Office of the Historian

IO Files: US(P)/A/C.5/21

United States Delegation Working Paper

[Paris,] October 14, 1948.

Draft Resolution for Submission to the Committee 5 Working Group on Contributions1

The General Assembly

Recognizing

a)
that in normal times no one Member State should contribute more than one-third of the regular assessments of the Organization for any one year; and
b)
that in normal times the per capita contribution of any Member should not exceed the per capita contribution of the Member which bears the highest assessment; and
c)
that the Committee on Contributions needs more adequate statistical data:

Accordingly:

1.
Reaffirms the terms of reference of the Committee on Contributions accepted by the General Assembly in its resolution of February 13, 1946;
2.
Calls upon Member States to assist the Committee on Contributions by providing the statistics and other information essential to its work;
3.
Accepts the principle of a ceiling to be fixed on the per centage rate of contributions of the Member State bearing the highest assessment;
4.
Instructs the Committee on Contributions, until a more permanent scale is proposed for adoption, to recommend how additional contributions resulting from (a) admission of new members and (b) relative increases in the capacity of Members to pay can be used to remove existing maladjustments in the present scale or otherwise used to reduce the rates of contributions of present Members; and
5.
Decides that when existing maladjustments in the present scale are removed and a more permanent scale is proposed the rate of contribution which shall be the ceiling for the highest assessment shall be fixed by the General Assembly.

  1. This U.S proposal was submitted to a “working group” on contributions which had been set up by the Fifth Committee on September 30 on a motion submitted by Canada, Chile and the United States. Specifically the Working Group was asked to consider the revision of rule 149 of the rules of procedure of the General Assembly, so as to incorporate in the rule the ceiling principle. For the report of the Working Group on Contributions (United Nations document A/C.5/241, October 27, 1948), see United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, Third Session, Part I, Fifth Committee, Annexes, pp.89 ff.↩