Democratizing the Power of the UN’s Purse: A Reply to Matthys and Linnér
A reply to the Toda Peace Institute policy brief “Financing without Strings Attached” by Frederik Matthys and Peter Linnér. The views expressed are the author’s own.
The power asymmetry within the United Nations is most often associated with the Security Council veto power held by just five countries. However, as Frederik Matthys and Peter Linnér explain in their policy brief “Financing without Strings Attached: A sequenced pathway to institutional autonomy”, the unfair distribution of power within the UN is felt just as much on the balance sheet as it is in the diplomatic channels that shape world order.
According to Matthys and Linnér, 68% of the resources reaching the UN through its three main financing instruments in 2024 were earmarked, rising to 81% for development and humanitarian funding, and that earmarking is concentrated among a handful of donor states. These donors hold arguably even more veto power than the Security Council veto: an informal, unwritten veto over how and where the UN operates. In search of a more autonomous United Nations, the authors propose a funding scheme tied to Gross National Income that would treat UN Member States as “equal stakeholders rather than shareholders,” provided it is matched by a “comparable increase in accountability.”
This innovation in global governance financing would promote equity among nations, and I applaud the authors for their bold ideas. Taking a closer look, they route accountability through the General Assembly: an independent fiduciary board would answer to the Assembly, and the pilot endowment would add an audit committee of external experts. In this model, the legitimacy of UN finances passes from citizens to governments and stops there. The global taxpayer whose income the Gross National Income model is based on ultimately has no direct say in UN financial affairs. One must ask what is gained by carrying the UN’s democratic deficit into its finances at a time of great structural strain.
The benefit, according to Matthys and Linnér, is clear. At just 0.1% of global Gross National Income, the more ambitious of their two models could raise up to US$115 billion a year, roughly 1.7 times the US$68 billion the entire UN system received in 2024.
A simple formula automatically generating this much revenue for an institution has a remarkable resemblance to state power. This autonomous UN fiscal state would exist as an extension of national treasuries, in the belief that national legitimate authority would be extended to the UN in tandem with the money.
Matthys and Linnér set these questions aside themselves, noting that “stewardship and institutional configuration” remain essential but fall beyond the scope of their brief. I aim to complement their innovative proposal with this analysis, rather than fault them for a proposal they chose not to write. For example, the authors maintain the existing voting weight within the General Assembly throughout their proposal: one country, one vote. A democratic approach would argue that if the UN is to gain fiscal power, a parallel body representing citizens alongside countries (one person, one vote) may prove more palatable to a world population increasingly skeptical of global governance.
Matthys and Linnér’s proposal is practical because it is built to work within the existing Charter: their second model needs no amendment, and their first runs through the General Assembly’s existing budget powers. This is similar to the process by which the General Assembly can invoke Article 22 of the Charter to create an advisory parliamentary assembly as a subsidiary body. Perhaps the fiduciary board responsible for overseeing the UN’s finances in Matthys and Linnér’s proposal could report to a representative body of humanity to legitimize the representative share of global taxation flowing into the UN. Taxation with representation.
Matthys and Linnér are candid about what stands in the way. In their conclusion, they write that neither of their models resolves what they call the reform paradox: both depend on the consent of states “whose leverage depends on the system remaining unreformed.” They add that parts of the Secretariat and the agencies have their own stake in a fragmented funding model. I agree with that diagnosis; it points to a systemic propensity to remain unchanged, which in a changing world leads to failure.
A paradox that lives inside an intergovernmental system is unlikely to be solved from inside it alone. Reform needs a constituency that gains from change and has a voice in the process. Parliamentarians are an obvious candidate, since they already approve the national budgets that pay for the UN. Civil society is another, and young people in particular will live longest with whatever financing system is chosen now. Neither group has a role in either model. The coalition of willing states that the authors rightly place at the center of their second model would find it far easier to hold its course with organized public support behind it.
There is also a more technical reason to think about the Charter. The GNI-based assessment in the authors’ first model would run through the General Assembly’s existing power under Article 17, which states that the expenses of the Organization “shall be borne by the Members as apportioned by the General Assembly.” The brief calls this “a narrower, more legally tractable route” than an independently collected tax, and the authors are right. But what one General Assembly majority apportions, a later majority can apportion differently. A scale adopted by resolution can be undone by resolution, and an endowment fed by that scale would be exposed to the same risk.
If financial autonomy is meant to last, it will eventually need to be written into the Charter itself. Amendments under Article 108 must be ratified by two-thirds of Member States, including all five permanent members of the Security Council. Article 109 offers a fuller route: a General Conference to review the Charter as a whole, which can be called by a two-thirds vote of the General Assembly and the vote of any nine members of the Security Council, so no single permanent member can block it from meeting. Whatever it adopts would still need ratification by two-thirds of Member States, including all five permanent members. The Young World Federalists support the Article 109 coalition, which is building support among states and civil society for such a conference. A protected endowment and a fair assessment formula would belong on its agenda.
I also want to back the authors on a concern they raise themselves. They acknowledge that a uniform 0.1% rate would remove the progressive adjustments in the current scale of assessments, such as the debt burden and low per capita income adjustments. Exempting the least developed countries softens the sharpest edge, but as they write, “lower-middle-income states just above the LDC threshold would still carry a heavier relative burden.”
This concern deserves more attention. A fair system should scale contributions to ability to pay, as most national tax systems already do. The harder question is who sets that scale, and whether the people who ultimately pay would accept it as fair. Today the scale is negotiated between governments in the General Assembly’s Fifth Committee. A body that represents people, and not only treasuries, could be trusted to set a progressive scale and defend it in public.
Matthys has asked readers to “tell us where it falls short”, and I offer these points in that spirit. I would put three questions to him and Linnér. Who, besides governments, should the fiduciary board answer to? Would they support a parliamentary oversight body as part of their second model, while the reserve facility and pilot endowment are still building a track record? And is a Charter amendment ultimately needed to protect the endowment from a hostile General Assembly majority? I would be glad to publish a response from either author on the Young World Federalists blog, and to continue the conversation there.
About the author
Eston McKeague is President of Young World Federalists and Vice Chair of the Executive Board of the World Federalist Movement and Institute for Global Policy. Originally from Seattle and now based in Berlin, he helped build Young World Federalists into a youth-led movement for global democracy. He holds an MSc in Political Science, Public Policy and Governance from the University of Amsterdam.
