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At UN, Ban's Justice Delayed May be Justice Denied, Ms. Migiro's Ruling May Predict the Future

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, November 19 -- As the UN's Secretary General Ban Ki-moon travels the globe, most recently inaugurating Tuesday in Geneva a $25 million ceiling paid for in part by international cooperation funds from Spain's government, criticism of his performance at headquarters is growing. He was charged, for example, with setting up by the end of this year a new Justice System for the UN.

  But his delay has been detailed and decried in a recent report of the UN's Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. ACABQ "was informed that the Secretariat was behind schedule in the preparatory work related to the implementation... None of the 30 posts authorized for the Office of Administration of Justice have been filled."

  A recent example of the UN's broken justice system involves the classification of several dozen UN staff in Publishing and related fields. In a decision which while labeled "Confidential" Inner City Press has obtained and is putting online here, the staff members won three months' back pay, based in part on a unanimous finding that their due process rights had been violated. But in a November 6, 2008 letter annexed to the decision, Ban's Deputy Asha Rose Migiro tells the staff to go and appeal the decision, that Ban Ki-moon won't pay.

   Since the current system of justice, such as it is, is scheduled to sunset on December 31, Inner City Press at Wednesday's UN noon briefing asked Ban's Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe what his plan is for justice after December 31.  Ms. Okabe said she would look into it. But it is this inattention to even hard deadlines set by the General Assembly for which the Ban administration is increasingly criticized.

  At an event Tuesday night in the UN's Delegates' Dining Room, three separate Permanent Representatives criticized Ban to Inner City Press. "He's never here," one said, referring to his and his Deputy's frequent travel.

   "What difference does it makes?" asked another. A third predicted even more acrimonious relations between the General Assembly and Ban starting January 1, the scheduled starting date not only for the new justice system, but also for Sudan to head the Group of 77 and China.

   Not having any answer from Ban's Spokesperson's office, Inner City Press asked insiders in the GA's Fifth (Budget) Committee. They too were exasperated with Ban's performance, but an attempt was under way to raft an interim solution, under which the existing Administrative Tribunal could be continued despite the retirement of two judges and disqualification of two others.  In the foreign press, judges from Australia and Ohio are being pushed. But from Ban and his Team, nothing.

Asha Rose Migiro: stand up for your rights, just not at the UN

   A main rub in the un-formed justice system is the need for "specific performance" -- that is, for a judge to be able to tell the UN it must for example give a whistleblower back his or her job. Mere money damages in such cases are not enough of a deterrent.

 Again, an example of the need for justice improvements including specific performance involves Joint Appeals Board ruling 2007-057 in which the staff members won three months' back pay, based in part on a unanimous finding that their due process rights had been violated. But in her November 6, 2008 letter, Ban's Deputy Asha Rose Migiro tells the staff to go and appeal the decision, that Ban Ki-moon won't pay.

That is, the UN is lawless, none of it is binding.

  Some of those impacted by Ms. Migiro's decisions are saying she may not continue past February. Some further say that the U.S. may suggest a replacement, perhaps giving up Lynn Pascoe's Department of Political Affairs slot in return. It's Obama time^™. But where's the justice?

Update: at deadline, it was decided that the UN Fifth (Budget) Committee on November 20 will hear Team Ban called "incompetent," along with a threat to move under the Agreement with the Host Country to allow the UN to be sued in national courts, and not only its convoluted and now lapsing internal system. Watch this site.

Click here for Inner City Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo

Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on UN, bailout, MDGs

and this October 17 debate, on Security Council and Obama and the UN.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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