THE MAIN REQUIREMENTS OF UN

The loyalty required of an international civil servant does not derogate his nationalism, but is a necessary fulfilment of it. The Executive Committee of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations held the same View: ”Loyalty to the organisation is in no way incompatible with an official’s attachment to his own ‘country, whose higher interest he is serving in serving the United Nations. It clearly involves, however, a broad international outlook and a detachment from national prejudices and narrow national interests.” The ICSAB in its report on standards of conduct in the international civil service took a similar stand. Maheu, former Director-General of UNESCO, speaking to his staff on this subject said: ”It is a grave error to believe that the international service required you to forget, or worse, to repudiate, your respective countries. If we are international, it is not because of the effects of a particular nature, but it is because of our work, our function, our approach to problems in our field. Our work, our function, our point of View are far from being incompatible with what we are by our nationality, and it is our privilege to proclaim here all that is universal in our different cultures and our national histories. Far from being without a country, we belong on the contrary, to all countries."

The second characteristic of the international civil servant is independence. To safeguard this independence, the United Nations Charter provides that ”In the performance of their duties, the Secretary-General and the staff shall not seek or receive instructions from any Government, or from any other country external to the organisation. They will refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the organisation. ” To facilitate the adoption of such an independent attitude, the Charter also expects the respective member states to pledge ”to respect the exclusively international character of the responsibilities of the Secretary~ General and the Staff, and not to seek to influence them in the discharge of their responsibilities.” A further injunction to UN officials is the prohibition on the acceptance of any honour, decoration, favour, gift or remuneration from any government, except for war service, or from any source external to the organisation without first obtaining the approval of the SecretaryGeneral. 

The third important requirement of UN officials is political neutrality. The only concession given in this matter is that they are not deprived of the right to vote in national elections. The United Nations Staff Regulations provide that "staff members may exercise the right to vote but shall not engage in any political activity which is inconsistent with, or might reflect upon, the independence and impartiality required by their status as international civil servants.” The regulations debar the international civil servants from indulging in any political activity, including public pronouncements or open expression of their opinions, on issues of a political nature. The argument put forward for this bar on political activity was that since there were great differences in the political systems of the member states, political activities and propagandising on the part of officials may result in an international organisation being mired in national politics.

    UN officials can perform to the optimum level only if they abstain from bringing issues of national politics. into international bodies. 

A corollary to his special status as an international official is the presence of safeguards to ensure his independent functioning and are generally known as legal immunity. These are: 

1.  Inviolability of his person, domicile, private property and his private correspondence;
2. Immunity from all legal proceedings; 
3.  Immunity from measures of attachment and requisition of residence, goods in the residence and means of transport; 
4.  Repatriation facilities in time of international crises equivalent to those accorded to diplomatic agents. 

Reforms 

In the Iast few years, the UN has enacted major reforms to enhance its efficiency and effectiveness. These have included appointing an Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, reducing operating expenses, cutting high-level posts and eliminating some 1,000 positions. The 1998-1999 budget of $2.53 billion reflects a reduction of $76 million, or about 3 per cent, over 1996-1997-the first-ever reduction in absolute terms. 

The pace of reforms accelerated dramatically with the appointment of Mr. Kofi Annan as Secretary-General. Mr. Arman has put in motion the most far-reaching set of reforms ever proposed to the General Assembly. Among the measures enacted or under way: 

• reducing administrative costs, and using the savings for development activities; 
• organising the UN’s work'programme into four core areas peace and security, development, economic and social . affairs and humanitarian affairs -with human rights as a cross-cutting issue; 
• appointing a Deputy Secretary-General to oversee the day-to-day work of the UN and coordinate its reform efforts; '
• establishing a cabinet comprising the UN senior managers to speed up decision-making and enhance coordination; ° 5)establishing a UN Development Group comprising the heads of the UN development programmes and funds, to facilitate joint decision-making on development activities; 
• consolidating into a single department the work of the UN Secretariat in economic and social affairs; 
• combining the programmes on human rights into a Single Office; 
• combining the programmes on fighting crime, drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorism mto a single Office; 
• placing the country operations of the different UN funds and programmes under a single UN office (”UN House”) under a Resident Coordinator, thus establishing common premises for all operations, increasing coordination and reducing costs; 
• undertaking a major reform of personnel aimed at improving management of staff at all levels.