Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter

This provides a clue as to the founders' hopes that the UN as formulated by the original Charter would be a first step toward a much more comprehensive framework of international law, whose development would be coordinated by the General Assembly.

It reads: When the United States fell behind in paying its dues to the UN, some members held that the US was breaking its treaty obligations to bear the expenses of the Organization.

In 1995, Malaysia said that any unilateral decision to reduce UN assessments is "illegal and totally unacceptable" and Australia said it "would not accept" a situation whereby "the largest contributor, by its failure to comply with the Charter, would destabilize the operation of the UN".

[2] Another interpretation, advanced by the Cato Institute, is that "the intent is to make certain that the world body is financed by countries, not special interests outside the organization".

The United States, when it was withholding dues in protest over the slow pace of UN reform, has historically paid just enough at the end of each year to avoid losing its vote under this provision.

[4] According to the New York Times, "The fact that a member is in arrears and thus not entitled to vote is, by established practice, determined by the Secretary-General through computation and reported to the Assembly by him or by the Committee on Contributions.

Comparable situations in specialized agencies of the United Nations have shown that a member's loss of voting rights is mandatory and automatic and that the fact of his debt is a 'ministerial, mathematical calculation' rather than a political decision.

[6] In 1999, faced with the possibility of Article 19 sanctions, President Bill Clinton agreed to withhold funding from organizations that supported abortion in exchange for Congress's agreement to repay U.S. arrears to the United Nations.