxy, according to
which development policies had to rely on the market, with domestic
impediments to growth outweighing the constraints associated with
the external environment.^70
(^69) Margaret P. Karns and Karen A. Mingst,International Organizations: The
Politics and Processes of Global Governance, Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 2004,
pp. 253–54; United Nations Association of the United States of America,
“United Nations Funding: FY2007 Budget Request”, UNA-USA factsheet,
May 2006 (www.unausa.org/site/pp.asp?c¼fvKRI8MPJpF&b¼ 667579 ).
(^70) Robert W. Cox (with Michael Schechter),The Political Economy of a Plural
World: Critical Reflections on Power, Morals and Civilization, London,
Routledge, 2002, p. 86.
156 Left and Right in Global Politics