The United Nations’ suspension of a top human rights official who
passed evidence to French authorities of rape and sexual abuse of
starving children in the Central African Republic by French and African
troops last year was unlawful, a U.N. judge has ruled.
The judge also rejected U.N. concerns that “the interest of the
Organization” required that the official, Anders Kompass, be suspended
“to avoid any interference with the investigation” of his actions, and
ordered that the April 17 suspension be lifted until the allegations
against Kompass were fully investigated.
The judicial order from a body known as the United Nations Dispute
Tribunal—part of an internal justice system for a world organization
that has diplomatic immunity from everyone else’s law-- amounted to an
egg-on-the-face moment for U.N. Secretary General Ki-moon, who
personally took note of the suspension last week and gave it implicit
blessing by declaring that Kompass’ actions—without referring to him by
name-- had been “a serious breach of protocol” which “requires redaction
of any information that could endanger victims, witnesses and
investigators.”
Ban also explicitly declared that “Our preliminary assessment is that
such conduct does not constitute whistleblowing”—a designation that
would have given Kompass limited protection for his information
handover.
Despite the alleged seriousness of his offense, it took the U.N. a
full month to order up an investigation of Kompass’ conduct and declare
his suspension after Kompass refused to resign in March 2015 at the
request of the High Commissioner for Human Rights himself, Zeid Ra’ad Al
Hussein of Jordan, for his alleged violation of U.N. investigation
protocol
Kompass, a top official of the U.N.’s Office of the High
Commissioner on Human Rights in Geneva, had never made any secret of his
actions, and indeed told his bosses about handing over the information
to the French shortly after he did so in December last year.
Under the U.N.’s cumbersome rules, a confidential investigation of
the sexual crimes that took place nearly a year ago would have required
further internal vetting –including the removal of the names of child
victims and witnesses of the alleged sex crimes--before it would have
gone to the French for action.
That process would have involved further delays in action against
the wrongdoers, and potentially further crimes against vulnerable
children.
The French not only began their own investigation but sent a formal
letter of thanks to Kompass last July, assuring him that a military
inquiry had begun “without delay” due to his actions.
CLICK HERE FOR THE FRENCH LETTER
The fact that the French officials responsible for the military force
in Central African Republic (subsequently replaced by a formal U.N.
peacekeeping force) were more grateful than the U.N. to get speedy
notification of alleged crimes by its troops is only one of several
ironies surrounding the Kompass case.
It is also seen by many critics as a rebuff of the U.N.’s own
procedures for dealing with sex crimes by U.N. peacekeepers, which
according to a long-suppressed internal report are under-reported,
under-investigated and subject to little consequential follow-up,
despite Ban claims of “zero tolerance.”
Ban has yet to implement a number of reforms suggested as long ago as
2005 in a special report on sexual exploitation and abuse in U.N.
peacekeeping operations—whose author was none other than the current
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Prince Zeid, the man who
unsuccessfully demanded Kompass resignation.
The same kind of bureaucratic lethargy was noted by U.N. Dispute
Tribunal Judge Thomas Laker in his 18-page rejection of the suspension,
which largely turned on the fact that the U.N. official who declared
Kompass’ suspension did not have the authority to do so.
Lakers pooh-poohed ostensible U.N. concerns that without being
suspended from work, Kompass might have destroyed evidence or otherwise
interfered with internal investigators, noting that “he could easily
have done so” in the month after he was requested to resign. The
decision to suspend Kompass, he ruled, “defeats its purpose.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE JUDGEMENT
Laker’s ruling was hailed by supporters who also feel his actions,
despite Secretary General Ban’s “preliminary assessment,” also deserve
protected whistleblower status—which in their view is under increasing
hostile pressure at the U.N.
“We’re hoping the UN recognizes it has overreached and abandons
efforts to retaliate against Anders Kompass and other whistleblowers,”
observed Bea Edwards, executive director of the Government
Accountability Project, a Washington-based whistleblower protection
organization.
Edwards noted that nine U.N. whistleblowers in April sent an open
letter to Ban, warning that current U.N. policies “afford little to no
measure of real or meaningful protection for whistleblowers. ”
The group noted that “most of us have been forced to leave the UN to
save our livelihoods, our health and our reputations” and urged specific
reforms, including “immediately end the practice of subjecting known
U.N. whistleblowers to lengthy internal appeals processes for contesting
the loss of their job or other adverse employment decisions.”
CLICK HERE FOR THE WHISTLEBLOWER LETTER
A similar concern for protecting those, like Kompass, who have gone
public to prevent additional wrongdoing is included in a declaration
published on May 4 by a group of four international rapporteurs and
special representatives on freedom of expression.
They declared that “individuals who expose wrongdoing, serious
maladministration, a breach of human rights, humanitarian law violations
or other threats to the overall public interest,” should be protected
against “legal, administrative or employment-related sanction, even if
they have otherwise acted in breach of a binding rule or contract, as
long as at the time of the disclosure they had reasonable grounds to
believe that the information disclosed was substantially true and
exposed wrongdoing or the other threats noted above.”
One of the authors of that “Joint Declaration on Freedom of
Expression and responses to conflict situations” was the U.N.’s own
Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression, David Kaye.
The Joint Declaration was posted, among other places, on the website
of the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights—the same
office where Anders Kompass now works again,
and where he continues to be investigated.
