By Mark Leon Goldberg

The New York Times reported yesterday on a draft executive order that would radically reshape America’s relationship with the United Nations. Except the draft executive order, as reported, was full of basic errors indicating that the authors lack some basic elementary knowledge of the United Nations and international affairs more broadly.

For example, Max Fisher reports the order “establishes a committee to recommend where those funding cuts should be made. It asks the committee to look specifically at United States funding for…the International Criminal Court.” In fact, the USA does not contribute one cent to the International Criminal Court. A 2002 law prevents the United States from making any financial contributions to the Hague-based court. The USA is not even a member of it.

The draft also reportedly calls for reducing US funding for “organizations that give full membership to the Palestinian Authority or Palestine Liberation Organization.” Again, this is already a law on the books from the 1990s. The United States is statutorily prohibited from providing funding to any UN entity that admits Palestine as a member. It was for this reason that in 2010 the USA abruptly cut off contributions to UNESCO after UNESCO’s membership voted to include Palestine.

Image: Haitian mothers wait to inoculate children with WHO vaccines. UN Photo/Sophia Paris