February 18, 2022
Eight countries including Iran lost their rights to vote in the United Nations because of failing to pay their dues.
This is the second year in a row that Iran has been cited for not paying what it owes the UN.
But in 11 days, Iran paid up and regained its right to vote. Iran made much of the brouhaha, blaming US sanctions for making it hard for Iran to pay. But only days later, the Central Bank said it had collected $44 billion in foreign currencies from trade activities in the previous 10 months, so it shouldn’t have had any difficulty finding a measly $18 million for the UN.
A total of 11 of the 193 UN member states were behind in their payments, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a letter to the General Assembly dated January 11.
Under the UN charter, a member country’s right to vote is suspended when its arrears equal or exceed the amount of dues it should have paid over the preceding two years. If the outstanding debt is deemed to be “due to conditions beyond the control of the member,” the assembly may let that country continue to vote.
For 2022, this is the case of the Comoro Islands, Sao Tome and Principe, and Somalia, Guterres said, so they were allowed to keep their votes.
The eight countries that lost their right to vote effective immediately were Iran, Sudan, Venezuela, Antigua & Barbuda, Congo, Guinea, and Papua New Guinea, he said.
He spelled out the minimum amount each must pay to recover their vote. For Iran, it was just over $18 million while Sudan needed to come up with nearly $300,000 and Venezuela just under $40 million. The five other countries each needed to pay less than $75,000 to get their voting rights back.
Last January, Iran also lost its vote over unpaid dues. It said it could not pay even the minimum amount because of US economic sanctions. After months of negotiations, Iran was allowed to access money blocked by the US Treasury and got back its vote in June.
