UN 'rides roughshod' over employees' rights 

James Bone
June 14, 2006
Times Online (UK)
Original Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2225760,00.html

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The UN has been accused of violating the human rights of its own staff by an independent panel chaired by a leading British lawyer. 
The three-member committee, headed by Geoffrey Robertson, QC, called for a root-and-branch reform of the UN’s internal justice system for disciplining staff, including the introduction of a Freedom of Information Act for employees.
The current practice violates the right to a fair trial and fundamental employment rights guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and regional treaties, the report said.
Despite a series of corruption scandals, the UN continues to operate in almost total secrecy, protected from outside investigation by diplomatic immunity.
The 191-nation UN General Assembly pledged last year to overhaul the UN’s internal justice system after years of complaints by staff that the process favours management.
The new report was prepared by the independent jurists — Mr Robertson, a UN appeal judge; Roger Clark of New Zealand and Ousmane Kane of Senegal — at the request of the UN staff union, which represents about 30,000 employees.
It was submitted on Tuesday to a redesign panel set up by the General Assembly to prepare reforms proposals for a vote in October.
Noting that the UN internal justice system was designed in 1946 and modelled in some respects on that of the League of Nations, Mr Robertson called it sclerotic, opaque and unfair.
It puts the UN in the hypocritical position of advocating to member states standards of due process that it does not apply itself, he said.
The average time for processing a staff-member’s appeal is five years - a wholly unacceptable, and for many staff members, crippling, delay, the report said. Its various stages could not be regarded as independent.
It is a system in which the Management always wins, even when it loses,, the panel said. The Secretary-General simply rejects inconvenient pro-staff decisions or pays money in lieu of taking the right action recommended by the UN Administrative Tribunal.
The failings of the justice system have outraged staff, who accuse top officials of covering up for each other.
Although Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General, bills himself as a reformer, he rejects a majority of recommendations by the UN’s internal justice organs that are favourable to employees, Mr Robertson said.
In one high-profile case, Mr Annan rejected a recommendation by the Joint Disciplinary Committee that he make a public apology and pay compensation to Joseph Stephanides, the only UN official fired in the Oil-for-Food scandal. Mr Stephanides was technically reinstated, although he had already retired. But a letter of censure was placed in his file.
Mr Annan has also refused to make public documents assembled by the UN inquiry into the scandal touching on business dealings involving his own son.
In an unprecedented rebuff, the UN staff union passed a vote of no confidence in Mr Annan and his senior management after they proposed outsourcing jobs and other changes in March.
Many members of the staff joined the UN for idealistic reasons; they believe in the organisation and its mission and feel betrayed by a management that does not practise what it preaches the report said.
Mr Robertson’s panel called for the creation of a UN employment tribunal consisting of a single professional judge sitting with two assessors, one appointed by the staff union and the other by UN management.
He insisted it was essential that the UN operated under the same legal standards as democratic states. But he acknowledged that UN members might not embrace the panel’s proposed reforms. The real problem will be getting it through the General Assembly, he said.
Mr Annan’s spokesman said: The overall situation is that the system, as it is now, doesn’t really reflect the needs of the staff or management. No one is happy with it. That’s why he’s very keen on making it better.