UN
Regulation
Bans Reporting
War Crimes,
Even After UN
Sri Lanka
Failure
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
November 16 --
Asked about
his report
into the UN's
failure
in Sri Lanka,
Charles Petrie
on November 15
told Inner
City Press
that Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
chief of staff
Susana
Malcorra
is
"championing"
the report's
reform
recommendations.
The
report,
especially as
un-redacted,
shows how the
highest
officials at
UN
headquarters
in New York
urged that
casualty
figures not be
released, and
the
term "war
crimes" not be
used.
One
simple reform
would be to
free up all UN
personnel to
report war
crimes or
crimes against
humanity when
they become
aware of them,
even if
discouraged by
higher UN
officials, as
took place in
the case of
Sri
Lanka.
This
is NOT
currently the
case. As Inner
City Press reported on
Friday
morning,
and asked the
UN about, it
has received
multiple
complaints
about an October
22, 2012
letter from
Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
chief of staff
Susana
Malcorra
to staff,
"with
reference to
your
statement that
you will bring
certain
internal
issues to the
attention of
Member
States,"
drawing their
"attention to
staff
regulation 1.2
(i)" which she
wrote applies
to "all
staff
members."
Inner
City Press has
looked this UN
Regulation,
and it applies
even after
"separation
from [UN]
service." Here
is the
regulation:
"(i)
Staff members
shall exercise
the utmost
discretion
with regard to
all
matters of
official
business. They
shall not
communicate to
any
Government,
entity, person
or any other
source any
information
known
to them by
reason of
their official
position that
they know or
ought
to have known
has not been
made public,
except as
appropriate in
the
normal course
of their
duties or by
authorization
of the
Secretary-General.
These
obligations do
not cease upon
separation
from service."
By
its terms,
there is no
exception or
carve-out for
reporting war
crimes or
crimes against
humanity; some
read the
Petrie report
(and
the underlying
history) as
showing that
authorization
would not
necessarily be
forthcoming
from on high
at UN
Headquarters.
Inner
City Press
asked the UN,
without yet
receiving a
serious
answer,
whether former
UN staff are
under any
restriction in
what they say
about what
they saw and
did in Sri
Lanka. By UN
Regulation
1.2(i)
which Ban's
chief of staff
cited in
writing as
recently as
last
month, such
former staff
ARE
restricted.
Or is UN
Regulation
1.2(i) only
enforced, one
might ask, if
it makes
current UN
officials look
bad? There is
also no
exception made
in the
Regulation for
reporting
wrongdoing,
despite the
UN's
ostensible
allowance for
whistleblowers.
(By
this logic,
one might ask
if former
UN official
John Holmes,
who
leaped to the
defense of the
UN and himself
in responding
to the
Petrie report,
was spinning
under the
"authorization
of the
Secretary-General.")
So
here is a
simple reform:
instead of
threatening
(as they
perceive it)
UN staff with
the above
quoted
regulation,
amend it to
made clear
that staff
can, even
should,
externally
report war
crimes or
crimes
against
humanity when
they witness
or become
aware of them.
There
will be more.
Watch this
site.
, 
