WOLFF-OZAWA DISCUSS WEOG ROTATIONS, UN SCALE OF

C O N F I D E N T I A L USUN NEW YORK 000548 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR IO/EDA AND PRM/PRP E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/16/2016 TAGS: KUNR UNGA UNCHR AORC UNDP UNICEF PREF SUBJECT: WOLFF-OZAWA DISCUSS WEOG ROTATIONS, UN SCALE OF ASSESSMENT AND THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL. REF: USUN 400 Classified By: Ambassador Wolff for reasons 1.5 (B) (D) 1.(U) This is an action request - see paragraph 5. ¶2. (U) Summary: Ambassador Toshiro Ozawa of the Japanese Mission to the United Nations called on Ambassador Wolff on March 7 to discuss the current proposal for a WEOG rotation plan for election to the Executive Boards of UNICEF and UNDP/UNFPA and to present a Japanese proposal for changes in the UN Scale of Assessment. During the discussion, Ambassador Wolff requested Japan's opinion on the issue of Purchasing Power Parity. The status of the Human Rights Council was also discussed. End Summary. 3 (SBU) Ambassador Ozawa initially raised the pending issue of a new WEOG rotation plan for representation on the Executive Boards of UNICEF and UNDP/UNFPA. The current plan had been in place since 1995, allowing WEOG to present clean slates every year for elections. Under this plan, the United States has always been represented on both Executive Boards. However, as the final year of the current plan was 2006 and the ECOSOC Plenary had scheduled elections for the 2007 Boards in May of this year, the WEOG Bureau Chiefs for UNICEF (the Netherlands) and UNDP/UNFPA (Japan) appointed Switzerland as a facilitator to create a new rotation plan for the next fifteen years. The U.S. position is that due to the extent of our development aid world-wide (nearly 27 billion dollars in 2004),the United States must be represented on both Boards for the full length of any plan. The facilitator's current proposal would limit us to 12 years out of 15 on each Executive Board. 4.(SBU) Ambassador Ozawa offered a new proposal, which would give the United States a seat on the Executive Board of UNICEF for 14 years out of the 15-year plan. In addition, Japan proposed what they called a "floating seat" for the "large donor" group, which would be given to the donor with the greatest increase in contributions to UNICEF, thus giving the U.S. a potential for all 15 years. On UNDP, Japan offered no change from the current facilitator's limit of 12 years. 5 (SBU) Ambassador Ozawa urged the U.S. to accept this proposal. Ambassador Wolff replied that the proposal would be sent back to Washington for guidance. Action Request: USUN requests Department guidance on proposed WEOG rotation plan. ¶6. (C) The subject then turned to the UN Scale of Assessment and Ambassador Ozawa presented Ambassaddor Wolff with the Japanese proposal (Note: USUN was informed that the Department was also demarched at the same time by the Japanese and has received a copy of the proposal.) Ambassador Ozawa emphasized the main point of their proposal which is the introduction of a minimum assessment rate (or floor)of 3 or 5 percent for the permanent members of the Security Council. After a brief discussion of what the EU might offer, Ambassador Wolff asked Ambassador Ozawa what he thought of the U.S. proposal of Purchasing Power Parity (which would shift some of financial burden away from the large donor countries such as the United States and toward some of the large developing economies such as China and India). Ambassador Ozawa welcomed the introduction of the idea, but had serious doubts about whether it would "carry the day." ¶7. (C) Ambassador Ozawa then brought up the Human Rights Council and suggested that a "cooling off period" should be shorter than the several months that Ambassador Bolton proposed. Ambassador Wolff recounted, as has previously been reported reftel, that there was no appetite in any quarter for reopening the text to amendments at this time, so the United States was not pushing this approach. There was a brief discussion of "off-text" proposals, such as a statement by the Community of Democracies. However, Ambassador Wolff noted that this would not solve the substantive problem. BOLTON