At UN, As Appeal of Appleton Dismissed, Ahlenius Echo, OIOS Defanged: of Porno &Procurement Rules

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, June 28 -- In a time with the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services has gone quiet or worse, the UN Appeals Tribunal on Friday morning dismissed an appeal from Robert Appleton, to whom former OIOS chief Inga-Britt Ahlenius wanted to give a D-2 post.

Ahlenius, it will be remembered, left the UN with a volley ofcriticism of Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's leadership, or what she called the lack thereof. Inner City Press story here.

Ahlenius' replacement, Carman Lapointe, has no only not criticized or meaningfully investigated the Ban administration: she has quashed various investigations which had been ongoing, including one involving UMOJA, as Inner City Press has covered, here. There are cases her OIOS should look into, but one hesitates to even refer them.

Appleton was in line for the investigative D2 position in OIOS, but in March 2009 it was re-advertised. He was again recommended to get it, but was turned down again a full year later in 2010.

After litigating inside the UN, he was awarded $30,000 in “moral” damages, nothing in compensatory damages. (Inner City Press covered that decision in August 2012, here.)

   Apppleton appealed, and Friday lost on every count. There was one dissent, Judge Chapman, who in reading out the decision said he could have gotten compensatory damages. But the other judges sided entirely with Ban, as they did in case after case read out on Friday morning.

One litigant was ordered to pay costs -- Appleton was denied the costs of his appeal -- and various appeals were called “non receivable,” the term Ban used to turn down the claims for 5,000 deaths from the UN bringing cholera to Haiti.

Ban wanted to redact even recommendations from a UN Dispute Tribunal case, and contested the right of the Tribunals to estimate people's harm. Appeals about pensions being pegged to the consumer price index, in Argentina, were denied. UN staffers were criticized for pornography and “authorized outside activity.”

Meanwhile the UN answered Inner City Press' questions about conflicts of interest and (anti) revolving doors rules with this, limited only to procurement:

Subject: Your question on post-employment rules
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 12:06 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Employment restrictions for staff participating in procurement activities under ST/SGB/2006/15. For all staff, and former staff, staff regulation 1.2(i) applies:

Regulation 1.2 (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.

We'll have more on this. Watch this site.