>> we would ask everyone here in the house to make sure their cell phones have been called off as a beginning courtesy to our program and we'll post the program on our heritage home page for everyone's future reference. hosting our discussion today is brett shafer, r.j.k. research fellow in the international regulatory affairs, part of the margaret thatcher center for freedom. he analyzes a range of foreign policy issues focusing primarily on the united nations and affiliated funds and programs and frequently speaks and publishes issues related on the world body and its activities.

in 2009 he edited the book "conundrum, the search for alternatives" which features several experts examining an array of international activities and responsibilities conducted by the u.n. he is a frequent visitor to the sub-saharan africa as well and has written extensively on economic development, peace and security issues in that region. he first joined us here at heritage in 1995 from march 2003 to 2004 he worked at the pentagon as an assistant for international criminal court policy before returning here to heritage. please join me in welcoming brett schaefer. brett? [applause] >> good afternoon. welcome to the heritage foundation. as we noted on the flyer, in recent years, there have been a number of various stories, reports, and other sources revealing a troubling number of scandals, mishaps, misappropriations by the united nations and its affiliated organizations, and i'll go through a few of them to give you a sense for what we've

seen. earlier this year the associated press reported the united nations office of internal oversight services failed to pursue cases of corruption over the last five years, including major cases inherited from the procurement task force that was disbanded in 2008. over the past few years, francis scurry, director of wipo, have been accused of overtly authorizing the transfer of dual use technology to iran and north korea and acting illegally in an effort to identify the author of anonymous letters accusing of sexual harassment and improprieties and was recently elected to be general director of wipo. in late 2013, the u.n. dispute tribunal ruled two missile blowers retaliated against for exposing evidence tampering by a top u.n. official charged with investigating corruption were themselves retaliated against and -- by that top official who

was their superior. the former spokesperson for the u.n. mission in darfur recently revealed in an interview to "foreign policy" magazine the u.n. has routinely denied, concealed, or refused to report evidence that attacks on civilians in order to make the situation in darfur appear more -- to appear better or more stable than it actually it.- -- is. all this happened while u.s. secretary-general ban ki-moon repeated his goal is to make the u.n. more accountable and effective. today, we have three speakers, two in person and one that, unfortunately, is going to have to appear via skype due to personal reasons. and each of them have come at the issue of transparency and accountability in the united nations from a different

perspective. first we have edward patrick flaherty, an american lawyer and senior partner in a swiss law firm of schwab, flaherty and associates in geneva and focuses on representing whistle blowers, staff members and third party working for or injured by international organizations such as the u.n., wipo, the world health organization and international labor organization, james wassertrom is a u.s. diplomat that serves as a anti-corruption embassy in kabul, afghanistan. when assigned to the u.s.a. peacekeeping program in cose, -- kosovo, he blew the whistle on a conspiracy to pay $500 million in kickbacks to senior kosovo officials. he identified the process for dealing with whistle blower retaliation first hand and can offer insights to its strengths and peculiarities and how it compares to the u.s. in similar procedures. finally, roger appleton was an attorney with the u.s. department of justice before being asked to serve as deputy chief legal council for the independent inquiry committee for investigation to the u.n. for

oil for food scandal. his distinguished service in that role led to him being named the chairman of the u.n. security task force charged for investigating fraud in the u.s. peacekeeping operations.- until earlier this year, bob was director of investigations and senior legal counsel for the global fund. he recently joined dave pitney l.l.p. as a partner and due to unexpected events, as i mentioned earlier, he'll be appearing by skype. following presentation, we'll have time for a few questions and answers from the audience. and before we begin, i also want to note we invited the u.n. to provide a panelist for this event. unfortunately, they were not able to provide one. so without any further adieu, ed, would you lead us off here? >> sure. thank you.

>> welcome, everyone. thanks, brett. i just want to thank you and the heritage foundation for inviting me today. i followed brett's work from afar for a long time, as with james and bob, and i feel a bit like the piper here given the distinguished backgrounds of the two other panelists, i'm just a toiling lawyer trying to help some people in the field. but unlike jim and bob, i also never worked for the u.n. i did try to get a job when i first moved to geneva 20 years ago and after i had a lunch with the i.l.o. legal advisor, he told me if i was 10 years younger, he might have hired me. of course, i was only 35 at the time but that was a bit of the problem, i think. the international labor office is not supposed to discriminate on the basis of age but what they often say is that a lot of their standards don't apply to them or any of the other international organizations, which is also part of the problem. but as brett said, i represented

a number of staff members and staff associations during the 20 years i've been in geneva and brought a number of cases, both internally and also in u.s. courts and the european court of human rights. one of several of my more notable cases was the case of cynthia berzak vs. lubbers and others, he was the high commissioner of refugees in geneva who was accused of sexually assaulting ms. berzak. the case was investigated by iois, the u.n. internal investigation office and they found her reports credible but kofi annan decided it wasn't credible for some unknown reason and put the report in the trash bucket and never sent it to ms. berzak and exonerated mr. lubbers. she came to me because really had no remedy in the internal system, nor could we really bring any case in geneva. the assault happened in geneva, by the way. so we then tried to bring a case in u.s. federal district court and we did bring the case and was dismissed because of the immunity of u.n. and went to the second circuit and challenged the immunity of the u.n. as

unconstitutional. unfortunately, although we did get argument didn't get very much consideration in the decision, but i still personally believe that the immunity of international organizations and the u.n. is unconstitutional in u.s. law and think eventually it will be overturned, whether hopefully in my lifetime or my client's lifetime but that remains to be seen. i'm also working on -- well, i'm preparing an amicus brief for a case now brought in manhattan brought by a number of haitian survivors and victims of a cholera epidemic, where the cholera was allegedly introduced into haiti after the earthquake by u.n. peacekeepers which caused approximate 8,000 deaths and 750,000 illnesses or sickness. people were hospitalized and

whatnot. the u.n. has refused to impanel the dispute resolution body which is set up in the general convention on privileged and immunities and so the haitians have been left to bring an action in u.s. district court. so i'm right now the case is at the district court level.- the u.n. has challenged the case on the basis of the immunity.- i expect the case will be dismissed and then it will be appealed presumably to the second circuit and i will probably be writing an amicus for several years ago i founded an n.g.o. called the center for accountability of international organizations in geneva and on behalf of that n.g.o., or presuming that the case is dismissed, which based on the jurisprudence of u.s. law to this point, i think will probably happen.

brett asked me to just open briefly about what some of the problems are for u.n. staff members, whistle blowers and whatnot. as a practitioner, the big problem is you have a system of immunity where the international organizations are not subject to local laws at all, whether you're sitting in new york or geneva, nairobi, anywhere, doesn't matter. you're subject only to the u.n. internal rules and regulations and that obviously creates a problem, particularly if you have criminal activity because the u.n. doesn't have any criminal code. so if in the case of lubbers, a staff member, high commissioner of refugees commits an alleged criminal act, the only recourse of the victim is either internally or to try to go to the local courts, but then because of the immunity, it has to be lifted by, in this case, it would have been by the secretary-general. but that very rarely happens. so what you have is you have a case of -- with the internal system, this internal justice

system set up in all these international organizations, the defendant is also the judge in a sense. they run it, they fund it and create the rules. so it's not a very fair system, as many have said, there's absolutely no accordion of arms whatsoever in this system. so you have perverse outcomes. what's happened recently in many of my cases, i mostly litigate before the u.n. appeals tribunal which deals with most of the u.n. organizations, the u.n. proper, and then the international labor office administrative tribunal which also is based in geneva and there are about 40 different international organizations, intergovernmental organizations that subscribe to the jurisdiction of the i.l.o. and often you bring a case on behalf of a whistle blower or a disgruntled staff member, injured staff member, injured third party, and you win on the merits, whether it's an employment case or whether it's an injury case, but you then get pending

damages. and you have no other recourse. that's the problem. what i tried to do more recently is challenge the u.n.'s immunity before the european court of human rights. and actually, there seems to be more room for potential success there than i've had in the u.s. courts because in a more recent case, the european court found that a employee of the kuwaiti embassy in paris who had been fired and then tried to sue in the local labor courts in paris and had his claim denied because of the sovereign immunity of kuwait, the european court found he could in fact bring his claim. because he was not performing any sovereign functions, that they couldn't deny him his civil rights to bring his employment claim.

now, in the united states, in the u.s. courts, the u.s. courts have viewed employment matters as protected by the sovereign immunity. so i think there is some room, some potential to use that case by analogy for staff members who work for international organizations, at least within the jurisdiction of the european court which covers some 37 to 38 european countries, including russia and ukraine, that they in fact may apply that and we might be able to get around the immunity in those courts. what the problem is you have is no one guarding the guardians, the proverbial problem of who is going to be in charge, who is providing the oversight. in theory, it's the diplomats. it's the member states that are supposed to be providing the oversight and accountability for the organizations, but diplomats make terrible overseers. in geneva particularly, in many international organizations, the children, spouses, relatives

of ambassadors have been hired as interns or staff members or consultants by these international organizations and in fact, many ambassadors after they finish their term then go to work for these international organizations. this also creates obviously a clear conflict of interest. no one wants to upset the apple cart and they foresee when i'm done with my ambassadorial career i can go work for the u.n. somewhere so i don't want to change anything that might make me the skunk at the garden party. this also happens, i find also quite a revolving door between state department, foreign ministry officials who again are there to be the overseers of the organizations but ultimately end up working for the organizations. so there really is -- there is no effective oversight, and the internal legal systems, and this is what jim can speak to in much greater detail about his

own experience, just provide no real justice because it's a system that's set up by the defendant, it's controlled by the defendant, run by the defendant. so i find that very, very difficult. occasionally, you do get a win for a client but for the most part, statistically, just for example, the i.l.o. administrative tribunal staff members win less than 30% of the time. so it's not a very effective system. there's no effective system of discovery. as a lawyer, you want to have -- i mean, you're dealing in administrative law, many things are done on paper. and to prove your case, you want to see the documents, you want to see communications. to get those document is virtually impossible. it's worse than pulling teeth. and whenever i ask for -- in

every judgment i ever get, particularly from the iloat, they always admonish me for my fishing expeditions because i'm asking for documents that are pertinent but they still continue to claim that well, you know, if you don't have the documents, you haven't proven your case so that's the end of it. just very quickly, what can be done? i think the immunity in my view is the major problem. there are times when the u.n. and other coercions should have the immunity. if they're in congo in a war zone, no doubt about it.- but in terms of claims that arise in new york or geneva or vienna, there's no need for it and they're developing countries with functional legal systems that more than adequately can address many of the claims that arise in these organizations, whether it's sexual assault or sexual harassment or termination, things of that nature. how that will happen is many

different ways. the problem is the now the u.n. immunity arises out of the organization promulgated in 1945 and ratified by the u.s. senate in 1971, i think. so in one way it gives the u.n., i should say, absolute immunity and that was the issue in the lubbers case where we tried to attack the action saying how can sexual assault be a part of the mandate of the u.n. high commission for refugees? and the judge in the second circuit very plainly said i agree with you, but look at this convention? it's absolute. there's nothing we can do. so there are several ways to address it. one is perhaps applying the tort and commercial protections of the foreign sovereign immunities act which applies only to sovereign countries right now to the u.n. where there are specific exceptions to sovereign immunity, country immunity if you're engaged in government

activity and commit a tort and something to do with real estate. the other is simply, at least in the u.s., we obviously can't do this worldwide but to make the immunity of the u.n. and other international organizations an affirmative defense where instead of being an absolute bar to any claim, that instead if the immunity is applicable and appropriate, you can raise it as an affirmative defense and the judge at that point should dismiss. right now you never get to discovery, you never get to the heart of the matter in a case brought in the u.s. court in many courts nationwide because you filed the claim and the u.n. says we have absolute immunity, judge, dismiss the case and the judges do that because that's what the jurisprudence says.- two other very quick solutions i have, one is to promulgate a u.n. fraud claims act similar to the federal fraud claims act

which is the federal fraud claims act turns individual whistle blowers into private attorneys general where they can bring actions on behalf of international -- on behalf of the federal government to recover fraudulent obtained funds. i think there's room for something like that in the u.n. another important thing would be a freedom of information act for the u.n. right now getting information out of the u.n., as i said, is worse than pulling teeth. and how do you enforce those? one way to do it is to set up a special tribunal that assuming you keep the immunity in place, which if you can't get rid of the immunity, this is an alternative and is any award made to the tribunal pursuant to the u.n. fraud claims act or u.n. freedom of information act is to reduce any of those awards from the amounts that have been allocated by congress to the u.n. which i think brett recently wrote something saying the

direction assessles are $4 billion a year where i think the -- all u.n. is double that at least. that's another aspect. so i can go on. you can ask me to tell war stories and it's hard to shut him up. but i think that sort of gives a general overview of what the problem is. for me, it really is the immunity. and today in the 21st century, there's no reason for the u.n. to -- other international organizations to enjoy an absolute immunity that sort of harkens back to the day of kings and queens. you know, no government today enjoys absolute immunity. the prevailing theory in international discourse is a restricted theory of immunity,

except with the u.n. so i think you have to address that at the root of it. only then can you have effective oversight and accountability of these organizations, and as i said, the diplomats haven't done it and never will be able to do it. it's up to people like jim and bob when he worked at oios to try to bring these organizations to heal and to bring them into the 21st century. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] well, it's hard to follow such an araldite and learned presentation by someone who doesn't have that kind of learning. but as you know, my name is jim wassertrom. i'm a u.n. whistle blower in the flesh. what i'm about to talk about has absolutely nothing to do with my current position or the u.s. government or the u.s.

government's position or vis-a-vis the u.n. this is my personal experience, not my personal tale. i worked for the u.n. for 28 years. and for the last six of those, i was attached to the u.n. peacekeeping operation in kosovo. and part of my responsibilities at the time was oversight of the public utilities. and in the course of my duties, i discovered that -- well, there's an allegation that my colleagues in the u.n., as well as some of the senior ministers in the kosovo government were up to no good and were in the process of just fixing a bid that might have generated a $500 million kickback. i tried to confirm it and cannot. i turned it over to the director of the u.n. and she and i agreed we would cooperate in a undercover investigation, which we did for several months. my colleagues found out about my cooperation with oios and agreed in egregious allegation

and trumped up a charge against me, since we were administering a province at the time, they controlled the police justice system. so they -- on a weekend after i'd been accused of all kinds of wrongdoing and i was defending myself in higher circles of the u.n. operation there, they blocked me from leaving. they arrested me at the port and brought me back to my apartment and did an illegal search of my apartment, confiscated materials and in the end, i was put under investigation for a year and there were in fact five investigations that went on simultaneously. three against me criminally or administratively. one was an investigation that i was working on with the -- with o.i.o.s. and one was an investigation that i asked for and was granted on retaliation because i viewed all this as

retaliation. so after a year, i was cleared and what i worked in, never saw a report. and the investigators came back with a finding there was absolutely no retaliation involved despite the fact, yes, i was arrested and yes, there was an illegal search and cease order and in fact all i said happened had in fact happened there was no retaliation but random acts by rogue actors. i found that, of course, further retaliation. so in 2008, my sole practitioner attorney, in manhattan and i filed a claim in the tribunal and was one of the first whistle blowers to take the ethics

office which was responsible for protecting me and i felt had done a horrendous job in protecting me, took them to the u.n. district tribunal. and after four years and the u.n. ignoring six orders of the court to turn over documents which goes to ed's point about the lack of access of information in the u.n. system, so this was their own tribunal ordering the secretary-general to turn over documents on six occasions, and he didn't do so. eventually a judge turned the documents over to my attorney and me and in my view, those documents supported my claim. so in 2012, the dispute tribunal in new york ruled in my favor. that was a very important victory for me personally. and i think for other whistle blowers because it was the first case of a whistle blower actually winning in the u.n. dispute tribunal courtroom.

the judge in the case decided he would separate the liability judgment from the damages judgment, so in this case he found egregious and appalling behavior of the secretary-general and a variety of other actors. all of this is a matter of public record now. and he decided to have a separate trial on damages at a later date. but after several months, the judge changed his mind and decided not to have a separate trial and he said he had sufficient evidence. and we provided evidence of the damages i had suffered, and in 2013, he issued a judgment which gave me roughly 2% of my estimated losses. those losses were calculated by professionals, not by me, and they were uncontested by the u.n. so in the face of absolutely no contraverting evidence, nothing to contradict put forward, the judge decided this was only 2% of what i had

estimated. he essentially knocked out anything that had to do with my losses in terms of finances and award small amount in what they call moral injury which is a catch-all phrase for stress and damage to reputation and defamation and so on. during this period, the u.n. was continuing to defame me. they had violated their own rules and procedures on not speaking publicly about ongoing investigations but they did so. and in the end, i got this very, very small award. and the point in all of this to me, and i want to be very clear about that, was never about compensation. this was always about truth and justice. and i know that may sound cliche or somehow corny, but that is

what it really was for me. i was violated. my career was irreparably damaged. my name was blasted out in dozens of countries as a corrupt u.n. official caught while attempting to flee for a couple of years and the u.n. supported that. quietly or maybe not so quietly. and to have that very small award was a terrible message to send to other whistle blowers who might want to come forward and that's really what it became for me was why would anyone come forward to suffer what i had suffered if in the end you don't get truth and you don't get justice. so we decided to appeal this judgment and to ask for intervention by the u.s. government to put pressure on the u.n. and earlier this year in january, with the support of

congress, the 2014 consolidated appropriations bill was signed by the president. and in that there is a section, 7048 a-1-b, that i do know, in which there is a -- which refers specifically to transparency and accountability in u.n. agencies, and it requires that each and every u.n. agency adhere to whistle blower best practices. now, there may be some debate as to what those are. i don't think there is any debate really, but maybe one could argue it. but we very specifically put in five provisions, five very pointed, enumerated best practices. and i refer to only a few here. please feel free to look it up should you be interested. one is that the u.n. must have -- the u.n. staff who are

whistle blowers must have access to independent adjudication. external -- some sort of body that isn't controlled by the secretary-general. secondly, that whistle blowers should -- victims -- whistle blowers who are victims of proven retaliation should have the consequences that retaliation completely mitigated for direct or indirect or future consequences of their whistle blowing. in other words, we shouldn't suffer any consequences for whistle blowing and being victims of proven retaliation, direct or indirect or for those in the future. and the third, i think this is very important, is that those who engage in retaliation should suffer some consequences. because in my case, there were no consequences for anybody but me. all of those who engaged in

retaliation and who were named in various reports went on to have great lives with no impact on them, so i was the only one who suffered any consequences. so those are three of the areas that are highlighted in this section of u.s. law. my view on what's wrong in the u.n. system, having been one of them for 28 years, the accountability institutions of the u.n., there are three of them essentially. there's the ethics office which is the guardian of the faith when it comes to us whistle blower protection, there's the office of internal oversight services, oios, which is the inspector general and the third is the justice system. each one of these is broken some some way. for the ethics office, if we

just look at the evidence, the numbers, and i get these from the government accountability project which is representing me in terms of advocacy here in washington and elsewhere, and we have the present of the g.a.p. in the audience today. there have been, since the establishment of the ethics office in 2006, as i -- until at least 2013, there have been more than 300 whistle blowers, or those who have inquired about whistle blowing, have come forward to the ethics office. of those, the ethics office reviewed 99 and found retaliation in only two cases. two. mine is not one of those two. they turned down my case of retaliation. but that's an astonishingly percentage. .2% or .5% depending on your denominator.

this is a shame, profoundly. second, in oios, there are cases of -- that ed has referred to and brett has referred to that indicate witness tampering, evidence tampering, lack of commitment to getting their job done, free of political interference because clearly there is political interference. i won't get into the details of what we discovered in terms of the evidence in my case that they used to say there was no retaliation but when we looked at it, it was absolutely clear they chose to set aside evidence they had in their possession to find there was no retaliation and i don't know the explanation for that. third is the justice system. as ed has mentioned, they are not independent. we would like them to be. and there are some very, very courageous judges on both the dispute tribunal and the appeals tribunal, and -- but they have

complained about tampering with the statute, the organic statute, the statute which defines their domain as well as the limits to how their case law can be applied to expanding the statute for whistle blower protection. so that is harmful to whistle blower protection. in my own case , we will be have our appeal heard at vienna in the u.n. appeals tribunal on thursday. i will be going, and ed has provided me with much discouragement this morning, as have many others, but i am not discouraged, again, because i am here for the pursuit of -- i feel i've got the truth out. i think people now feel they understand what happened, that i was not a corrupt official fleeing my alleged wrongdoing

but in fact i was blowing the whistle of wrongdoing of my senior colleagues and kosovo officials. and the final judgment in my case, we have been told, will be rendered in oral pronouncement eight days later on june 27. so at long last, more than seven years after all this happened, i may be at the end of this long and winding and very tortured road, which i don't believe will be the end, because i think with the new u.s. law in place now, which, as i mentioned, required each and every u.n. agency to adhere to whistle blower best practices, or face an automatic withholding of 15% of their u.s. contribution, and that is substantial amount of money in most cases. the u.n. is under pressure to

change its ways. and as far as ed's point about immunity, i would add to that, and i know this because i was once one of them in the culture of impunity, so it's both immunity and impunity and has a nice ring to it but actually is the case that people at the top don't feel any real commitment to cleaning up internal corruption to protecting whistle blowers, to reform, which we hear about over and over again in the u.n. system, so that is a grieveous shortcoming. and one of my suggestions would be to have some sort of external body that is as independent as one can get with funding and staffing, which is independent of u.n. mechanisms but which has some sort of authority to make binding judgments on those in the secretariat.

i don't know how it can be done and shrink from the task of trying to take away immunity. i admire those who are pursuing it. because i think it is definitely unwanted in many cases. but assuming that remains in place, these are -- this is one idea and i'm not a big fan of the u.n. ethics office. i think with that track record of two out of more than 300 that have come forward and the number keeps growing but the number of those approved as whistle blowers who have proven their case of retaliation remains more or less the same. i think something must be done with the ethics office, perhaps even getting rid of it. so with that, thanks, brett, and thank you all for coming and inviting me today.

[applause] >> and bob, we're ready for you whenever you're ready. >> good afternoon. can you hear me? >> we can, though maybe we can get the volume up a little bit higher. >> ok. i was having a little bit of trouble in the last week or so, i hope i won't cover too much of the same ground. first i'd like to thank you, brett, very much for the opportunity to present here today. obviously it's a critical issue, critically important issues and of paramount. it's a testament you're keeping these issues at the forefront and it's so important. i think my remark would be that i would echo the sentiments and completely agree with just about

everything the two previous speakers have alluded to, and i think i'm going to go over the same areas that were being raised and hope i won't be too repetitive but i think it's worth emphasizing what it is that's deficient in these different pieces to the u.n. administration of justice. but again, just to emphasize what was said, i think one of the major problems here is the privileges of immunities that have been granted to the u.n. as a way those p.i.'s have been interpreted by the organization. and i agree, i think maybe there's a misinterpretation of the expansiveness and the reach of privileges and immunities and it's causing wreaks of havoc that ripple throughout the administration of justice in the u.n. i would also offer that that hurts the lack of a true immunity function and framework hurts accountability.

and what you're seeing are examples, especially what you identified, a series of instances which demonstrate lack of accountability which, quite frankly, are really something that is unacceptable. you know, when i first came into the u.n., i first came in with the putin investigation with the welker panel and was tasked with my group leading the investigation of the secretary-general at the time and his son, and the committee was an independent entity which was not bound by the rules of the u.n. and was able to do a little bit more of an independent investigation, i think, had an opportunity to be a little bit more accurate, thorough, and relevant. after that when i became chairman of the task force, it was an offshoot and it was within --

excuse me. we operated within the u.n. system and the u.n. rules and oios' rules and the dynamic changed considerably. and what we saw develop was -- if you didn't know any better, you thought the world was upside down because the investigator became the subject, and the subject became the victim. in so many cases, in one case we proved very clearly that a procurement official had steered over $100 million in contracts to a telecommunications firm that hailed from the same country that he was from. the case was pretty well done. the evidence was very solid. it was referred to the national authorities in the southern district in the u.s. who prosecuted the case, and had convicted the staff member of fraud and unlawful steering of

contracts and illegal gratuities and got 8 1/2 years in jail for that. now, i think as was pointed out earlier in the conversation, in order for a criminal case to work, in order for a criminal code to be applied to a u.n. staff member, the secretary-general has to weigh the privileges and immunities of the organization. so if the secretary-general does not choose to wave those p&i's, the person can go completely scot-free with anything and everything he has done because there's no effective system to truly address the wrongdoing. so this is a major flaw. and this reverts back to the immunity issue. if you look at the successful episodes of where there has been some accountabilities, mostly in the nation states, in this context, and where the nation

states pick up the criminal cases on their own. so it would happen to -- what happens with all our other cases that didn't go the route of the national body where they -- national authority that was going to pursue them, they went into the black hole. there are cases that have not been followed up on. there's staff members that were identified as having misused, misappropriated funds, embezzled funds that had not been identified, that have not been held accountable. the big question is well, why is that? why could that ever happen in the world's most arguably advanced international organization?

i think you need to perhaps look at some other things here that have not been identified to round out the nature and scope and the dynamic, which is the u.n. -- you would think would not want a strong oversight presence. it does not. why does it not? well, cases of misconduct, cases of misappropriation, cases of malfeasance, cases of taking taxpayer funds are perceived in the u.n. as very bad press, very unwelcomed news and also types of messaging that can jeopardize the very existence of the organization. the view of many in the organization is that the u.n., which it is dependent on donor contributions, is going to run into problems if donors see large headlines of corruption and loss of funds and then there will be a cessation of donations to the organization, thereby ending the

organization. so what you really have is a very strong self-preservation ideal that permeates the organization and i'm not saying everyone, but i'm saying certainly those in positions of power who are responsible for their administration, or the many u.n. employees who are making a career out of the u.n., you know, and those who hope -- just have to hope and pray they never become a subject of a case which is wrongly, or even rightly pursued because it cannot end up -- may not end up in their interests with this kind of dynamic and a framework. but with this kind of a system and with this kind of reality, it does not promote sound and effective administration of justice.

and i think as was pointed out earlier, was the example of dip nationals -- diplomats -- who is the real overseer? the real overseers are the diplomats and what is that? what one said earlier was it presents a significant and profound conflict of interest to have those who stand in interested positions reviewing and overseeing and judging oversight and dysfunction from where they sit. i think what you need is a truly professional independent body that is truly professional and not beholden to the administration, not beholden to the organization that can review and identify those actions and cases that have taken place and where there are challenges and claims that there have

been errors and misconduct and also lack of justice. if you read the last case that came out of the undt tribunal i think was mentioned earlier, brett, in your opening remarks, the case is actually about two investigators within oias that had been retaliated against, doing their jobs by a senior member of that office. and to date, there has been no accountability and there's been no repercussion to that senior officer despite the fact that the findings of the dispute tribunal judge were extremely strong, extremely clear and hardly profoundly challenged, yet you have two whistle blowers who have been victimized suffer severe consequences to their career, and you can have the perpetuator who is unaffected.

so the role is completely reversed and that kind of result send a very sour message to the rest of the organization and the rest of the folks not only the oversight body but also throughout the administration and the organization of how can we count on, you know, this organization in the end, especially the oversight body, to, you know, effectively mete out sound and proper investigations, yet you have results that are occurring like that where you have no accountability and victims, even after being identified as victims, even being found to be victims, and even being found to have been wrong, have still been given minimal to no recourse and there's been

no accountability to the wrongdoer. so it screams that this kind of situation needs a complete and utter overhaul from a numerative respect and also the findings that the immunities that have been put forth by the organization don't reach to the level insofar as they claim they do is a significant start, but there also needs to be a more structured reconstruction of the accountability and oversight mechanisms in the organizations to make them truly fair, truly accountable, truly free of conflict, and truly a way in which good cases and base cases have basics in fact are being able to be brought to the system. i think the previous speaker was identifying how the ethics office has not found any significant or very few significant retaliation cases.

retaliation is one of the hardest things to prove. and it's clear many national contexts, retaliation can be proved by circumstantial evidence and can be derived through interferences of existing fact. and i think without an acknowledgement of that, as many national authorities have, you never are going to have an effective ethics office of sprume retaliation claims until they can realize and recognize that these cases are difficult to prove and then have to know what to look for in the certain indices that are commonly present in such cases because without a strong whistle blower program where confidence can be built upon it, this sort of circumstance will not change and there will be little-to-no incentive in the future for people to report wrongdoing and misconduct in the organization.

and especially when they don't see a level of accountability when cases are not handled to fruition and to conclusion when there aren't final dispositions that are fair and just, when there isn't the proper voice and a mechanism and assurity that complainants will not be harmed and that there is a mistake made that it can be corrected, whether it be in the judicial forum or during the investigative process. and there's so many different ways and aspects in which these cases can be derailed through errors, even innocent errors, not just intentional malfeasance where these cases can go off the tracks and therefore have profound circumstances as you have real live and real careers that become ruined as a result of

it. >> thank you, bob. before we go to q&a, i wonder if you could just briefly describe some of the successes of the task force, what made it different, and where those cases are right now. >> do you want me to answer that? >> yes, please. >> the task force in 2006 took more than 300 cases which involved broad, financial fraud, and also they took over cases where they would be accused of misconduct, and in the three years, as you can imagine, there was no way we could complete the entire inventory of the cases. we completed approximately -- i do not have the numbers in front

of me, but a little over 200 cases, and we found more than 26 significant fraud and corruption schemes, some of which we concluded, and some we did not and that needed to be followed up, and certainly some with significant financial loss. others where there have been pretty harsh mismanagement and misuse of u.n. funds and misuse of u.n. positions. when we disbanded at the end of 2008, these cases for the most part went into a black hole. cases that were reported on, many cases which we thought were sufficient to reach at least the administration of justice. and there was further work that

needs to be done, and it seems not to have any further work. no kind of disclosure of work to be done, and cases in which individuals and missions that identified have been found to engage in misconduct, or cases in the administration of justice within the organization, not even outside it were not taken up, at least, that is certainly the appearance that is being provided, and nothing has been done for some time, and there is this perception to make these cases, because when you may cases, you can sometimes make enemies, especially with officials in senior positions, and there is a disincentive

unless they are truly protected to move forward on those cases. the long and short of it is, there was a lot of work that seems to have not been pursued, others that have been dropped, cases that have faltered and not made their way through the justice system. >> thank you. we have time for a few questions and answers from the audience, but i am going to go ahead and lead off with one short question to both ed and jim, and that is, considering the outlying circumstances for the legislation that was just passed in january about the whistleblowers standards by congress, do you think that in the u.n. organization, they currently meet those standards?

>> no. >> no? >> absolutely not. >> so you'd be surprised that the organization can certify that it would meet those standards and that the money should be paid? >> i do not think they should, but whether they will or not is another question. >> ok. sir, in the back, please. i am sorry. i do not see anyone with the microphone, but just state your question loudly, and we will have the answer here. >> a question or concern that is two parts. in the united nations, you have international delegates that come from different legal systems, and the major ones, and you have iran, civil law, france, and most of the world is under civil law.

common law, and then the israeli system. does the -- under which of those paradigms does the legal, investigatory, and -- are the differences between these legal systems partly at fault for the impasse or stymieing? and to what extent might there be extrajudicial legal consideration that the bodies are not putting in these reports but which might influence them, such as this was necessary for

the cooperation, and they may not know, and the investigators may not know -- what the consequences might be? and what surprises me is, ok, we know, and here is the settlement. a nondisclosure agreement. be quiet. why is there not more of that? >> so the question is how does the u.n. judicial system arbitration process base itself on common law, civil law, etc., and to what extent the political circumstances of an incident may come into play in the decisions, so, ed, to you want to go first? >> sure.

for the most part, it is a mixture of the common law and civil code, and as to your second question, does that contribute to some of the problems, i think it does. my experiences within the u.n. system, and bob may wait a -- weigh in on this also, it is based on documents. they do not place great weight on witness testimonies, cross-examination. it is pretty much, as in the civil code, where the document is superior, and i think as to the last part, is that a reason -- is their secrecy because there might be some underlying consideration, probably, that you are sort of describing the chamber, and i thought we moved beyond that. there are mechanisms that governments already use to deal with sensitive issues, but today in the u.n. system, there is

just no disclosure, and the secrecy has to be dealt with, other than just go away. see would hate to [indiscernible]. i know many of the whistleblowers came forward and are still being retaliated against. there is nothing dramatic, syria's, or secret -- serious, or secret in any of the cases and where the whistleblowers have come forward. >> do you have any comments

about the un's judicial system? did you find that secrecy came into the judgments that played out? >> to the second part, absolutely. to the first part, you have a series of rules in the u.n. that are based on the charter of the organization that formal rules of conduct. it is in chapter one of the staff roles, it comes out of the charter. it comes out of the seminal document when the u.n. was first called in the 1940's. you also have the second category which is the national laws of the particular country you're involved in, which

sometimes you pay heed to as well. if in fact you're in a certain country where for example bribery is excepted. it is a good question because in those questions there is a tension between which law should be applied? would it be the western law that prohibits rives, or the local law that seizes as a customary duty -- sees it as a custom and a duty? the other issue does dovetail into the secrecy peace and is when you have a critical need in a certain area, and your goods and services have been procured corruptly but it is critical that you get that item, good, medicine, food into that

peacekeeping location, otherwise people may suffer and die. which takes paramount importance there? you have to impose the system of law accountability, or are you going to put more importance on the item or the good? in the u.n., a lot of times the importance of the item or the good ways out, and the issue that is underlying is the bribery and corruption but it is buried. >> let me add to that. i think those are exceptional cases and should be examined one by one. in other cases should be examined very carefully before making a leap of faith that this is the only way of getting those goods and services to people in need. that principle can be abused.

>> ma'am? >> [indiscernible] >> she is asking if the new u.s. law enacted in january is addressing the issue of privileges under the un's treaty. >> it does not specifically address that issue. immunity is not among those five. in the larger work done on best practice, there is a mention of

immunity. the with drawl of it, and i think our audience members can address that. >> would you like to address how you would go after this particular issue if you were trying to circumscribe privileges to work on this problem? >> on a case-by-case basis, there comes an example that he gave in his opening about whitehub. it derives most of its funds from application fees, which come from american patent applicants. the u.s. government pays a very

small amount of money to them. in my opinion they do not comply with this law. it is probably not going to make any difference because they do not get very much money from the u.s. them and would not care if the u.s. cut off whatever contributions it is making. in my view they are one of the most cooler -- corrupt organizations because of the lack of accountability. i applaud the working that jim is doing because you have to do something like that. it is a start, but it does not address the problem in a case like this. >> do you have any comment? any other questions from the audience? yes ma'am? >> [indiscernible]

>> we are looking at that very seriously. they have circulated a questionnaire, where they are gathering statistics. the law does not talk about policy, we are talking about the limitation of policy. because the organization has policies, but it is really how that policy has been implemented. i think that they are taking it seriously, and we will see what they come up with in the end. i think it will be submitted to congress and it will be up to congress to decide whether or not these notifications and documentation that has been collected and facts that are presented are adequate.

i think the accountability project and the organizations will be watching this very closely. >> i will conclude with a final question. do you get the sense that the united states is unique in its concern about these types of issues? or is the frustration with the treatment of whistleblowers within the u.n. system more widespread? >> one of the efforts i am trying to undertake is to internationalize the movement for whistleblower protection in the u.n.. i am in touch with some organizations and governments, and with media in a variety of other countries. i am working closely with major donors in the u.n., there is considerable interest, and the fact that the u.s. has taken this step has generated curiosity. particularly countries that have

a strong rule of law, and a strong belief in whistleblower protection are taking a look at taking action themselves. whether that means withholding political pressure, or other manifestations, i do not know. there is interest in the idea, and the media has picked the story up. hopefully that will generate pressure on the policies of the countries to do the same thing. >> i think the u.n. has to be treated in this type of question, they exercise many of the interest gators -- indicators of being a sovereign state, even though they are not. they get a pass. transparency international does not repeat u.n. and i did not sure what -- review the u.n. and i am not sure why.

we need to come back and re-examine that as well, to make sure that if they are functioning as a quasi-i state that they have the same accountability and oversight. >> any final remarks? >> many of the important things we said today, it has been brought to the floor. it all fits together for the administration of justice to have a viable protection program, to have a viable administration of justice, and a fair and equitable results in an investigation and the way it is treated.

the degree of access operation -- of exasperation in these things that i been going on for many years about there have been a lot casualties. and we need some real energy and enthusiasm to address it because those who have suffered, and would be a tragedy to have them just fall by the wayside. and for this to continue. >> the you very much. thank you for coming here today. i hope you enjoyed it. goodbye. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] >> next a conversation with outgoing press secretary jay carney. after that a house hearing on an human rights and q&a.

today missouri's snort will hold discussion on sexual assaults on college campuses. is on c-span 3. you can share your thoughts and onments during the forum facebook and twitter. tag c span chat. can keep up-to-date hearcurrent events to congressional forums. a recap on washington today at 5:00 p.m. audio beginning on eastern.at noon now.n audio on radio

long distances charges may apply. >> on thursday, outgoing white house press secretary jay carney featured guest. he answered questions about his time working a in the white house and his relationship with the media and the president. monthounced earlier this that he is departing the white house. hour.s just under an >> peter? we've got a space. come on, brother. you can be on tv with me.