NOTE:

following is an urgent action regarding funding for the Ad-hoc War Crimes Tribunals which was sent to the NGO coalition for an International Criminal Court (CICC) and the Transnational Radical Party on July 6th, 1995.

We are forwarding it to our members and other interested organizations around the world.

For more information please call the numbers at the end of the document or contact us at +1 (212) 980-1031 /980-1072 fax

ACTION ALERT

We take the liberty of sending out this urgent request to friends

of the Tribunal, especially NGO's, to write to (1) United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and (2) the Chairman of the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly Ambassador Adrien Teirlinck asking for immediate resolution of the mode of funding for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

LETTERS SHOULD ARRIVE, IF POSSIBLE, ON OR BEFORE JULY 10, 1995.

Those of you who have been involved in previous letter-writing efforts will be pleased to know that you have made a difference. Word has reached me that previous letter-writing campaigns by NGO's on the ICTY and Rwanda tribunal budgets have been both effective and appreciated in The Hague.

The present issue is a trivial one that has potentially serious consequences. If the General Assembly does not formally approve the ICTY's budget, the Tribunal's budget will officially run out on July 14, 1995. Formal approval requires a decision by the Fifth Committee of the General Assembly on whether the ICTY will be funded out of the regular U.N. budget or the peacekeeping budget.

If the question is not resolved, the worst-case outcome is that the ICTY would be shut down. At best, the ICTY will have to operate hand-to-mouth, as it has done so far, putting the Tribunal at the mercy of U.N. accountants shuffling money from account to account to keep the Tribunal going.

Signals out of New York indicate that the U.N. Controller's officeis not pleased about continuing to do this. On April 7, the last day of the Fifth Committee's session prior to the present one, the warnings became ominous. U.N. Controller Yukio Takasu (in U.N. doc. GA/AB/2999) warned the Fifth Committee that they had "created a precarious situation." The Tribunal's situation, he said, "could not be described as secure". He went on, "[S]hould the Secretary-General [i.e., the U.N.] be unable to carry out all mandated operations [meaning, should the Tribunal not be able to do what it is supposed to do], it would not be his responsibility." In what I regard as Takasu's most ominous statement, he said, "[S]uch a precarious financial and staffing situation could hamper its [the Tribunal's] functioning."

What is the dispute all about? Some countries have argued that the ICTY should be funded out of the general U.N. budget, the same way the United Nations funds the International Court of Justice, which resolves disputes between governments. Other countries argue that because the Security Council set up the two tribunals under the peacekeeping provisions of the U.N. Charter, the tribunals should be paid out of the peacekeeping budget.

In dollar terms, however, the difference is truly petty. Here iswhy. Member countries contribute to the general U.N. budget at a"regular" rate roughly proportionate to their national wealth. The United States, as the wealthiest nation in the world, contributes 25%. France and Britain, fourth and sixth, respectively, contribute 6.32% and 5.27%. Less developed countries contribute less.

Peacekeeping, however, is controlled by the Security Council, so the five permanent members contribute a slightly greater share to the U.N. peacekeeping budget. The United States, for example, contributes about 31%. France and Britain contribute about 8% and 6.7%. The least-developed countries contribute even less to the peacekeeping budget than to the regular budget.

Thus, if the ICTY is funded out of peacekeeping, the permanent members of the Security Council pay a little more. Otherwise, if the tribunals are funded out of the general budget, other countries pay a little more.

This year's budget for the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal is$28.4 million. For the United States, the difference between the regular rate and the peacekeeping rate works out to only $1.7 million. For France and Britain, the differences are about $500,000 and $400,000. For most other countries, the difference is even smaller.

For purposes of comparison, the budget for the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) for calendar 1995 is more than $1.67 billion. The new U.N. reaction force will cost at least another $300 million for six months. Both the Yugoslavia and Rwanda war crimes tribunals could be funded at a rate of $100 million a year, more than twice the present level, out of what the United Nations spends on UNPROFOR in less than 20 days.

Our understanding is that the United States and other countries are trying to engineer a compromise. Given how small the financial stakes are for members, and how large the stakes are for the Tribunal, any resolution of this issue is better than the present impasse.

You may wish to write both the Secretary-General and the chairman of the Fifth Committee to urge them to use their good offices to ensure a resolution -- any resolution -- of this issue.

The decision whether to fund the ICTY out of the general U.N. budget or the peacekeeping budget should not be allowed to put the Tribunal's funding at risk for a day longer.

The addresses to write to would be:

His Excellency Boutros Boutros-Ghali

Secretary-General of the United Nations

The United Nations

New York, New York 10017

His Excellency Ambassador Adrien Teirlinck

Chairman, Fifth Committee of the General Assembly

The United Nations

New York, New York 10017

The fax numbers for the United Nations are

1-212-963-4879 and 1-212-371-4360.

The main U.N. telephone number is

1-212-963-1234.