SDNY COURT/UN GATE, Oct 29 – This
year's Inner City Press project testing sealed and secret
proceedings has moved, for the first time, from national
courts to the United Nations' own internal justice system,
see below.
Transparency should apply throughout the
UN, including this, from whistleblowers to Inner City
Press:
"Staff unions exist to protect UN
personnel, to give them a voice, and to hold management to
account. That role depends on one thing: legitimacy. A
union whose leaders were not validly elected cannot
credibly speak for staff. In some duty stations,
serious concerns have been raised that staff unions
are: compromised by, or too close to, management;
led by officials who remain in office beyond their
electoral mandate; or used to discourage or intimidate
staff who speak out. Nairobi is a case in point. Staff at
this major headquarters duty station report that union
elections have not been called for a second consecutive
year, contrary to the union’s own constitution.
Staff members who have openly raised
concerns about how the union is run, and who have asked
for transparency in its affairs, report being met with
hostility instead of answers. These are not internal
matters alone. When a member union of the Coordinating
Committee for International Staff Unions and Associations
(CCISUA) operates outside its own statutes, the
credibility of the entire federation is at stake.
We therefore call on CCISUA to:
Require every member union to submit a valid certificate
of election, issued by its independent polling officers,
before its representatives take part in CCISUA meetings or
negotiations. Verify compliance with each member union’s
constitution and bylaws, particularly on the timing and
conduct of elections. Set up a confidential channel
through which staff can report electoral irregularities or
intimidation within member unions, without fear of
retaliation. Silence on these issues, however unintended,
risks encouraging impunity within the very bodies meant to
fight it. The principle is simple: if staff unions
cannot comply with their own constitutions, they cannot
credibly demand accountability from management.
Accountability must begin at home. Issued by
concerned UN staff members."
As to UNAT:
Vitaly Vanshelboim, a former Assistant
Secretary-General who ran UNOPS's Sustainable
Infrastructure Impact Investments program, an executive so
trusted internally that UNOPS's own Executive Director
called him "Mr. UNOPS" and staff described him as a "one
man band" holding "all the cards," was found by the UN's
own Dispute Tribunal to have failed to disclose private
financial arrangements with British businessman David
Kendrick, while UNOPS steered tens of millions of dollars
in strategic reserve funds toward Kendrick-linked
investments.
The UN Dispute Tribunal ordered Vanshelboim
to repay the Organization $58.8 million and withheld his
pension. On appeal, the UN Appeals Tribunal, in a judgment
issued June 17, 2026, granted him partial relief —
reducing his exposure, though the underlying findings
about his conduct stand. Separately, and not incidentally,
Vanshelboim was arrested in Spain in March 2025 on a
warrant from the U.S. District Court for the Southern
District of New York, which Inner City Press covers daily
in-person as it covers the UN from the gate, and Spain's
National Court approved his extradition to the United
States in October 2025 on charges of bribery, wire fraud,
and money laundering.
Inner City Press tested both
mechanisms directly, filing a written request with the
Dispute Tribunal's Registry and a formal motion with the
Appeals Tribunal, seeking the underlying pleadings and
factual submissions in the Vanshelboim matter.
On October 26, the United Nations Appeals
Tribunal denied
Inner City Press’s motion for access to the briefs in the
case of Vitaly Vanshelboim, the former UNOPS official
accused in the Southern District of New York of taking
millions in bribes. In Order No. 722 (2026), issued by
Tribunal President Katharine Mary Savage from Cape Town,
the UN’s top staff-justice court said confidentiality of
briefs must be “preserved, particularly in disciplinary
cases.†UNAT decision here
The indictment in United States v.
Vanshelboim alleges that from at least September 2015 to
August 2023 Vanshelboim, then a UN official, accepted
millions of dollars in bribes from British businessman
David Kendrick, in exchange for steering over $60 million
in grants and unsecured loans to Kendrick-linked
companies. Spain’s National Court approved his extradition
in October 2025.
The Appeals Tribunal had already ruled on
his disciplinary case in June, in Judgment 2026-UNAT-1650,
which granted his appeal in part. Inner City Press
asked for his appeal brief, the Secretary-General’s
answer, and any submissions on the structure and oversight
of UNOPS’s Sustainable Infrastructure Impact Investments
(S3i) programme, including the Executive Advisory
Committee’s role and the allocation of $105 million of a
$240 million strategic reserve to it, as of 2018.
Opposing disclosure were the Secretary-General and
Vanshelboim himself. The Secretary-General argued that
access “should be used sparingly and only in exceptional
cases,†and that if being a journalist were enough, “any
journalist could request confidential filings which would
negate the confidentiality rule.†Vanshelboim said
disclosure could “compromise the Appeals Tribunal’s
independence.†Judge Savage agreed. She called Inner
City Press’s argument that the briefs would help the
public understand the link between the Tribunal’s findings
and the criminal case “devoid of merit,†writing that
Appeals Tribunal judgments “serve the public interest in
the administration of justice at the United Nations, not
in other matters in national jurisdictions.â€
As for the S3i program, “the Appeals
Tribunal is not the proper source for such
information.†So in a case about bribery at a UN
agency, the UN says the public should rely on a published
judgment’s 66 paragraphs summarizing the briefs. The
accused and the institution both want the filings shut.
The UN Dispute Tribunal’s president turned down an earlier
request on Oct. 13, finding no “good cause.†Neither
tribunal explained who, if not the press, should check
what the UN knew about S3i and when.
Today's UN is entirely corrupt, and USUN
Mike Waltz has done nothing.
Inner City Press, itself banned from
the UN since 2018 with no hearing and no appeal, will keep
asking.
Previously, on July 16, 2024 a supposedly
public proceeding in fact banned coverage. See, 16 July
2024 UNDT/NY/2023/038 (Rotheroe) Disciplinary matters
UNJSPF Hearing on the merits 10:00am 1. On 27
October 2023, the Applicant, a former Deputy Director of
Investment Management with the Office of Investment
Management (“OIMâ€), United Nations Joint Staff Pension
Fund (“UNJSPFâ€), filed an application in which she
challenges the decision to impose upon her the
disciplinary measure of separation from service with
compensation in lieu of notice and without termination
indemnity. The link led, after a time, to "You
were denied access to the meeting."
Back when Inner City Press appealed (here
is an appeal, and 2021 UNAT decision in Matthew Russell
Lee v. Antonio Guterres on DocumentCloud here,
on UN site only in PDF download, here)
to the UN Appeal Tribunal, the time to decide was
extended, a proceeding held in secret and a one line
denial issued: "2020-1502 Matthew Russell Lee
against Secretary-General of the United Nations Appeal not
receivable and dismissed." No reasoning was
given, no opportunity to be heard. And now, no action as
of September 13 on this July 25, 2026 application to UN
MALU, here.
The Vanshelboim
case sits at a genuinely unusual intersection: a UN
internal disciplinary proceeding, a US federal criminal
prosecution, and a Spanish extradition fight, all
addressing overlapping allegations about the same $60
million in diverted funds.
So far Inner City Press has received:
From: UNAT1 <unat1@un.org> Date: Sun,
Sep 13, 2026 at 4:24 AM
Subject: Press Motion for Access to Documents Filed in a
Case to Which Movant Is Not a Party, Pursuant to Practice
Direction No. 1, Para. 18 — Case No. 2024-1967, Judgment
No. 2026-UNAT-1650, Vanshelboim v. Secretary-General of
the United Nations
To: matthew.lee [INNERCITYPRESS]
Thank you for your
communication. We will revert to you in due course."
Like on Inner City Press' July 25, 2026 application for
access to the September 22 UNGA speeches, still not acted
on?
Whether the UN's own courts will actually
grant access under rules that say, on their face, that
they should is the next thing to watch. Watch this site
