UN Ethics Mechanisms Not Doing So Well

The Wall Street Journal has a front page news story today that will not surprise anyone who follows the daily life of the United Nations – Andrew Higgins and Steve Stecklow, “U.N. Push to Stem Misconduct Flounders,” WSJ, December 26, 2008, A1.  It seems to be behind the subscriber wall (maybe not), but anyway here is a bit:

An American-backed drive to curb misconduct at the United Nations is faltering, blighted by bureaucracy and accusations of retaliation against whistle-blowers.

Launched in December 2005 with advice from U.S. officials, the reform initiative was supposed to protect U.N. employees who exposed wrongdoing. The U.N. pledged this would ensure the “highest standards of integrity.”

Since then, the organization has been hit by numerous allegations of misconduct, from claims that U.N. peacekeepers in Congo traded guns for gold with rebels to accusations of corruption by U.N. employees in Kosovo.

Instead of a streamlined system to process complaints, the U.N. has set up no fewer than eight separate ethics offices, each with its own guidelines, deadlines for claims and jurisdiction. Other parts of the U.N. also handle allegations of misconduct, including an ombudsman’s office.

“The U.N. isn’t serious about cleaning up its act,” says James Wasserstrom, a former U.N. official in Kosovo who, after becoming a whistle-blower himself last year, was placed under investigation by the U.N. A 25-year veteran of the U.N., Mr. Wasserstrom, an American, was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing and recently filed a retaliation complaint with a U.N. appeals panel.

The U.N., says Mr. Wasserstrom, “uses the whistle-blowing program to get its most ethical staff to stick their heads above ground in order to chop them off.”

The U.N. denies this and says it doesn’t tolerate retaliation against staff members who report misdeeds. The U.N. is “very, very diligent in pursuing” wrongdoing, says Angela Kane, the organization’s under-secretary-general for management. She says there has been a “great culture change” in the organization.

The U.N. declined to discuss individual cases of whistle-blowers who have alleged retaliation. On the issue of misconduct in general, the organization says that a number of senior officials have been punished after reports of wrongdoing by colleagues.

The system for rooting out misconduct mirrors the organization as a whole — a sprawling array of fiefdoms. U.S. officials have been frustrated by the plethora of separate bodies monitoring what they hoped would be a unified ethics policy.

Canadian attorney Robert Benson says that when he arrived at the U.N. in May 2007 he assumed that his New York-based Ethics Office had jurisdiction over the entire organization. But he soon learned it only oversaw the U.N. Secretariat — the U.N.’s main administrative body. Assorted agencies and funds opted to set up their own ethics bureaus.

I’ve written a lot here and elsewhere about the fundamental problems of achieving accountability – even just for corruption and personal self-dealing, nothing that anyone in principle (one hopes) wants to defend – at the United Nations and its myriad agencies.  Among the many barriers to accountability is the moral hazard created (ironically) by the organization’s “platonist” defenders: the organization’s failures, problems, lack of accountability, corruption, etc., in the present are always discounted to zero in the interests of holding out the hope of the glorious future.  It’s a glorious future, however, that not only never seems to get any closer – the co-dependent enabling behavior of the organization’s platonist defenders in the present ensures that the glorious future will never arrive.  Why on earth should it, given that the organization and its personnel get a free ride today and forever?