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 Subsaharan 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 ill go through a few of them to give you a sense for what weve 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. Secretarygeneral ban kimoon 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 anticorruption 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, hell be appearing by skype. Following presentation, well 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 bretts 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, im 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 dont 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 ive 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 wasnt 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 didnt 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 clients lifetime but that remains to be seen. Im also working on well, im 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 im 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 youre sitting in new york or geneva, nairobi, anywhere, doesnt matter. Youre 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. Doesnt 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 secretarygeneral. 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 its not a very fair system, as many have said, theres absolutely no accordion of arms whatsoever in this system. So you have perverse outcomes. Whats 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 LaborOffice 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 its an employment case or whether its an injury case, but you then get pending damages. And you have no other recourse. Thats 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 ive 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 couldnt 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, its the diplomats. Its 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 im done with my ambassadorial career i can go work for the u. N. Somewhere so i dont 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 its a system thats set up by the defendant, its 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 its not a very effective system. Theres no effective system of discovery. As a lawyer, you want to have i mean, youre 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. Its 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 im asking for documents that are pertinent but they still continue to claim that well, you know, if you dont have the documents, you havent proven your case so thats 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 theyre in congo in a war zone, no doubt about it. But in terms of claims that arise in new york or geneva or vienna, theres no need for it and theyre developing countries with functional Legal Systems that more than adequately can address many of the claims that arise in these organizations, whether its 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 . Its absolute. Theres 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 youre 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 cant 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 thats 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 theres room for Something Like that i