Financial Obstruction: How States Undermine International Organizations by Dishonouring Membership Fee Obligations

The decision by the Trump administration to selectively withhold payment of its assessed contributions to the United Nations (UN) has sent the organization into its worst financial crisis in decades. This withholding is an extreme example of a broader and understudied phenomenon, namely obstructionism in international organizations (IOs) by their member states through the dishonoring of their financial obligations. Assessed contributions—essentially a membership fee—are one of several means by which IOs can be financed, and they constitute the essential financial backbone that anchors the core substantive work and administrative capacity for most IOs that receive them. As such, the accumulation of arrears can hamstring the basic functioning of an IO. This paper develops the concept of financial obstruction, or the undermining—whether deliberate or otherwise—of the functioning of IOs through withholding or late payment of assessed contributions. Through an examination of membership fee structures across various IOs including the UN, we establish a typology of the forms that financial obstruction can take, the motivations of member states engaging in financial obstruction, the consequences of financial obstruction on mandate implementation by IOs, and the mitigation measures taken by IOs. This typology provides a foundation for demonstrating how member states can use payment patterns—which are usually framed as an administrative exercise—as a means of achieving political objectives in IOs. We show that different types of financial obstruction require different approaches by IOs to manage their impacts, from both political and administrative perspectives. We illustrate this effect through case studies from the UN system. In the first, we examine how the United States utilized partial payment of its contributions to the UN regular budget to subvert established intergovernmental processes and coerce other member states and the Secretariat to acquiesce to U.S. demands. In the second, we show how permanent members of the Security Council have used selective non-payment of their contributions to UN peacekeeping budgets in an attempt to achieve outcomes that they could not secure through negotiations. In both cases, the practices in question began during the Cold War, but have become increasingly systematized over time. Finally, this paper examines what potential measures may mitigate the impact of financial obstructionism in IOs. These considerations may be particularly valuable and timely given the ongoing deliberations at the UN on financing and reform, including as part of the UN80 initiative.