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UN Performance Problems UN Management Accountability Struggles Where is the Rule of Law? Inadequate UN Oversight Recent Developments
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The United Nations has been debating the idea of an ombudsman for several decades. Many good ideas were developed under Secretary-Generals Pιrιz de Cuellar (in 1985 and 1986) and Butros-Ghali (in 1995), but no action was ever agreed upon and taken. "Feasibility of establishing an office of Ombudsman at the UN: Report of the Secretary- General", UN document A/C.5/40/38 of office of ombudsman in the Secretariat and streamlining of the appeals procedures: Report of the Secretary-General" , UN document A/C.5/41/14 of "Reform of the internal system of justice in the UN Secretariat: Report of the Secretary- General", UN document A/C.5/50/2 of In 2002, however, and
after further discussions, Secretary-General Annan finally appointed the
first UN Ombudsman, as a source of support for staff throughout the
Organization. Mr. Annan noted
that the new full-time function needs time and experience to determine the
volume of work and if any additional support is needed, and, if so, to
develop a broader system in light of the experience gained. This is a quite timid start, in
relation to all the Secretariat problems discussed in this
archive. The Ombudsman, as
decided by the General Assembly, is an Assistant-Secretary-General with a
professional Legal Officer to assist her. The Ombudsman is located in the
Secretary-General's office to informally address
employment-related problems of staff members; to provide an open, readily
available and confidential source of support to staff; and to seek answers
to questions and aid in resolving problems and overcoming conflicts in the
workplace. Mr. Annan asserted that the new function will strengthen
informal mediation and that, therefore, it replaces the old panels on
discrimination and other grievances. The Ombudsman reports "regularly" on
her work, but only to the Secretary-General. "Administration of justice
in the Secretariat: Report of the Secretary-General," UN document A/56/800
of 13 February 2002, section III, paras. 27-30, and Annex
II. [Note: the first Ombudsman,
Ms. Patricia Durrant, was appointed, for a non-renewable five-year term,
in October 2002.]
The new arrangement
sounds encouraging, but not on closer examination. For one thing, two (2!) people are
to support some 40,000 staff at a hundred or more duty stations around the
world in resolving problems and conflicts in their workplaces. If the new
office would be taken seriously, it would be inundated by a flood of work
and quickly grind to a halt. The new office therefore seems to IO Watch to
be just another "fig leaf" accessory to demonstrate accountability and
legitimate staff support in the UN without really providing it.
Moveover, the
foreseeable weaknesses of the ombudsman process in the UN are
long-standing. As Mark Roy
wrote in 1987, for instance: "The Administration's latest
proposal for 'Ombudsman panels" actually reflects the existing
unsatisfactory and ineffective "Discrimination panels"
and amounts to
'putting the old wine in the new bottle'
It is on record that the
'Ombudsman Panels' established in the UNDP and UNICEF have not at all
proved to be successful in resolving staff-management disputes in the past
forcing staff in those organs
to seek justice through the [JAB and the
UNAT].
There is a popular belief in the
Secretariat that Directors are, in fact, generally responsible for
contestable arbitrary, discriminatory or prejudicial decisions in the
first instance.
I earnestly propose that the
Ombudsman at [UN headquarters] be at [ASG or USG] level and be elected by
the General Assembly
from among candidates [who are] ombudsmen currently
practicing or retired in Member States. The Ombudsman at Headquarters
should function independently from the Administration, should be solely
responsible and accountable to the General Assembly, and should submit to
the General Assembly an annual report on the operations of the entire
Ombudsman system
" Mark Roy, "Ombudsman politics", Secretariat News (New York), 30 September 1987, p. 2. [Note: Mr. Roy was former chairman of the Legal Committee of the Staff Council in New York.] The new ombudsman thus
seems, like the OIOS, to be ostensibly independent but in fact is still
under the firm control of the Secretary-General. This is illustrated in particular
by the lack of any direct public reporting on her work. More bad news comes from the
experience of the staff discrimination panels which she replaces. They were established in 1987 and
for a while carried
out important conciliation functions, resolving disputes informally and at
an early stage in some 80 percent of the cases. They also -- quite
unusually for the internal justice system -- attempted, for a number of
years and long ago, to provide regular, published annual reports at
various duty stations on their activities, patterns of cases, and
solutions achieved.
But
the panels clearly fell apart during the late 1990s, perhaps in
conjunction with the powerful movement to "free the managers" of the UN
Secretariat. The
Secretary-General's 2000 report bluntly stated that: "The current informal mediation processes are not considered fully
adequate. The panels on
discrimination and other grievances are under-utilized by staff for a
number of reasons, among them that panel members are not trained to
mediate, and their findings are often not substantiated by evidence and
managers thus resist cooperating with
them." "Human resources management reform:
Report of the Secretary-General", A/55/253, 1 August 2000, Annex V,
para. 3. [emphasis
added]
As
in other areas, the above shows that UN managers, who have no more legal
expertise than the panels, were casually able to reject the cases
discussed with them out of hand, and no one, the Secretary-General
included, seemed to object to such cavalier treatment. In addition, no professional staff
member has the skills or the status necessary to "mediate" with an
aggressive UN director used to impunity. Mr.
Annan expressed confidence that the new ombudsman would "strengthen the
informal mediation process", but the Ombudsman's higher status is
cancelled out by the tiny size of the office, and any clever manager knows
how to delay and obstruct an overworked superior, who has only informal
(i.e., token) power to begin with. However,
the new Ombudsman could still become a very meaningful and credible UN
accountability and reform agent, by accepting and implementing a very
persuasive recommendation made -- again -- by Erskine Childers and Brian
Urquhart in their 1994 study on Reforming the United Nations
system. They observed that: "The United Nations has a record
of considerable achievement in the field of human rights even if [too
often] marred by double standards and the influence of power-politics. If
nothing more had been done
at the United Nations than [Member States']
negotiation and adoption of nearly 70 instruments of the International
Bill of Human Rights, this alone would fully justify the existence of the
organization.
This study addresses only the most
salient reform needs. One
important need [deserving]
early attention
is a mechanism for
independently monitoring the compliance of the UN system itself with its
Human Rights mandates.
Serious issues have been raised by
authoritative sources regarding the involvement of agencies of the UN
system, including the World Bank and the IMF,
in development and
monetary practices infringing or categorically violating human rights in
developing countries
{Also,] the greater the UN's
involvement in peace-enforcement and other operations that may employ
force, the more vital it becomes to have transparent and independent human
rights supervision
as much to protect the organization from false or
inflated charges of human rights abuse as to ensure that if these occur
they are properly investigated and reported."
Erskine Childers, with Brian
Urquhart, in Chapter X, "The international civil service", in "Renewing
the United Nations System", Development Dialogue, 1994:1, Dag
Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, 1994, pp. 105,
111. [emphasis added.]
They then made the
following recommendation:
3. "The General Assembly should
appoint an independent Ombuds-Panel (or equivalent title) on the Human
Rights Performance of the United Nations
System. a. The Panel should comprise one
full-time Chief for this work, with an independent office serviced by the
Office of the UN High Commissioner, and a viable list of persons willing
to serve on ready call, chosen on a representative
basis. b. The Panel should monitor,
intermediate, and regularly report on the compliance of all major entities
of the UN System with all Human Rights instruments. The Panel should present
independent reports on such compliance to the General Assembly, the
relevant executive head having the option of submitting a Note of
Comment. c. On every major UN field mission
comprising military and/or police units, one Ombudsman (with staff as may
be needed) should independently monitor its work in relation to necessary
human rights standards; intervene when and if necessary; report on
incidents, report overall at appropriate intervals during long Missions,
and report on their termination." Erskine Childers, with Brian
Urquhart, in Chapter X, "The international civil service", in "Renewing
the United Nations System", Development Dialogue, 1994:1, Dag
Hammarskjold Foundation, Uppsala, Sweden, 1994, pp.
202-203. [Note: the field presence
and investigations are certainly needed now, as discussed in
the Refugee sexual
abuses subsection preceding.]
Details would of
course need to be worked out, and perhaps concentration could be on the UN
first rather than on the entire UN system, especially since that would
cover most of the system's field operations. But a Human Rights Ombuds-Panel
for the UN and the UN system could easily be built into the new Ombudsman
office, and would have much more important work to do, as indicated above,
than providing "fig-leaf" informal mediation for staff
grievances. The expanded
Ombuds-Panel could be a very appropriate office to support several of the
recommended reforms presented in this archive: -- as an important
confidential support mechanism for staff who feel ignored or
mistreated by the half-hearted [and mistrusted]
OIOS hotline -- in Revision of the code of
conduct
above; -- in helping to
conduct, and then acting upon, an External experts justice reform
review , also above; and
-- in Expert personnel
reviews , as proposed under
Answers: A Starting
Point in the Recent Developments The direct relevance
of the Ombudsman office to the internal experts justice review, and
suppressed whistleblowers, is indicated by the first quote below, and to
revision of the UN "code of conduct" by the second quote, while the
centrality of labour rights in expert personnel reviews is discussed in
the "Answers" section: "The General Assembly,
Convinced that the independence
and impartiality of the judiciary are essential prerequisites for the
protection of human rights and for ensuring that there is no
discrimination in the administration of justice and should therefore be
respected in all circumstances; Emphasizing that the right to
access to justice, as contained in applicable human rights instruments,
forms an important basis for strengthening the rule of law through the
administration of justice;
Reaffirms the importance of the
full and effective implementation of all United Nations standards on human
rights in the administration of justice; Reiterates its call to all Member
States to spare no effort in providing for effective legislative and
other mechanisms and procedures, as well as adequate resources, to ensure
the full implementation of those standards
" "Human rights in the
administration of justice," General Assembly resolution 58/183 of 18 March
2004, preambular paras. 2,3, and paras. 1 and 2. [emphasis
added.]
"
How to conduct an ethics
overhaul: Here's the step-by-step approach the pros usually
advise. Step One Hire an
independent investigator to issue a report on the misconduct. Credible
former government officials are preferred. Step Two Write a new ethics
policy. Deliver [it] to all
company employees with memo from CEO instructing them not to ignore
it. Step Three Expand training. Hire consultants
start
scheduling regular informational sessions on subjects such as sexual
harassment, bribery, etc. Step Four Install a
whistle-blowers' hotline.
Publicize the phone number
and establish and detail fully a
systematic complaint procedure. Step Five Hire
a full-time ethics officer
to investigate whistle-blower complaints,
supervise training programs, and update the ethics
policy." "Ethics for hire: Laundering images of soiled companies is turning into big business", Business Week International, July 15, 1996, pp. 26-28. [emphasis added.]
While the tiny new UN
Ombudsman office moves ahead with its extremely modest functions, at least
some major multinational corporations are acting much more
decisively. The financial sector is being
increasingly scrutinized for its rule in funding projects associated with
human rights abuses
The issue is rising on the
corporate agenda although there is little consensus on how the risks can
be managed, the report, by F&C Asset Management and KPMG,
said. Nine institutions took part in the
survey, which identified concerns including employee rights, staff
security, litigation, loan default and risks to reputation. We are concerned about the
reputational risks lenders may incur through their association with
controversial clients and projects
said Karina Litvack, head of
governance and socially responsible investment at F&C Asset
Management.
in the United States,
international financial services institutions have been taken to court
over their alleged past roles in the former apartheid regime in South
Africa. The report said that companies
should develop a comprehensive human rights policy, communicate it to
staff and investors and ensure that senior executives are accountable for
enforcement. Briefcase: Rights become a corporate issue, Reuters,
International Herald Tribune, October 30-31,
2004. [Note:
At the UN -- the home of
human rights -- where are the detailed surveys,
their wide dissemination, and the firm accountability obligations of Secretariat senior officials? For that matter, who is the UN
senior official solely responsible for governance and socially responsible
operations?] In
the human rights context, even more than elsewhere, it is time for the UN
to firmly abandon its "unaccountable" status, and to very openly and
conscientiously begin to practice internally what it preaches to others.
This archive notes in its
subsection on UN Moral Values and Rectitude -- for
Others , that there has been much
public talk of "mainstreaming human rights throughout the UN system," but
it all seems to date to be too vague, amorphous, and
non-transparent. IO
Watch believes that the Secretary-General and the General Assembly should
act to promptly establish and implement (after a decade of neglect) a
Human Rights Ombudsman as recommended above. If they cannot, or if they choose
to dither along for years, they may as well call an end to the UN Global
Compact effort, and to the UN's, and UN system's, credibility in the human
rights field in general. If the UN itself will not apply independent and
transparent monitoring and supervision of its own compliance with UN human
rights mandates, why should anyone else bother? |
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