Corruption, fraud, and human rights violations: the case for the U.S. exiting the UN

"Americans' hard-earned dollars have been funneled into initiatives that fly in the face of our values – enabling tyrants, betraying allies, and spreading bigotry"—Sen. Mike Lee

America is funding a corrupt institution

The United States is the largest contributor to the United Nations (UN), providing the organization with billions of dollars every year despite evidence that the world body is rife with human rights abuses, the antitheses of the very principles for which America stands. Continuing to fund the UN enables it to continue harming the most vulnerable people on the globe.

Although there is no formal mechanism for countries to officially leave the UN, several bills have been introduced in Congress over the years, aimed at defunding or disengaging from the UN entirely.

Inside the organization

Filmmaker Ali Tabrizi interviewed three individuals, including two whistleblowers, who exposed the widespread corruption and abuse within the UN. They reveal a grim picture of fraud, sexual exploitation, and crimes against humanity. The UN is everything it was designed to prevent. Dictatorships, China in particular, have much influence over the operation of the institution and, thus, China’s ongoing genocide of the Uyghurs is enabled, sexual abuse is pervasive, and fraud is rampant. Whistleblowers are silenced, smeared, and fired. Meanwhile, the UN’s immunity shields its employees from prosecution, even for the most heinous crimes.

A haven for dictators

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an NGO “whose mandate is to monitor the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter,” exposed the UN as a haven for dictators. Neuer explained why sixty percent of the Human Rights Council members are dictators or rulers of other non-democratic countries, in his interview with Tabrizi (at 5:31).

So many dictatorships entered [the UN], and what happened was something paradoxical, is that precisely on the bodies that were meant to protect human rights, as they acquired more influence, and you could say power. What’s the power? They don’t have the power of the budget; they don’t have the power of the sword. But the power to shame countries.

You know, countries need legitimacy on the international stage; they need legitimacy at home. And if you get called out as a human rights violator, it’s enormously damaging to your country’s reputation and perhaps even their ability to survive. So, the world’s worst regimes—precisely those who are unelected and who have no legitimacy—they’re the ones who pushed the hardest, were willing to make the most substantial deals, to invest resources, economic resources, political resources, to get elected to high office on UN human rights bodies.

So, today, we have the Chinese Communist Party is always a member of the Human Rights Council. They get elected. The Cuban police state, which throws young people in prison for protesting for democracy, they’re always on the Human Rights Council. Eritrea, which employs slave labor, on the Human Rights Council. Sixty percent, today, of the UN Human Rights Council today are governments that are either full-on dictatorships or other forms of non-democracies.

Other countries don’t contest their election to these bodies, Neuer laments.

Sadly, many of the diplomats at the UN go along to get along.

Sex abuse - A cost of doing business

Human rights lawyer and whistleblower Emma Reilly was hired by the international body to stop human rights abuses from happening around the world. In her interview with Tabrizi, she details the UN's complicity in child sexual abuse by employees and peacekeepers. Referring to China’s genocide of the Uyghurs, she stated that she “unearthed the fact that the United Nations itself had evolved into one of the most corrupt organizations on the planet.” When she exposed “their complicity in the biggest genocide since the Holocaust, instead of doing anything about it, they came after me with everything they had.”

Her boss, she told Tabrizi (at 4:27), handed over the names of Chinese dissidents who would be speaking at the UN to the Chinese government despite knowing that they or their family members would be tortured to prevent them from speaking.

My direct boss, the chief of the Human Rights Council Branch, a guy called Eric Tistounet, had been passing names of dissidents who were planning to engage with UN Human Rights mechanisms to the Chinese government. My immediate reaction was, of course, we should never hand over this information.

It is fairly widely known that China uses intimidation, arbitrary arrest, detention, torture, even killing family members to stop people speaking out, and we’d always refused that information for every other member state. I said, "Okay, I’ll send them the standard response saying we don’t give that information."

The reaction of my colleague, who had been working with NGOs in the UN for years, was that I should discuss it with my boss. So that was already quite terrifying. And then, when I had that discussion with my boss, it was really clear that his view was that we should just give over the names because it would mean an easier life.

Rampant sexual abuse by peacekeepers was also swept under the carpet by the UN. She described its attitude to the sex crimes committed by UN peacekeepers as “a cost of doing business” (at about 1:05:00).

Within the UN, child sex abuse is seen as a cost of doing business instead of setting up systems to actually stop the abuse. We now have this victims commissioner that's there to effectively provide some form of compensation to victims of sexual exploitation and abuse by UN civilian forces, civilian staff, or UN peacekeepers.

It's things like, "We're sorry our staff raped you, but have a sewing machine and we'll train you to use it."

. . . Diplomatic immunity is cited in cases of child sex abuse, so people are not arrested by local authorities. The UN does these internal investigations which are designed to be ineffective.

. . .

Every time the UN says, "We can't find any of these victims of abuse," two journalists go in and can find 50 in a day. There's no effort to find the victims of the UN's abuses, and it's in everyone's interest to close their eyes.

Below is a screenshot from her interview, showing a headline decrying the immunity the abusers receive nearly a decade ago, even as the abuse and immunity continue.

Funding terrorism

Fraud investigator and whistleblower Peter Anthony Gallo, hired by the Office of Internal Oversight Services at the UN in New York, specializes in anti-money laundering compliance and counter-terrorism financing. In his interview with Tabrizi, he explained that there is no accountability for how money is managed, including funds raised through appeals for agencies like UNICEF. According to Gallo (at the start of the interview), much of the money ends up in the hands of terrorists, with the issue consistently swept under the rug.

The UN is the envy of the Mafia. The UN is funding terrorism. I found that in Lebanon, we found that in Somalia, and discovered between 70 and 80% of the money that was being handed over simply could not be accounted for. And also in the course of that, we found connections to the Al-Shabaab terrorist organization and a connection with Hezbollah. And that was swept under the carpet.

Everyone is familiar with appeals by UN agencies the likes of UNICEF, and there is no accountability for how that money is spent and how much of it is embezzled, stolen, or diverted, and ending up in the hands of the very parties that the UN is accusing or blaming—supposedly, for the wars that they need the money for in the first place. A filmmaker like you, poking around, is a threat to them.

He has been very vocal in his claim that the UN is a thoroughly corrupt organization and never once had the UN challenged him on the merits of his claims.

I am on record as saying that the UN is thoroughly riddled with corruption from bottom to top. I have been saying that for, I think, 10 years. And, the curious thing is that the UN has never—neither when I worked there nor in any of the public appearances I have said since—been willing to challenge me on the merits of anything I’ve ever said.

U.S. contributions to the UN

As the largest funder of the United Nations, the U.S. contributes billions of dollars annually, far surpassing the contributions of any other country. According to the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), in 2022, the U.S. contributed approximately 30% of the U.N. budget, totaling $18.1 billion, with roughly 17% coming from assessed contributions and the remainder from voluntary donations.

The CFR's chart below shows the breakdown of the U.S. contributions. (Scroll over the ovals on the CFR website to see the full information available.) The largest allocations were made to the World Food Program (WFP), the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the U.N. Department of Peace Operations (UN-DPO). The World Health Organization (WHO) received $850 million, while $710 million went toward the core budget. In 2024, then-President Biden suspended funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on January 26, 2024, after it was revealed that at least a dozen members of UNRWA had directly participated in the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the WHO on January 20, 2025.

Financial literacy website How Much provided the following visualization, using December 2018 UN Secretariat figures, to highlight the core budget contribution disparity between the United States and other member countries. The U.S., China, Japan, Germany, and the UK are the top contributors to the international body. While the U.S. provides 22% of the budget, China (with a population four times as large as the U.S.) provides 12%, Japan 8.5%, Germany 6%, and the UK 4.6%.

According to the World Population Review, 2024 percentages are similar, with China’s contribution reported to be 15% and the UK's about 6%.

Bills to Withdraw the United States from the United Nations

Several bills have been introduced in Congress to remove the United States from the U.N., reflecting growing dissatisfaction with the organization.

American Sovereignty Restoration Act
This bill, which has been repeatedly presented in Congress for decades, would repeal the U.N. Participation Act of 1945, which authorized the America’s entrance into the organization. The bill was initially introduced by Rep. Ron Paul in 1997 as H.R. 1146. Reporting on the 2017 iteration, The New American senior editor Alex Newman quoted the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. Rogers, on his reasons for sponsoring it.

“The U.N. continues to prove it’s an inefficient bureaucracy and a complete waste of American tax dollars,” the congressman said, echoing widespread concerns about the international outfit expressed across America and worldwide.

Beyond just being a waste, it is also a threat to U.S. interests, sovereignty, allies, and liberties, the Alabama Republican warned. “Why should the American taxpayer bankroll an international organization that works against America’s interests around the world?” he asked. “The time is now to restore and protect American sovereignty and get out of the United Nations.”

Newman noted some of the U.N. initiatives and policies that infringe on Americans’ Constitutional rights as reasons for leaving the international body.

Indeed, the UN has in recent years become incredibly bold in attacking the rights of Americans, and even the U.S. Constitution that enshrines those unalienable rights. From attacks on free speech and gun rights to assaults on parental rights and even America’s federalist system of limited government, the UN and its member regimes have become increasingly aggressive during the Obama years. It has also attacked U.S. independence like never before, with recently departed UN boss Ban Ki Moon claiming the UN was the “Parliament of Humanity” and that the radical UN Agenda 2030 was the new “Declaration of Interdependence.”

Newman also cited comments by Rep. Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor of the bill, from a previous radio interview where Massie explained why the U.S. should leave the U.N. At the time, Newman noted, Massie called it “an ‘Amexit’ or American exit, after the historic ‘Brexit’ vote in Britain to exit the European Union.”

Who would be crazy enough to stay in the United Nations and pay the most for their funding while it’s attended by Third World dictators who are writing rules and regulations that are supposed to bind our country?

H.R. 7806, the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2022, which was introduced by Rep. Mike Rogers, is the latest iteration of the bill. It calls for the U.S. to leave the U.N., terminate the organization’s presence on U.S. soil, and remove diplomatic immunity from its employees.

Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle (DEFUND) Act of 2023.

Senator Mike Lee and Rep. Chip Roy introduced this act in December 2023. It requires the United States to “completely depart from the U.N. over issues of national sovereignty and fiscal accountability.” According to their press release, the United States should no longer fund an organization that is “enabling tyrants, betraying allies, and spreading bigotry."

No more blank checks for the United Nations. Americans' hard-earned dollars have been funneled into initiatives that fly in the face of our values –enabling tyrants, betraying allies, and spreading bigotry," said Sen. Mike Lee. "With the DEFUND Act, we're stepping away from this debacle. If we engage with the UN in the future, it will be on our terms, with the full backing of the Senate and an iron-clad escape clause.

Withdrawal from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change:
H.R. 2781, introduced in April 2023 by Rep. Perry Scott, directs the President to withdraw the U.S. from several U.N. agencies.

This bill directs the President to withdraw the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the entity tasked with supporting the global response to climate change). The bill also prohibits the use of funds to carry out U.S. obligations under the framework following this withdrawal.

‘The greatest scandal in the century’

Following his interview with Emma Reilly, Tabrizi released a short video (embedded below) to underscore the importance of exposing the UN's abuses. When it comes to Jeffrey Epstein, Harvey Weinstein, and Jimmy Savile who are accused of pedophilia and other forms of sexual abuse they gain lots of attention because these “are high net worth celebrity cases that the media can make a ton of money on that and the lawyers can make a ton of money on.” However, when it comes to abuses by the UN, there are no well known personalities to expose and there’s no one to convict, since everyone who works for the agency has diplomatic immunity. The agency itself admits to 60,000 rapes having taken place over a ten-year period by its staff and that 3,300 pedophiles work or have worked for the organization. Tabrizi concludes with a striking analogy (at 2:06):

It’s like this analogy: you have a sinking ship.

Now, if you take a teaspoon and try and scoop out some water, that's essentially what you're doing with these celebrity cases. Now, you should be doing that—take these guys to court, make an example of them—but we can't forget the gaping hole in the side of the ship, which is the United Nations.

This, to me, is the greatest scandal in a generation, perhaps the greatest scandal in the century, especially when you take into account not only child abuse but all kinds of other forms of bribery, collusion, corruption, blackmail, spying—which was outlined in episode one of my interview with Emma Reiily and as we’ll be diving into in upcoming episodes.

Stewart Patrick, the CFR director of International Institutions and Global Governance, described how UN peacekeepers exploit vulnerable populations in war torn areas to trade “free” food and even medicine for sexual favors:

Sexual violence by peacekeepers is by now disturbingly familiar. Reports of such crimes date back at least to the 1990s, in U.N. missions in Mozambique, Bosnia, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Abuses ran the gamut from sex trafficking to prostitution in exchange for money, food or medical supplies.

These allegations are extraordinarily serious. By remaining in the UN, the U.S. is using taxpayer money to sustain a corrupt organization that preys on innocent victims and enacts policies that defy the U.S. Constitution and the values America stands for. It is time for the U.S. to pass the DEFUND Act and end its complicity in the UN's actions and activities. The U.S. should not be a party to this scandal.