Following my recent post on “Inside UNHCR: Women Staff Speak Out”, I have now received additional correspondence sent to UNHCR senior leadership and the High Commissioner’s office.
This letter was sent to me by a group of women staff members working within the United Nations system. It was shared with me in confidence for publication after internal reporting channels were exhausted.
The correspondence raises deeply serious concerns regarding an alleged case of sexual harassment and violent workplace behaviour, reportedly supported by multiple testimonies, yet closed without sanctions while the victims remained exposed, unsupported, and at risk.
In today’s global climate where scandals are exposing how easily powerful men are protected by powerful systems, the United Nations should be expected to demonstrate a more active, victim-centred, and protective approach toward its own staff members who report sexual harassment and abuse.
What this letter suggests is the opposite: a system that appears to protect reputations and careers, while leaving those who spoke up to absorb the consequences alone.
Even more troubling are the concerns raised about the possible role of senior officials in enabling, legitimizing, or shielding the alleged misconduct, and about administrative decisions that may have preserved the employability of the alleged perpetrator.
The letter below is published in the public interest, with identifying information redacted to protect those involved.
Disclaimer: This letter is published at the request of its authors. I am not a party to the matters raised.
In IOM, a Chief of Mission has been sexually harassing a dozen female staff members, with the former Director General covering for him.
More than a dozen United Nations IOM female staff members filed independent complaints of sexual harassment against a current Chief of Mission.
The former Director General was formally apprised of these complaints, yet he took no action.
The PSEA focal point, entrusted with protecting victims and ensuring reporting of sexual misconduct, actively discouraged the complainants by stating
“If I had suffered sexual harassment by a senior staff member, I would not report it.”
The IOM Ombudsman did not fare any better, instead turning a blind eye.
The IOM sexual harasser continued in his functions as if nothing had happened.
Several staff members subsequently began experiencing retaliation in different forms.
When the Internal Office of Investigations finally decided to launch an investigation, many of the complainants chose to withdraw their complaints out of fear of being identified through their testimonies, even where anonymity was supposedly guaranteed.
The investigation was unfortunately protracted, to the detriment of many staff members, some of whom chose to leave the Organization altogether. At the same time, the IOM sexual harasser remains very much in place and without concern.
More worryingly, a 2022 External Evaluation of IOM’s Approach to Protection Against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and Sexual Harassment noted in its final report a deeply troubling approach to dealing with sexual harassment at IOM with the report presenting an encouraging view that some forms of sexual harassment could be addressed through management action, or for informal mediation by the Office of Ombudsperson should the affected individual choose not to pursue a formal investigation.
This approach does not dissuade perpetrators from continuing predatory behavior. On the contrary, it has proven largely ineffective and extremely damaging. The dozens of women who complained in this case reached out to the former Director General, to the PSEA focal point, and to the Ombudsman. None of these actors deemed it necessary to stop the aberrant behavior.
When she assumed her functions as the new Director General of the International Organization for Migration on 1 October 2023, Amy Pope, the first woman to lead IOM in its history, stated in her speech:
“I pledge that IOM will put at its highest priority protecting the women and girls we serve.”
It is time to practice what you preach. The continued presence of a Chief of Mission accused by multiple female staff members of sexual harassment, after years of inaction, retaliation, and institutional failure, cannot be reconciled with it.
Amy Pope, the moment for statements has passed.
Accountability now requires immediate and decisive action.
Judicial Scrutiny, Counsel Conduct, and the Cost of Zero Tolerance
“Thou Shalt Always Read The Footnotes.”
A UN senior official once advised me to always pay close attention to footnotes in judgments. Footnotes are often where the real findings reside. They are discreet, carefully worded, and easy to overlook unless one understands what is at stake. They are where tribunals sometimes record patterns they are not yet prepared to confront head-on.
And in one recent sexual-harassment case, ATR v. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Judgment No. UNDT/2024/100 involving a senior official, Mr. Polinikis Sophocleous, a single footnote proved sufficiently unsettling to trigger an extraordinary mobilisation of the Organization’s vast legal machinery, ironically, not against the sexual harassment itself, but against the judges who recorded it.
What followed was extraordinary: a prolonged procedural campaign: motions, compelled disclosure, two detailed UNDT orders, one of them running to fifteen pages, and ultimately appellate scrutiny before the United Nations Appeals Tribunal: all orbiting a single footnote.
The Secretary-General’s legal counsel’s objective was plain: to prevent the UNDT from recording, even in a footnote, a pattern the Tribunal itself considered troubling, namely, that senior offenders in workplace sexual-harassment cases appear to receive more lenient disciplinary measures than lower-level staff.
Rather than directing its legal effort toward compensating the victim or addressing the remedial gap the Tribunal expressly acknowledged, the Organization concentrated its full legal force on eliminating any trace of judicial criticism, even when confined to a footnote.
This episode offers a clear, documentary view into how far the Secretary-General’s administration is prepared to go to control the narrative of accountability, including the strategic use of data submissions, jurisdictional maneuvers, and appellate escalation, when the subject is discipline for sexual harassment, and the Organization’s professed “zero-tolerance” posture is placed under judicial light.
Most readers do not linger on a footnote.
That is precisely why this one matters. It is a small space in a judgment that triggered an outsized institutional response and in doing so, it exposed the temper of the system of administration of justice at the United Nations today: the ferocity of its defensive litigation, and the priorities it reveals. What follows is a forensic reconstruction of how a footnote became a battleground and what that battleground reveals about power, accountability, and the UN’s own system of administration of justice.
The footnote itself is worth reproducing. It recorded what the Tribunal observed when reading the Administration’s own disciplinary record in the related Sophocleous case:
“The most astounding part of that judgment was the Administration’s concession that, although sexual harassment most frequently results in termination of a United Nations staff member, if the harassment occurred in the workplace and ‘the offender is a manager with considerable power over the affected individuals, the most frequently imposed disciplinary measure is that of demotion with deferment of at least one year of eligibility for consideration for promotion.
Reduced punishment for higher-level workplace harassers is troubling in that it seems contrary to both common sense and to the Organization’s professed zero-tolerance policy.
When the Organization refuses to disclose the discipline it imposed, the harasser returns to work, and the Organization later admits that managers frequently receive lighter punishment than others for sexual harassment, even the most gullible person must wonder about the Organization’s professed commitment to ‘zero tolerance’.”
The footnote appeared as an ancillary observation, without affecting the outcome, in a judgment where sexual harassment had been established, the victim’s credibility affirmed, and the imbalance of power expressly recognised. It nonetheless placed on the judicial record a concern that the Organization has long resisted confronting.
Within weeks, the Secretary-General’s administration mobilised its full legal apparatus to have it erased. A motion was filed invoking the Tribunal’s limited power of correction, with the Administration alleging that the Tribunal had relied on inaccurate information and had impermissibly suggested differential treatment based on grade. The Secretary-General requested the immediate deletion of the footnote.
What is notable is what the motion did not address. It did not challenge the finding of sexual harassment. It did not contest the Administration’s delay of more than three years in imposing the disciplinary measure on the perpetrator. It did not engage with the absence of compensation or the denial of information to the victim. Its sole focus was the footnote, to the point that the substance of the appeal under review all but receded from view.
The UN Dispute Tribunal did not take the bait. Rather than acceding to a request to excise judicial language on assertion alone, it treated the Administration’s allegations for what they were: a factual challenge requiring proof. In Order No. 167 (NBI/2024), the Tribunal directed the Administration to substantiate its claims with evidence.
The Tribunal noted that the data invoked by the Secretary-General in its motion were drawn from a narrower timeframe than the disciplinary compendium on which the footnote was based, excluded entire staff categories, and conflated grade with supervisory authority. It therefore required the Administration to produce a comprehensive, searchable dataset covering all established cases of sexual and workplace harassment from at least 2009 to the present, including the offender’s grade, supervisory status, the nature of the misconduct, and the precise disciplinary measure imposed.
The exercise of disclosure proved revealing in ways the Administration had not intended. When the data was finally produced, it did not substantiate the claim advanced by the Secretary-General’s counsel. On the contrary, it exposed fundamental inconsistencies in how the Administration had framed its argument.
The dataset was neither methodologically coherent nor responsive to the Tribunal’s order. It mixed categories, relied on selective timeframes, and failed to distinguish meaningfully between grade, supervisory authority, and the nature of the misconduct.
Faced with this submission, the Tribunal did what courts are expected to do. In Order No. 21 (NBI/2025), spanning fifteen pages, it undertook its own analysis of the Administration’s material. Rather than accept the conclusions offered by the Secretary-General’s counsel, the Tribunal recalculated the figures, tested the assumptions on which they rested, and assessed the data against the very criteria the Administration itself had proposed.
The result was clear.
When properly analysed, the data supported, rather than undermined the Tribunal’s observation recorded in the footnote.
The Tribunal concluded that lower-level staff found responsible for sexual harassment were, in fact, more frequently subjected to termination than higher-level staff, who more often received lesser disciplinary measures. The pattern held even when controlling for variables that the Administration had invoked to argue the contrary.
It is worth pausing here to recall the scale of what was set in motion: the mobilisation of the Secretary-General’s legal apparatus, the compulsory engagement of the Tribunal’s judicial resources, and ultimately appellate proceedings: all directed at a footnote, and pursued after the Administration had been placed on notice that its own data did not support the position advanced.
At that point, the factual dispute should have been at an end. The Tribunal expressly stated that its original observation had been “very accurate” and declined to withdraw it. It agreed only to minimal linguistic adjustments, removing two words to avoid characterising the Administration’s disciplinary record as a formal “concession.” The substance of the footnote remained intact.
Rather than appealing the order directly, the Administration carried the footnote dispute into the appellate phase by appending the amended judgment to its appeal submissions to UNAT, ensuring that a single footnote would continue to occupy judicial scrutiny at the highest level.
The Appeals Tribunal dismantled the Administration’s position at its foundation (Judgment No. 2025-UNAT-1601). It refused to entertain the notion that the dispute concerned wording or presentation. Instead, it held that the Secretary-General’s approach amounted to an impermissible attempt to recast judicial reasoning through a correction procedure that does not exist for that purpose and all the more so after the Tribunal-ordered disclosure had validated the contested observation.
Having disposed of the premise, the Appeals Tribunal then addressed the consequence. In Judgment No. 2025-UNAT-1601, it held that the Dispute Tribunal had acted ultra vires in entertaining the motion for correction once an appeal against the judgment had been filed. The correction mechanism could not be used to reopen reasoning, reassess evidence, or recalibrate judicial language. On that basis, the Appeals Tribunal declared the purported amendment without legal effect and reinstated UNDT/2024/100 in its original form, including the footnote the Administration had sought to eliminate.
The result was decisive.
After months of litigation, compelled disclosure, judicial analysis, and appellate scrutiny, the position advanced by the Secretary-General’s counsel did not survive review. The footnote remained on the record, having exposed the lengths to which the Secretary-General’s administration was prepared to go to suppress judicial scrutiny in a case of substantiated sexual harassment.
But that resolution does not exhaust the questions this case raises.
How did the Secretary-General’s legal counsel reach a point where months of litigation, judicial time, and institutional resources were devoted to suppressing a footnote in a sexual-harassment case? At what point did this cease to be about legal argument and become something else? And do those responsible reflect on how such a course of action aligns with the standards of integrity, candour, and restraint they are bound to uphold?
The conduct of the Secretary-General’s counsel must be assessed against the standards governing legal representation before the UN tribunals. Article 4 of the Code of Conduct for Legal Representatives and Litigants in Person requires counsel to “maintain the highest standards of integrity” and to act “honestly, candidly, fairly, courteously, in good faith,” while also acting “diligently and efficiently” and avoiding unnecessary delay.
Counsel acting with candour and integrity are expected to reassess their position when the evidentiary record no longer sustains it, and to conduct proceedings efficiently rather than exhaustively. The insistence on carrying this issue forward, despite the Tribunal’s findings, raises a legitimate question as to whether those standards were met in practice.
It also raises a broader and unavoidable issue of accountability. Who bears the cost of this litigation strategy? Months of legal work, multiple judicial orders, detailed evidentiary analysis, and appellate proceedings were devoted to a footnote, all funded by the Organization.
Do Member States know that resources contributed by taxpayers were expended in this way? And who, within the system, is responsible for monitoring how the Secretary-General’s legal counsel deploys those resources when the objective is not to vindicate rights or resolve disputes, but to weaken judicial scrutiny of the administration itself.
To their credit, the UN Dispute Tribunal and the Appeals Tribunal did not yield. UNDT insisted on evidence, and UNAT ultimately reaffirmed that judicial reasoning is not subject to administrative pressure or litigation tactics designed to silence criticism. The attempt to intimidate the judiciary into retreat, even over a footnote, failed.
One might have expected such energy, and such resources, to be reserved for combating sexual harassment.
A critical legal analysis of UNDT Judge Buffa’s jurisprudence on sexual harassment, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation.
Despite having issued four separate UNDT judgments in sexual harassment, assault and exploitation cases in which he exonerated the perpetrators, rescinded their terminations, and awarded up to two years’ compensation in lieu, even after every single one was subsequently vacated by UNAT, UNDT Judge Buffa appears determined to persist in what can only be described as a judicial crusade to rehabilitate UN staff members found to have sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, raped or exploited their female colleagues.
What is glaring is not merely that UNAT has repeatedly nullified his judgments, it is that Judge Buffa continues to ignore, dismiss, or otherwise sidestep UNAT jurisprudence in areas where UNAT has already resolved the legal issue and articulated binding standards. The jurisprudential message from UNAT to Judge Buffa has been categorical. Yet Judge Buffa proceeds as though these precedents are advisory rather than binding, as though the legal reasoning of higher judicial authority is optional, and as though his personal interpretive framework supersedes the institutional legal regime.
In earlier writings dating back to 2023, I asked: What explains such a sustained departure from appellate jurisprudence? By what logic does a sitting judge repeatedly arrive at interpretations that UNAT has already rejected? How could a judge charged with administering the internal justice system arrive at legal conclusions so dramatically misaligned with the Organization’s zero-tolerance framework and repeatedly contradicted by appellate review?
At the time, I argued that the cultural priors and embedded social beliefs of the Judge, particularly those regarding gender, sexuality, power, and consent were not incidental to his rulings, but constitutive of them. I referenced the 2007 Duke Law Research Paper by Jennifer Zimbroff, which observed:
“studies of sexual harassment perception are not intended to answer whether any specific plaintiff’s circumstances satisfy the legal criteria for sexual harassment. Rather, they serve to demonstrate the potential differences with which victims, alleged perpetrators, judges, and juries perceive and consider appropriate handling of unwelcome sexualized approaches. Such studies may demonstrate how the cultural affiliations of different judges and jurors will influence their perceptions of whether sexual harassment occurred and, if so, was responded to appropriately.”
This is manifest in Judge Buffa’s judicial output. After reviewing all of Judge Buffa’s UNDT judgments in which he nullified or declined to substantiate sexual misconduct, all of which were later vacated entirely by UNAT, the pattern is unmistakable. His legal reasoning consistently reflects a viewpoint that normalizes male sexual entitlement and places the burden of reaction, resistance, articulation, and proof upon female victims. In so doing, he treats women’s testimony as unreliable, their silence as consent, their embarrassment as acquiescence, and their reluctance to report as insignificance.
In other words: his jurisprudence reveals a consistently gendered epistemology of disbelief.
The UNDT Code of Conduct for Judges requires fairness in proceedings and explicitly prohibits sexist or discriminatory conduct. UNDT Judges are obligated to uphold the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the ICCPR documents rooted in dignity, bodily autonomy, and equality before the law. Further, UNDT Judges are appointed by the General Assembly upon recommendations of the Internal Justice Council in consultation with OHR.
We therefore ask the Internal Justice Council and the General Assembly directly:
How can a UNDT judge whose judgments repeatedly erode the credibility of women reporting sexual misconduct; judgments that have systemically and consecutively been repudiated by UNAT, be said to meet the standard of impartiality and integrity expected under the UNDT judicial mandate?
Judge Buffa is not advancing the Secretary-General’s zero-tolerance framework for sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, and sexual abuse. In fact, his most recent judgment makes one reality brutally clear: the price that women pay when they report sexual misconduct is professional risk, reputational threat, and exposure to retaliation, while the alleged perpetrator is offered the jurisprudential shelter of Judge Buffa’s reasoning.
Unless a case of sexual violence meets an almost impossible standard (one approaching forensic documentation) Judge Buffa’s instinct is to clear the accused. Whether the staff member verbalized sexual comments, circulated pornographic imagery, engaged in invasive contact, or weaponized professional authority through sexual innuendo and sexual acts, Judge Buffa appears unwilling to attribute legal gravity to the act unless the violence is so explicit as to be undeniable.
May we therefore ask the Internal Justice Council and OHR: what safeguards are in place to ensure that UNDT judges, who are entrusted with adjudicating claims of harassment and abuse, do not themselves perpetuate the very attitudes that normalize such misconduct?
How can we ensure that those chosen to sit in judgment are truly aligned with the Organization’s legal commitments and ethical imperatives?
In case after case, Judge Buffa introduces interpretive thresholds that shift the burden of proof onto women and dilute the legal definition of harassment into a form of harmless social mischief.
In Conteh, Conteh v. Secretary-General, Judgment No. UNDT/2020/189 (6 November 2020), Judge Buffa built a narrative of minimization around the perpetrator’s conduct. He characterized the groping, grabbing, and physical intrusion into women’s bodies as merely “episodic,” “not threatening,” and “without specific consequences,” even noting approvingly that the staff member “gave up the harassment when he understood that his ‘rude advances’ were not accepted.” In Judge Buffa’s view, the misconduct had “no impact (or at least a very limited impact) on the work environment,” and, most revealingly, he opined that “the heaviest disciplinary sanctions would perhaps have been appropriate if the investigators had found evidence that the Applicant had engaged in sexual relationships with his subordinates but they did not.”
Judge Buffa’s standard in Conteh appears to be: unless the misconduct crosses into explicit sexual intercourse, it cannot warrant dismissal. And so he rescinded the termination decision and ordered compensation in lieu.
UNAT’s response was unequivocal UNAT Judgment (appeal, reversal) Conteh v. Secretary-General, Judgment No. 2021-UNAT-1171.It found that Judge Buffa’s limitation of termination “only to instances of inappropriate sexual relationships” was “without authority or merit” and actively “undermines the broad spectrum of sexual harassment that can and does occur.” UNAT went on to reassert a core legal principle:
“there should be no requirement for the conduct to be repetitive,” and “one instance could conceptually be sufficient” for separation. Moreover, UNAT held that sexual harassment “does not require any concrete or palpable result,” and that “unwelcome advances and inappropriate behaviour towards colleagues such as touching their body parts… are per se grave enough to cause harm.” It further reminded Judge Buffa that the offence is not dependent on “ill intent,” nor on the frequency of professional interactions, which are “a minor element” under a zero-tolerance policy.
Conteh thus reveals the core of Buffa’s jurisprudence: sexual harm, in his view, must be physically extreme, repeated, or visibly harmful in order to qualify as harassment. The effect is consistent: a systemic raising of evidentiary thresholds for victims and a lowering of accountability thresholds for perpetrators. Conteh is the jurisprudential seed from which Judge Buffa’s future exonerations sprouted.
The Szvetko judgment exposes Judge Buffa’s cultural comfort with sexualized male behaviour disguised as mischief. Here, Judge Buffa treated comments such as “your breasts look like mountains” and inviting a female colleague to imagine the “pleasure” of water jets “between a woman’s legs,” and even the showing of nude male genitalia, as “euphoric jokes,” “boutades,” and as behaviour akin to “a boy on a school trip,” devoid of any intention to humiliate.
Once again, Judge Buffa’s eye is on the man, his mood, his context, his lack of maliciousness, rather than the impact on the women subjected to this conduct. The degradation of a professional woman into a sexual object is framed as childish play. Judge Buffa concluded that the misconduct “was not severe in nature” and again portrayed the perpetrator as merely exuberant rather than predatory.
UNAT’s reversal was devastating (UNAT Judgment (appeal, reversal): Balint Szvetko v. Secretary-General, Judgment No. 2023-UNAT-1311). It found Judge Buffa’s interpretation “speculative,” noted that he had “disregarded the evidence,” and reaffirmed the applicable legal framework. Crucially, UNAT held that this behaviour “exhibits a disposition which caused the complainants significant discomfort and anxiety and impacted their ongoing professional relationship,” and that Judge Buffa’s conclusion that the misconduct lacked severity because it occurred briefly was legally untenable. The Tribunal rejected Judge Buffa’s trivialization of pornographic exposure, stating plainly that “showing a colleague a picture of a penis can cause offence or humiliation,” and that “all individuals are entitled to be free of this kind of puerile behaviour.” The conduct, UNAT clarified, “violates the obligation of an international civil servant to uphold the highest standard of integrity,” and “naturally would undermine professional confidence.”
Here, Judge Buffa’s habitual logic becomes unmistakable: women must tolerate sexually explicit intrusion so long as the perpetrator can be framed as joking,playful,inebriated, or boyish. It is the judicial romanticization of male entitlement. Under Judge Buffa’s lens, women are expected to be resilient, unaffected, unhumiliated, and if they are humiliated, it is dismissed as hypersensitivity.
Szvetko mirrors Conteh in dismantling the same Buffa principle: that a woman must prove explicit distress, explicit damage, explicit consequences to her career rather than simply the fact of being sexually objectified in the workplace.
In AAE, Judge Buffa’s dissenting opinion exposes the apex of his judicial perspective on sexual violence. Faced with a case in which a D-1 Director raped a colleague after she told him she did not want sex and attempted to leave, Judge Buffa turned to the woman’s behaviour; not to the man’s actions, as the decisive factor. He invoked her “friendly disposition” as “exculpatory,” and he questioned how rape could occur when the woman did not scream, did not physically struggle, and did not reiterate her objection multiple times. His reasoning assimilates friendliness into invitation and silence into consent. It asks, implicitly: why didn’t she resist harder?
But your Honour:
A Kiss is not a Free Pass for Sex. A kiss is not a contract. and;
Silence under shock is not consent.
UNAT’s full bench demolished this reasoning UNAT Judgment (full bench): AAE v. Secretary-General, Judgment No. 2023-UNAT-1332. It held that the Director had engaged in “non-consensual sex… amounting to sexual assault,” and that relying on tacit consent or the absence of repeated objections was legally invalid. UNAT affirmed that sexual assault can occur “without threats of violence,” particularly within a power-imbalanced relationship, and accepted the victim’s explanation that she did not scream because she was “in shock,” “ashamed,” and “cognizant of her precarious situation.”
Here, as in Conteh and Szvetko, Judge Buffa’s analysis repeatedly turns to female reaction, rather than male action, as the evidentiary hinge. The woman carries the burden of proving fear; the man is relieved of the burden of proving respect. The judicial gaze is male-centric: what mattered to Judge Buffa was not whether the man violated the woman’s autonomy, but whether the woman reacted loudly enough to convince him.
In the Makeen case, Judge Buffa again applied his consistent judicial relativism around sexual harm, this time in the context of sexual exploitation. Here, the perpetrator was a 53-year-old married UN staff member who repeatedly engaged in sexual acts with an 18-year-old impoverished woman who cleaned his home, cooked for him, and was economically dependent on him. Yet Judge Buffa saw no power dynamic, no coercive context, no vulnerability, only “consensual” sexual interaction “pertaining to the Applicant’s private life.”
This reasoning is revealing: Judge Buffa treats power disparity as irrelevant if the victim technically agreed to be present, or did not explicitly object, or, in this case, was merely young, poor, unprotected, and dependent. He reads “consent” where the law sees coercion by circumstance.
“Consent is immaterial to the offence of sexual exploitation and abuse.”
With that single sentence, UNAT dismantled Judge Buffa’s entire operative premise. It went further:
“V01 was unable to fully consent due to the unequal relationship and power imbalance that existed between her and Mr. Makeen.”
Here, UNAT stated plainly what Judge Buffa refused to see: that consent is not a matter of mere verbal or physical acquiescence, but must be free of dependency, intimidation, and deprivation. The Tribunal stressed that the perpetrator held “a position of trust and support,” and that the victim’s “economic and social status put her in a state of dependency.”
UNAT also directly contradicted Judge Buffa’s claim that the misconduct pertained to private life:
“the duty of staff members to act with integrity… extends to their conduct both within and outside the workplace due to the potential reputational damage their adverse actions may cause to the Organization.”
Once again, Judge Buffa shielded a male UN actor by shrinking the scope of accountability to the boundaries of the bedroom, as though sexual access to a dependent teenager employed in one’s home were merely private recreation. UNAT restored the definition of sexual abuse to its legal and ethical meaning: exploitation of vulnerability, not romantic interaction. This case illustrates transactional sex under conditions of imbalance, dependency, and vulnerability. If a young woman cooks your meals, cleans your floors, and is financially dependent on you, she cannot freely consent.
Judge Buffa’s approach in Makeen reveals his intellectual consistency: in Conteh, he could not see harm unless it disrupted work; in Szvetko, he could not see harassment unless accompanied by ill intent; in AAE, he could not see rape unless force or screaming occurred; and in Makeen, he could not see exploitation unless the victim explicitly vocalized objection despite dependency.
All these judgments clearly point to repetition of Judge Buffa’s cultural assumptions about women’s consent.
And then we arrive at Samarasinha, the newest UNDT judgment issued in July 2025; the one where Judge Buffa again cleared a male senior official at the D-1 level despite testimonies from multiple women and corroborating diplomatic witnesses.
Here the pattern repeats so perfectly it becomes almost formulaic. Even though there were clear shortcomings in the OIOS investigation, Judge Buffa went on to dismiss another allegation of sexual assault because the victim was drunk, because the recollection was not detailed twelve years later, because she had “flirtatious behaviour” as though intoxication invalidates memory and flirting invalidates violation.
Judge Buffa wrote:
“a recollection… in a context of flirtatious behaviour… cannot substantiate an accusation of sexual assault, notably where the recollection of the events are not detailed and not lived by a sober person.”
Once again, Judge Buffa implies that a woman who was intoxicated cannot be sexually assaulted because she cannot remember explicitly enough to satisfy him.
He even dismissed the victim’s account of being pinned in bed as “weak,” and deemed the surrounding allegations “almost meaningless” and “without relevance.” He trivialized repeated physical contact, the staring at breasts, and the delivery of invitations laced with sexual undertones as “insignificant.” He wrote that these acts lacked “sexual connotation,” as though a senior official touching a woman’s hips and waist “while inebriated” somehow falls within acceptable social interaction in Judge Buffa’s mental universe.
And most tellingly, he declared that even cumulatively, these acts were “unable to substantiate… a behaviour of a gravity able to justify a measure like ALWOP.”
In other words: even if multiple women say it, even if they say it over time, even if external witnesses corroborate it, Judge Buffa does not find it serious.
Across these judgments, a consistent evidentiary posture emerges: women’s testimony is approached with skepticism, while male conduct is interpreted through a lens of benign intent. The result is a repeated downgrading of coercive acts into social misunderstandings and a systemic reluctance to attribute legal weight to female experience. This judicial orientation constitutes an epistemic bias, a presumption of male innocence that persists even in the face of multiple corroborating accounts and sustained patterns of behaviour.
This consistent minimization of sexual misconduct, repeated across Conteh, Szvetko, Makeen, AAE, and now Samarasinha, constitutes what I refer to as the Buffa Doctrine.
The United Nations has repeatedly affirmed that it upholds a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual harassment, sexual assault, and sexual exploitation. Yet in practice, zero tolerance is meaningless when judicial interpretation becomes a filter that drains these standards of substance. The question is no longer whether Judge Buffa’s judgments are legally flawed: UNAT has already established that by vacating four of them and will likely do the same with the fifth. The question is whether the internal justice architecture will continue to tolerate a judicial approach that repeatedly diminishes the gravity of sexual misconduct and re-centres sympathy on the perpetrators rather than the victims.
The Judges of the UNDT are not freelancers. They are appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Internal Justice Council, precisely because the legitimacy of their office derives not from personal opinion but from fidelity to the Organization’s legal framework. When a UNDT judge develops an identifiable pattern of jurisprudence that contradicts UNAT’s established standards, repeatedly, and in the same direction, affecting the same class of victims, it is no longer a matter of individual interpretation, it becomes a matter of institutional accountability.
Judge Buffa’s judicial reasoning, across these cases, does not advance the UN’s commitments under the Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the ICCPR. It does not uphold the Secretary-General’s professed principles of zero tolerance. It does not protect women in the system who report sexual misconduct. It does, however, provide a signal, loud, clear, unmistakable, to every perpetrator who might consider testing boundaries: that if their actions fall short of cinematic brutality, there is a judge who may well reinterpret coercion as misunderstanding, predation as exuberance, and violation as miscommunication.
So we must ask: how many times must a judge be reversed: four? five? six? before someone in authority acknowledges the pattern?
When does the Internal Justice Council intervene? When does the General Assembly exercise its oversight responsibility?
And how many women in the UN must endure professional retaliation, reputational harm, and psychological damage because a judge’s cultural biases consistently discount their experiences?
Precedent is the true expression of judicial philosophy. And Buffa’s precedents: overturned, contradicted, and repudiated, speak to a persistent bias incompatible with impartial adjudication.
“I would not let the UN teach me morals. Having a baby in Africa is nothing. Where one has a baby, she wanted a baby. How many people have babies here? The UN does not understand that. The UN thinks that she has been victimized by the UN staff who came. No, it’s the opposite.”
This was the shocking statement of a MONUSCO international staff member to the UN tribunal after he was dismissed for sexual exploitation and abuse of a local woman in Goma.
Last week, the UNDT rendered a damning judgment UNDT/2025/089, Compaore v. Secretary-General, which evidences a systemic collapse of compliance with the principle of “do no harm” among UN international staff and highlights the widening gap between the Organisation’s proclaimed norms and its operational realities.
What the Tribunal recounts next reveals a level of predation that documents the institutional inability to give effect to every policy, every training, and every public assertion that the Organisation upholds the principle of ‘do no harm”.
“The staff member met the local woman when she was selling vegetables on the roadside in Goma took her number and, within days, he was having regular sexual intercourse with her.
He knew that there was a notable status differential between him, an international United Nations staff member and the SEA survivor, a seller on the market in Goma.
The woman earned between USD 10 and USD 25 per month… she was also supporting her ten-year-old son. By contrast, the staff member’s net salary was approximately USD 14,000 per month.
He visited her at her house and started giving her significant sums of money up to half of her month’s earnings as well as promised to help opening her own business…
…when the victim informed him that she became pregnant as a result, he reacted angrily, and called her a ‘prostitute’ and ‘thief,’ telling her to leave his house.
He then took the local woman far to meet with a pharmacist that he knew, using a UN vehicle. At the location of the pharmacist, he asked her to do a pregnancy test, which was positive.
He then asked the pharmacist how they could arrange an abortion even though the local woman informed him that she did not want to abort. He then organized a meeting at a hotel in Goma, during which the pharmacist pressured the local woman to get an abortion; and he gave her US$ 400.00 (i.e. the equivalent of four months’ income or seven months’ rent for her) to financially incentivize her to get an abortion.
After giving her the money for an abortion, he filed a criminal complaint against her, accusing her of harassing him and of claiming money from him. In his complaint, he requested the police to verify if she was still pregnant, while being aware that abortion is a criminal offence in the DRC.
He then made the local woman sign an agreement in exchange of USD 8,000 payment. As part of this agreement, the local woman also signed a letter withdrawing allegations against him which were then pending in the local court.”
I mean if this is the outcome of years of UN training on “do no harm” then we are forced to confront the undeniable truth: something is not merely broken: something is rotten at the core. And perhaps the deeper tragedy is this: people have become so accustomed to this pattern of abuse that they have grown desensitized to it. These cases no longer shock; they are absorbed as routine background noise.
We must ask ourselves: who is reading these stories? Who is outraged? And why is this not shaking the Organisation to its foundations?
What is truly galling is that the international staff member stood before the Tribunal and insisted the relationship was consensual. The Tribunal, drawing on Makeen 2024-UNAT-1461, para. 52, citing Lucchini rejected this narrative entirely, establishing that in the face of glaring economic deprivation and an overwhelming power differential, genuine consent was impossible. Sex in such a situation is inherently coercive and any claimed consent collapses under legal and ethical scrutiny.
The Tribunal also held that the survivor’s “withdrawal of the complaints in domestic proceedings, following an $8,000 financial settlement,” does not absolve the perpetrator nor constrain the UN’s authority to act, since national acquittals do not extinguish administrative responsibility.
The staff member disputed the proportionality of his dismissal, arguing that a mere reprimand or censure would have sufficed. This position attempts to recast predatory conduct as a correctable misjudgment rather than misconduct of such severity that it renders continued employment untenable. It is a defence that collapses on its face when measured against the Organisation’s core obligations and basic standards of conduct.
The problem is just like the genocide in Palestine, people have become used to harm so much that these stories pass almost unremarkable. And the UN surely counts on this.
The Secretary-General’s report reduces survivors to numerical entries processed through a statistical frame that neutralizes emotional and moral response. As with the enumeration of Palestinian casualties, human beings are converted into data units. Numerical abstraction becomes the mechanism of desensitization.
Let me give you a few examples of what the dashboard reveals. Under the category of UN staff and related personnel:
Less than a week ago, on 20 and 21 November, two separate allegations were recorded against WHO personnel for sexual exploitation.
On 30 October, an allegation was filed against IOM for rape of a child by a UN Volunteer.
On 23, 21 and 20 October, three distinct allegations were filed for sexual assault of children under 18 in both IOM and UNRWA.
According to the same data, for 2024, children constituted 15% of victims, and disturbingly, an additional 17% were listed as “victim age unknown.” That alone illustrates how incomplete or deliberately under-specified the reporting is. For the same year, rape accounted for 13% of allegations, and sexual assault 20%. Assistance was provided in only 20% of cases, with the remainder categorized on the dashboard as “victim declined,” “victim did not seek assistance,” “victim unidentified,” or “victim unreachable.” This is the measure in practice of “do no harm” and of the supposed restoration of victims’ dignity.
Then there is the separate category of implementing partners whose personnel are not formally under UN authority but who execute UN-funded projects.
On 4, 8, 9, 19 and 28 November 2025, five allegations were lodged for sexual assault, two involving children under 18 in connection with UNICEF-supported activities.
On 9, 14, 16 and 19 October 2025, another four allegations were recorded, three of which were also for assault of children under 18, again linked to UNICEF-related projects.
I mean yes, these individuals are not UN staff; they are personnel of implementing partners. But the question is unavoidable: is the UN exercising due diligence over the entities it entrusts with its mandate?
Does the UN engage implementing partners to improve conditions for children, or are these partnerships, through negligence or indifference, creating new avenues for their abuse?
In 2025 so far, there have been 41 allegations of rape, of which 37 involved children under 18. These were linked to projects implemented for:
UNICEF (14)
WFP (13)
WHO (4)
UNOPS (4)
UNHCR (3)
OCHA (1)
In 2024, children under 18 accounted for at least 28% of all SEA allegations and that figure is conservative, given that an additional 24% of victims were listed as “age unknown.”
Rape constituted 12% of total allegations that year.
Then there is the category of peacekeeping and special political missions, where rape of children is clearly systemic. It is easier to avert one’s gaze, but perhaps this is precisely where scrutiny must intensify.
And here I am also analyzing numbers. This is the trap inherent in quantitative reporting: patterns and ratios take over, and the individual victims disappear. Behind each statistic is a life: a child with a name, a family, a history, a future now fractured.
Who explains to a 10-year-old boy that he will be alright after being raped? Who provides care and schooling for a child born of sexual exploitation? Who treats the psychological, physical, and social scars inflicted by those who arrived under the blue flag claiming protection?
Why are we still here? Why are we reading these findings while maintaining the fiction that the UN enforces a zero-tolerance policy on sexual exploitation and abuse? Each year we hear the same prescriptions: more funding, more training, more risk-mapping, more awareness. Yet the same patterns recur.
The Secretary-General’s report to the General Assembly is extensive and data-heavy, but this is precisely the problem: its architecture buries the actual crisis under layers of metrics and operational jargon. And there, almost unnoticed in the middle of the document, sits the real revelation:
In 2024, 64,585 United Nations staff members responded to the annual perception survey on protection from sexual exploitation and abuse. Of those, 3.65% (2,360 people) stated that it was acceptable to pay for sex, and close to 1% (555) indicated that it was acceptable to engage in sexual activity with a child, with one-third of those respondents occupying supervisory roles.
This alone reveals how embedded and normalized the culture of sexual exploitation and abuse has become within the UN and this does not even account for uniformed personnel, national police contingents, or military forces contributed by Member States to peacekeeping missions.
So why is the situation not improving and in several respects deteriorating? Policies are revised, bulletins updated, special coordination units created, but the real deficit lies in accountability, and not only accountability for the direct perpetrator.
And what about the perpetrators who are shielded rather than sanctioned? What about the cases quietly buried because they involve personnel with the right connections or the right nationality? What about internal directives to “avoid reputational exposure” that override the rights of victims?
The UN pursues low-level offenders as symbolic sacrifices while preserving the machinery that protects enablers, decision-makers, and silent bystanders. The Organization reports terminations as proof of resolve, yet accountability is never directed at those within HR, Legal, Ethics, or senior management who intervened to suppress complaints, stall proceedings, or intimidate victims. That is where the deeper accountability lies, and that is precisely where none is exercised.
Why is there no scrutiny of the senior officials who instruct HR and Legal to make cases “go away”? What about the victims who never report, either out of fear or because the system has taught them that nothing will happen? What about the managers whose first instinct is to protect their own reporting profile before the Security Council or the General Assembly? And what of the Legal and HR officers who invoke “insufficient evidence” as a procedural shield as though the absence of formal proof were not itself often the product of investigative indifference or institutional suppression?
The Secretary-General’s own report acknowledges that since 2006, approximately 750 paternity and child support claims arising from UN peace operations have been recorded with over 500 still unresolved. Most Member States have failed to take any meaningful steps toward resolution. Meanwhile, the children born of these abuses, many now approaching adulthood, remain without schooling, without healthcare, without legal recognition, and trapped in lifelong stigma. They live in conditions of uncertainty and marginalization, the direct human legacy of UN negligence.
Protracted investigation and disciplinary timelines are cited as “systemic challenges,” but they function as structural impediments to justice. Delays in inquiry, opaque handling of outcomes, and the absence of visible consequences reinforce a culture of impunity and corrode the Organization’s credibility. Even now, there remains no real accountability for those in leadership who failed in their obligation to act. The burden falls only on the isolated offender, never on those who enabled, ignored, or suppressed the cases.
Alarmingly, in 2024, the internal survey itself recorded a stark indicator of institutional distrust: 6% of UN respondents,roughly 3,700 staff expressed no confidence in leadership’s ability to address sexual exploitation and abuse, up from 3% the previous year.The doubling reflects a measurable deterioration in trust in leadership.
The reality we must confront is this: a child in Bangui may flee from what he perceives as the threat (the militia or armed group) and run instead toward the UN blue helmets, whom he believes to be protectors. But the risk now is that he runs straight into the arms of his abuser. The UN’s personnel (civilian and military) leverage the UN’s image as a guardian and savior to secure access to vulnerable populations. They weaponize the very trust invested in the UN.
This is what makes the situation intolerable: the UN is not a bystander to these violations but the mechanism through which access to victims is enabled. When trust itself becomes the instrument of abuse, the UN mission has already failed at its fundamental duty: protection
This week, the United Nations Dispute Tribunal issued a baffling judgment to say the very least, Novo v. Secretary-General, UNDT/2025/098 (26 November 2025), in which it rescinded the decision of termination for a former UNICEF staff member who was charged with serious misconduct for sexual harassment (and unauthorized activities).
This judgment raises serious concerns about the UNDT’s understanding of power dynamics in the workplace and about the extent to which such rulings will discourage future reporting of sexual harassment in the UN.
The judgment itself is 71 pages long and refers to detailed witness examination, cross-examination, and OIOS interview transcripts. Despite sexually harassing three female staff/consultants (all of whom filed complaints) and despite corroborating witnesses, the judge chose to believe the supervisor’s version, using a copy-paste approach to dismiss all allegations of sexual harassment, save for the unauthorized outside activities.
The Tribunal established that in one incident the staff member approached the female supervisee at a gym while she was engaged in routine physical exercise and made remarks in Bosnian implying that she was instructed by her husband to work on her “booty” using colloquial language. The perpetrator explained that he was observing her form because he noticed some technical issues during her deadlift, and he mentioned that her husband might have advised her on her technique to make her booty bigger.
In weighing whether this constituted sexual harassment by a supervisor, the judgment unbelievably reads:
“The question before this Tribunal is whether the Applicant’s behavior, unprofessional staring at V03’s posterior and the statement about her husband’s instructions, constitutes harassment or sexual harassment. In the Tribunal’s view, the Applicant’s conduct must be evaluated in context. The act of staring appears to be a pattern of habitual, subconscious observation rather than any sexual gesture or act.”
The judge went on to justify the comments by stating that the act of staring at her booty might have been:
“reflecting an awkward attempt at social interaction rather than misconduct”
And:
“the Tribunal acknowledges V03’s feelings of discomfort but considers that the subjective offence alone does not establish harassment or sexual harassment; particularly when there is no objective evidence that the behavior was sexual or intimidating. Indeed, the Tribunal considers that, once more, the Applicant displayed unprofessional and intrusive behavior, but not one of a sexual nature.”
So for all UN staff exercising at the gym, the next time your supervisor stares directly at your backside while deadlifting and comments on your “booty” don’t get uncomfortable, because according to the UNDT, it’s just social interaction… with your backside..
In another disturbing episode, the supervisor gave a different staff member (a superviosee also) a copy of the book: “Sex and Lies: True stories of women’s intimate lives in the Arab world” by Leila Slimani claiming it was “relevant to her work.”
The book is about the sexual experiences of women in Morocco and the Arab world. And as The Guardian described it, Slimani “returns to north Africa to explore sex, pornography and hypocrisy.”
The supervisee testified that her work had nothing whatsoever to do with sexual narratives, Arab women’s intimate experiences, or Morocco. She explained that she did not challenge her supervisor at the time due to power dynamics being at the lowest rank, dependent on him for contract renewal and fearing that complaints would go unaddressed in the isolated Bihać duty station.
The judge correctly established the facts but once again dismissed the allegation, filtering it through his own selective perception of harassment. According to the judge, even though the supervisee found the gift deeply inappropriate, he adopted the supervisor’s absurd justification that the gift was an act of “educational sharing,” potentially useful to humanitarian work:
“whether the book is professionally relevant can be subjective, and in some humanitarian contexts materials concerning women’s intimate experiences or trafficking may bear on protection, gender-based violence, or cultural understanding relevant to child protection work.”
The judge then criticized the supervisee’s internal reaction by stating:
“V02’s assessment of the book’s inappropriateness was based on her perception of the contents of the book, which, in turn, was based on her interpretation of the title, back cover, and online summaries.”
And dismissed the claim by concluding:
“gifting of the book does not meet the objective threshold for harassment or sexual harassment. There is no evidence of sexual intent, no pattern of sexualized conduct tied to the gifting, and no demonstration that the act interfered with VO2’s work or created a hostile work environment.”
So, if your supervisor hands you a book titled “Sex and Lies” you are apparently expected to ignore the “Sex” part, trust his enlightened intellectual intentions, and focus on theoretical cultural anthropology. After all, if the UNDT judge can turn a blind eye, so can you.
Then, in three separate incidents involving two supervisees, the staff member commented to one woman that she preferred “strong muscular men” asked another, while walking behind her:
“How tall are you? You have a very nice height for a woman”,
and later at a bar in Bihać, leaned too close to her, invading her personal space, asking if she would like to “ride in an expensive car if driven by a handsome man, and telling her she was the type of woman used to men doing favors for her”.
And in all three incidents, the judge dismissed the allegations.
On the comment about interest in muscular men, the judge reasoned:
“the remark was a casual, somewhat awkward comment about V03’s personal preferences. The fact that V03 felt uncomfortable is acknowledged and is relevant. However, subjective discomfort alone does not establish harassment or sexual harassment.”
So next time your supervisor randomly offers his unsolicited psychoanalysis of your taste in male body types, maybe you should reply, “Thank you for your professional assessment.” Because apparently, commentary on your intimate personal preferences is part of your job.
And when your supervisor asks about your height and compliments you on it, while following behind you, do not mistake it for predatory interest. The UNDT judge insists:
“comment is addressed to physical stature only, and occurred in a social, informal context involving several colleagues”…
“unwelcome and unwise conduct … falls short of proving the requisite objective severity or sexual character.”
The extent to which this judge fails to grasp the nuances of sexual harassment as experienced by women is staggering. For the vast majority of women, sexual harassment is not confined to physical contact. It is anything that intrudes upon their bodily autonomy and personal dignity: the invasive stare, the unsolicited comment about one’s curves or “booty,” the remark about one’s taste in men, the book handed with a knowing smirk that centers sexuality as its theme. This is precisely how predators operate, not with overt groping, but through a steady drip of boundary violations and insinuations.
Why should my supervisor be commenting on my physical appearance? Why should he be giving me a book titled “Sex and Lies”, a book which TheGuardian characterized as “exploring sex, pornography and hypocrisy”? Why should he be asking me if I prefer “strong muscular men”? Why is he leaning in, crowding my space, speaking low and close, as if intimacy is assumed?
And the fundamental question:
Why is any of this taking place inside a UN workplace that claims to champion dignity, equality, and respect?
Many men in the UN derive perverse satisfaction from making women uncomfortable. They thrive on the microaggressions, the innuendos, the baiting comments that hover just below the disciplinary threshold. They get away with it precisely because of the ambiguity, the plausible deniability. And now, emboldened by judgments like this, they will feel even safer doing so.
These men indulge in a quiet vocation: testing how far they can intrude into the bodies, space, and psyche of the women they supervise knowing full well the power imbalance protects them. And instead of confronting this pattern, too many judges prefer to dissect each incident into sterile fragments, stripping away the lived experience of women and repackaging predatory behavior as “awkward social interaction” or “habitual staring.”
Well, here is the reality:
We are not concerned with whether he meant it sexually, poetically, or subconsciously.
We are concerned with whether a professional environment exists where women can work without being sexualized, analyzed, or targeted.
Women do not join the UN hoping their supervisor will inquire about their body shape or sexual preferences. They join believing that equality and respect are more than decorative slogans painted onto banners and mission statements.
But clearly, in the eyes of this UNDT judgment, it is all just “much ado about nothing.”
This reasoning also stands in direct contradiction with binding jurisprudence of the UN internal justice system itself. In Hallal UNDT/2011/046, para. 55, later affirmed by UNAT 2012-UNAT-207, the Tribunal held:
“in sexual harassment cases, credible oral victim testimony alone may be fully sufficient to support a finding of serious misconduct, without further corroboration being required”
And UNAT confirmed:
“The Dispute Tribunal did not err in law in giving full evidentiary weight to the complainant’s oral testimony absent documentary corroboration.”
The jurisprudence affirms that victim testimony is legally probative and sufficient to ground a finding of misconduct. By dismissing these women’s testimony because it did not include “objective evidence,” the judge was defying settled jurisprudence. A legal standard already affirmed at the appellate level.
This inconsistency between jurisprudential requirement and judicial practice demands scrutiny. For while the Tribunal applies an intent-based threshold in this case, the Organization simultaneously asserts a trauma-aware, victim-centred approach in its reporting to the GA. The UN itself reports to the General Assembly the following passage in the Secretary-General’s report (Report of the Secretary-General, “Special measures for protection from sexual exploitation and abuse,” A/79/789, 17 February 2025, para. 5).:
“For example, when the nine judges of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal visited the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in June 2024 as part of their induction into the United Nations administration of justice system, they were informed about measures in place to prevent and respond to sexual exploitation and abuse and had the opportunity to hear from the Special Coordinator and the Victims’ Rights Advocate. The aim was to provide the judges with first-hand insights into the complexities and challenges associated with delivering protection from sexual exploitation and abuse on the ground, including the commitment to a victim-centred approach. The Special Coordinator and the Victims’ Rights Advocate also raised concerns about the impact, especially on victims, of the protracted administrative and judicial decision-making.
Following the mission, the judges’reflections informed discussions and recommendations at the Third Meeting of Investigatory Bodies on Protection from Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Harassment convened jointly by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee and the United Nations Evaluation Group in June 2024. The Special Coordinator and the Victims’ Rights Advocate are planning to conduct similar information sessions with the judges of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal during a mission to the Central African Republic scheduled to take place in early 2025.”
This is a formal declaration to Member States that the UNDT judges have been exposed to and educated on the lived realities of sexual exploitation and abuse, particularly the effects on victims. The UN uses this text to demonstrate compliance with a “victim-centred approach” implying that judicial interpretation would be informed by awareness of trauma, power asymmetry, and vulnerability.
Yet in this UNICEF judgment, the judicial reasoning shows no application of that mandate. The judge did not adopt a victim-centered evidentiary lens. Instead, he treated the testimony of three women as insufficient because it lacked “objective” proof directly contradicting the Hallal standard, which recognizes that in sexual harassment cases, victim testimony can stand alone as probative evidence.
This illustrates a striking contradiction: before the GA, the UN asserts that judges have undergone sensitization on victim impact and reporting challenges. But in practice, the judge reverted to assessing the accused’s conduct through the lens of innocuous intent rather than evaluating its effect on the women. The “victim-centred approach” praised in GA reporting collapses under judicial reasoning that effectively places the burden of proof on victims to demonstrate not only harassment, but the perpetrator’s internal sexual intent.
What the UN presents to Member States as advancement in judicial awareness and responsiveness does not translate into adjudication. The legal framework that the UN claims to be strengthening remains selectively applied and when tested in real cases, defaults back to minimizing, reframing, and dismissing victim testimony.
A justice system that demands victims prove the psychology of their harasser is not victim-centred it is perpetrator-shielding.
And to all the women out there, I say: keep deadlifting.
A long-serving international female staff member at UNICEF Lana* (name changed to protect her identity) found herself trapped in an ethical and institutional nightmare after reporting sexual harassment and abuse of authority by a senior official in UNICEF’s Executive Office.
The staff member had spent 15 years in the UN system. When the sexual harassment and abuse began, she did what few dare: she filed a formal complaint with UNICEF’s internal investigative body, the Office of Internal Audit and Investigations (OIAI). A bold and principled move. Except the OIAI reports directly to the Executive Director (ED) of UNICEF. And the perpetrator? He works in the Executive Office.
So, unsurprisingly, almost predictably, the OIAI quietly closed the case and dismissed all of Lana’s allegations without proper examination. When the staff member requested a copy of the investigation closure report?
Denied.
No explanation. No legitimate reason. Just a wall of silence and impunity.
Or maybe the reason is obvious: the investigation is just flawed and in essence a lame cover-up. And they had no legal or moral grounds to dismiss the allegations. But when you are the system, you answer to no one. Technically, the staff member could challenge the decision before the UN Dispute Tribunal (UNDT). But that process takes years. And in the meantime, most staff who dare to challenge power are either sidelined, gagged or conveniently as we all know, terminated.
Which is exactly what happened to Lana.
She appealed to the UNDT, asking the Tribunal to order UNICEF to produce the investigation report. The Tribunal complied. What Lana discovered in that report was staggering: not only had the OIAI neglected to verify or properly assess her evidence, they had turned the report against her. New, completely unfounded allegations had been added: against the victim. The person who had dared to speak up was now being framed as the problem.
Then came the part that strips the UN’s “zero tolerance” policy bare: just words, no backbone.
Lana submitted new evidence. Substantial. Verifiable. She pleaded for the OIAI to reopen the case.
Lana wasn’t met with silence. Far from it.
UNICEF responded, but not with accountability, not with a re-investigation, or even a hint of integrity. What she got instead was an offer: A payout.
A price tag slapped on her silence.
In plain terms: hush money.
It was UNICEF’s Legal and HR teams who came knocking offering her a “hush money settlement”. The message was clear: erase the evidence, walk away from the Tribunal, take the money, and vanish. And let’s be honest, offers like this don’t land without quiet approval from the very top. The management didn’t want resolution. They just wanted Lana to disappear. Silence was the entire point.
To understand how deep this rot goes, one only needs to look at the internal power structure.
The perpetrator works in the Executive Office, reporting directly to the Deputy Executive Director.
The Deputy Executive Director oversees the Legal and HR Departments who offered “hush money”.
OIAI, the body supposedly tasked with impartial investigation, reports to the Executive Director.
So when Legal and HR offered hush money to Lana, it was, circumstantially, linked to the Deputy Executive Director, who also happens to be the direct supervisor of the perpetrator. Draw your own conclusions.
These reporting structures are what I’d call carefully placed buffer positions. They allow the Executive Director to claim independence in decision-making, to pretend there’s a wall between them and these departments. But let’s not kid ourselves. These walls are paper-thin. And more often than not, bad decisions especially the ones that bury accountability, are either taken or, at the very least, quietly cleared at the top.
Lana also turned to the Ombudsman’s Office, yet another internal mechanism that, in theory, is there to help staff navigate conflict and find resolution. But just like the Ethics Office, it turned out to be a symbolic structure with no power and no spine. She was met with the same institutional indifference, the same empty reassurances. Another dead end dressed up as support.
Every single department that is meant to protect staff, uphold ethics, and ensure accountability (Investigations, Legal, HR, Ethics, Ombudsman) is structurally subordinate to the very people they might need to investigate. In other words, they don’t just fail to protect staff: they arestructurally incapable of doing so.
In Lana’s case, it wasn’t just the Investigations Office that shut the door. It was the same office that refused to revise the new evidence she submitted, evidence they never properly reviewed in the first place and worse, they closed the case while quietly inserting new allegations against her. The victim.
And it didn’t stop there.
It was both the Legal Department and the HR Department that offered Lana a significant sum of hush money, on the condition that she withdraw the new evidence and drop her case from the UN Tribunal.
Now I’ve seen cases where a staff member is offered some kind of package: when there’s a performance issue, personality clashes, restructuring, or simply a dead end at work. These things happen. But hush money in a sexual harassment case? In the UN?
That’s a whole different story. And if this is now an accepted or even defendable practice by the UN’s legal departments, then the Secretary-General has a serious problem on his hands. Because the next time he repeats that tired line about “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment, Member States should ask him one thing:
Since when does zero tolerance come with a price tag?
It’s not just the departments supposedly tasked with upholding the UN’s zero tolerance policy that are busy handing out hush money, now it seems the practice has spread. Contagious, even. Because the latest to follow suit? None other than the UN Tribunal itself.
In an outrageous and telling move, the UN Dispute Tribunal itself: yes, the body created to be independent issued an order that referenced the General Assembly’s encouragement of alternative dispute resolution. The judge then invited the parties to “explore the possibility” of resolving the dispute amicably, without further litigation and reaching an “amicable settlement”.
Excuse me?
What kind of justice is that? Since when is hush money an “amicable resolution” to sexual harassment? What happened to accountability? To dignity? What message does this send to every other woman in the UN system who is being harassed right now?
What about Lana’s mental health?
Her safety?
Her career?
And what about the women who remain behind in that office? Do they not deserve protection from a known perpetrator? What duty of care is being exercised here by UNICEF leadership, Legal, HR or the Tribunal, for that matter?
So what does this say about the UN’s broader approach to sexual exploitation and abuse of beneficiaries? If an international staff member with 15 years of service can be bought off, silenced, and pushed out for reporting abuse, then what chance does a refugee woman or a malnourished girl in a conflict zone have?
What does it take to silence them?
A plastic toy?
A bag of rice?
Lana’s case is emblematic of a much darker truth: the UN has mastered the art of making victims disappear, while keeping perpetrators comfortably in place.
The truth is, when you’re not in power in this system; especially when you’re a woman, you are invisible. You are disposable. And if you remind them that your dignity is not for sale, they will make sure you no longer exist in the organization.
They do not see you. They do not hear you. And they certainly do not protect you.
What they do protect, at all costs, is each other.
Because let’s face it: no one is really interested in hearing your story, especially if it’s a story about sexual harassment or abuse. What they want is simple. Make it go away. Bury it. Discredit it. Pay it off. Anything but face it.
Trigger Warning: This content discusses sensitive topics, including sexual harassment, grooming, pedophilia, and abuse of authority. Reader discretion is advised
A Judgment Detached from Reality
On 11 November 2024, the United Nations Appeals Tribunal (UNAT) issued a final judgment in the case of Sandi Arnold vs. the Secretary-General of the United Nations Judgment No. 2024-UNAT-1477. That judgment is itself the final blow in the face of justice within the UN and highlights the systemic corruption of senior officials at UNHQ. The judgment, astonishingly, has little connection to the reality it purportedly addresses because by the time it was issued, Sandi Arnold had already been dismissed by the UN the previous year. How can this be?
Arnold, a long-term UN staff member, was implicated in a series of deeply troubling incidents during her tenure, yet senior officials, including an Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) at UNHQ, actively shielded her from accountability. The allegations against her ranged from sexual harassment to abuse of authority, and even extended to grooming and pedophilia. Yes, you read that correctly.
A Series of Troubling Allegations
Prior to joining UNMIK, Arnold served as UNRWA Deputy Director of Operations in Syria, where the first allegations of sexual harassment against her emerged. According to former UNRWA sources, Arnold organized informal outings, including taking local female staff members to a hairdresser on Saturdays for what appeared to be casual social gatherings. However, these events reportedly escalated into instances where Arnold made sexually suggestive remarks and allusions. Distressed by her behavior, the female staff lodged internal complaints. Arnold was quietly asked to leave Syria immediately.
She was subsequently reassigned to UNHQ in New York, and by February 2017, she had secured the role of Chief of Mission Support (CMS) at the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) at the D-1 level position.
The allegations against Arnold began surfacing in 2019 when the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) received multiple reports of her misconduct. Among the most disturbing incidents was the gifting of sex toys to female colleagues. According to the judgment, Arnold purchased a sex toy during a trip to New York and later gifted it to a subordinate. The judgment noted that this act “transgressed the boundary between the professional and personal life of her subordinate” and carried the potential to “negatively impact the image and interests of the Organization”.
Over the following year, 15 additional complaints were filed, painting a deeply troubling picture of her behavior. Arnold frequently referred to colleagues using offensive nicknames based on physical characteristics or national origins, such as “Choo Choo”and “Ju Ju Eyes.”The judgment highlighted that this practice “created a significant risk of dividing staff on national origin” and was deemed patently inappropriate in a multicultural workplace.
Her bullying tactics further compounded the harm. In one incident detailed in the judgment, Arnold shouted at a subordinate during a printing task, hurling expletives and saying,
“Will you f…ing print the policy itself?” When dissatisfied with the result, she escalated to throwing the document at the staff member and shouting repeatedly: “F….you, f*** off, go f*** yourself.”
This incident, corroborated by multiple witnesses, left the subordinate deeply humiliated and caused significant emotional distress.
One particularly distressing account revealed that Arnold’s repeated bullying led a staff member to contemplate suicide. The judgment noted that her behavior “violated the minimum level of civility expected in the workplace” and had a devastating emotional toll on her victims . The CMS was undeniably an abusive leader whose actions caused significant harm to her colleagues, leaving many emotionally devastated and others nearly broken beyond repair.
A System That Shields the Powerful
Arnold was placed on administrative leave with full pay in January 2022 while OIOS finalized its investigation. When OIOS finalized their investigation which took almost two years *while the CMs was on full pay- great use of member states funds again btw- they sent the report to OHR for action. Incredibly, rather than addressing the gravity of these allegations with decisive action, the UN’s disciplinary response was appallingly lenient.
The United Nations Dispute Tribunal (UNDT) and United Nations Appeals Tribunal (UNAT) both reviewed the case. The UNDT confirmed that the CMS’s actions constituted misconduct. The judgments emphasized the failure to maintain the dignity of staff and the damage inflicted on the UN’s image. As the UNDT noted: “The CMS’s actions violated the standards expected of a senior leader, crossing professional and personal boundaries, and creating a hostile work environment.”
The UNAT upheld these findings, dismissing the CMS’s appeal and affirming the proportionality of the disciplinary measures. Yet, rather than terminating her employment, the disciplinary measures imposed consisted of a written censure (the lowest disciplinary measure under Chapter |X of the rules) and an administrative measure of a mandatory managerial coaching for one year.
The Role of Senior Officials: Protecting the Perpetrator
This leniency was not accidental.
According to multiple sources, a high-ranking ASG at UNHQ intervened on Arnold’s behalf, ensuring the disciplinary measures were minimal and shielding her from the full consequences of her actions.
Emboldened by this interference, Arnold not only avoided severe repercussions but also appealed the disciplinary measure to the UNDT, launching a determined fight to clear her name.
Meanwhile, her victims were left terrorized and paralyzed, fearing further retaliation at every turn. Rather than seeking to restore integrity and foster a safe, supportive environment in UNMIK, the ASG’s actions prioritized protecting the interests of one individual: Sandi Arnold.
This interference not only undermined the credibility of the UN’s disciplinary and accountability system but also sent a chilling message to victims of abuse within the organization: their suffering is secondary to the careers of those in power.
Can anyone truly imagine what it feels like to be in the shoes of these victims? What values would they believe in after enduring this nightmare?
And so, with this deal sealed, Arnold’s suspension was lifted, and she was incredibly allowed to return to work on 3 October 2022.
The emotional toll on her victims was nothing short of catastrophic. Three staff members reportedly considered suicide, while several others required ongoing treatment to cope with the trauma inflicted under her leadership. Feeling abandoned and unprotected, and fearing further retaliation, many of her victims made the decision to leave the mission altogether. The repercussions extended far beyond the workplace, impacting their families as well. The toxic environment fostered by Arnold’s actions, combined with the UN’s failure to respond effectively, compounded the distress and left a lasting scar on the personal lives of those affected.
Unspoken Crimes? Allegations of Grooming and Pedophilia?
What happened next is shockingly absent from both the UNDT/UNAT judgments and any subsequent public decisions.
Allegations of grooming and pedophilia surfaced. Reports emerged that Arnold had allegedly groomed the children of staff members and taken them on private trips under highly suspicious circumstances, raising serious concerns about her conduct. Despite these numerous allegations and staff members fleeing the mission, Arnold was allowed to return to work.
She continued in her role for almost a year and a half, wreaking havoc and causing a severe emotional toll on her victims. Then, in November 2023, she was suddenly dismissed.
The Office of Human Resources (OHR) did not provide any explanation, and there is no official document detailing the reasons for her termination.
Those chilling allegations beg the question: how could the UN’s senior management at UNHQ allow such behavior to continue unchecked? How could they permit such a CMS to return to work, further exacerbating the harm to staff and their families?
By reinstating Arnold despite these unresolved allegations, the UN effectively prioritized the interests of an ASG—who was reportedly a friend of Arnold—and their own bureaucratic agendas over the safety and well-being of its staff. This decision, made under the guise of procedural fairness, trampled on the basic principles of accountability and justice. The silence and inaction of senior officials at UNHQ is as damning as the misconduct itself.
The Scars of Injustice on Victims
Arnold’s final dismissal in October 2023, after years of reports and investigations, underscores the UN’s systemic failure to act decisively against misconduct. This failure is starkly contrasted by the profound emotional toll and the devastating impact on the mental health of staff members, many of whom required ongoing treatment or chose to leave UNMIK entirely.
Such outcomes stand in sharp contradiction to the Secretary-General’s much-publicized system-wide strategy on mental health, which claims to prioritize the well-being of UN personnel. How can this strategy hold any credibility when the actions—and inactions—of senior management so blatantly undermine its very purpose?
A Corrupt and Broken Disciplinary Process
This case is emblematic of a critical, yet deliberately obscured, problem within the UN’s investigative and disciplinary processes.
Senior officials’ interference in disciplinary matters undermines the organization’s credibility, leaving victims without justice while emboldening perpetrators.
The OIOS investigation, which dragged on for over two years, highlights the inefficiencies of a system that prioritizes procedural delays over meaningful and substantive outcomes. The UN must confront the systemic failures exposed by this case and hold accountable the senior officials who failed all these victims.
Unfortunately, a culture that tolerates such egregious misconduct and allows it to persist unchallenged will only serve to embolden further perpetrators, perpetuating harm and eroding trust in the organization.
This week, I continue my mission to expose the endemic issue of sexual harassment within the United Nations system. Once again, UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, finds itself under the spotlight.
The sexual predator, a senior staff member holding the position of Deputy Representative of UNHCR Operations in Niger at the P5 level, was the second-highest-ranking official in the country office. This article is based on the recent judgment, Kourouma v. Secretary-General of the United Nations (UNDT/2024/107), issued on December 6, 2024. The original version of the judgment is in French, but I am writing this article in English to reach a wider audience.
Let’s hear it directly from the testimonies of the three survivors.
“Just Let’s Wiggle a Little Bit”: A Traumatic Experience
MW – Senior Programme Monitoring Officer at UNHCR Libya, based in Tunis, Tunisia.
MW, a senior staff member based in Tunisia, recounted an incident during her mission to Niger in 2018. Her testimony revealed how, on the last day of her mission, the perpetrator invited her to his office under professional pretenses. As they bid farewell, he forcibly hugged her, attempted to kiss her on the mouth, and when she turned her head away, kissed her cheek instead. MW recounted how he said in French,
“Ah, tu ne veux pas être embrassée ?” or “Tu aimes pas ça ?” (“Oh, you don’t want to be kissed?” or “You don’t like that?”),
and then added in English,
“Just let’s wiggle a little bit”
as he pressed his body against hers and rubbed his genitals against her lower abdomen. She left the office immediately, deeply shocked and horrified by the experience.
JL, an associate staff member who joined UNHCR Niger in September 2019, described an unsettling incident on December 2, 2021. At the time, JL and the perpetrator had minimal contact due to their lack of professional overlap. On that day, as JL was sitting with a colleague after lunch, the perpetrator entered the room unexpectedly and placed his hand on JL’s shoulder, ostensibly to massage her.
When JL stood to fetch water, she felt the perpetrator’s gaze fixed inappropriately on her chest. Upon returning, he caressed her hand and ring, inquiring whether it was an engagement ring or a wedding band. Feeling uncomfortable and caught off guard, JL answered ambiguously. He then shifted the conversation to his own ring before JL left the room, deeply uneasy.
“I felt trapped and deeply uncomfortable, yet I didn’t know how to react given his seniority. Why was he doing this? We didn’t have any kind of relationship, and it was during the pandemic when personal contact was discouraged. I couldn’t understand his fixation with my ring; it felt invasive and deeply inappropriate.”
“La Petite”: Harassment Escalates Into Retaliation
GR1, an Associate External Relations Officer in Niger, endured persistent and invasive harassment from the perpetrator throughout her tenure. His behavior escalated over time, crossing professional boundaries and becoming increasingly inappropriate.
The perpetrator frequently hugged GR1, with these embraces lasting too long and bringing her chest close to his. He would touch her back, hair, or even her buttocks, behaviors she described as inappropriate and “beyond simple greetings.”
Each time he saw her—whether in the hallway or her office—he would touch her or caress her in ways that were uncomfortable and unwelcome. She attempted to ask him to stop but was ignored.
The perpetrator made phone calls to GR1 outside of work hours, which were often unrelated to professional matters. He attempted to invite her out, but she declined, explaining that she was not interested and had a young baby she was nursing.
When GR1 resisted his advances, the perpetrator retaliated by criticizing her job performance and casting doubts on her career prospects. His abuse of authority created an environment where GR1 felt compelled to avoid him, sometimes even hesitating to come to work.
GR1 recounted how the perpetrator avoided using her name and instead referred to her dismissively as “la petite” (the little one), a term she found inappropriate in a professional setting.
“Every time he hugged me, it felt like more than a greeting—it was intimate, sexual, and deeply unsettling. He touched me as one might touch a lover, sometimes even in the presence of others. It made me feel powerless and degraded. I began to avoid him at all costs, sometimes even dreading going to work. He abused his authority, and I couldn’t bring myself to report him. When I resisted his advances, he turned on me, questioning my competence and sabotaging my career prospects.”
Systemic Failures in Institutional Accountability
The testimonies of these three survivors underscore the systemic failure within the United Nations to address sexual harassment effectively. Their accounts are not isolated incidents but part of a broader pattern of unchecked abuse, enabled by institutional inertia and a lack of accountability.
The tribunal’s findings are a critical indictment of both the perpetrator and the institution’s response mechanisms. The judgment noted the organization’s failure to address systemic issues. Despite UNHCR’s Code of Conduct sessions and policies on harassment, the supervisor’s behavior persisted unchecked for years. Indeed, one must ask, why did this senior staff member continue to sexually harass women without any action taken against him?
Gaslighting as a New Weapon: “Sexism Against Men”
During the tribunal hearing, the perpetrator attempted to deflect blame by claiming “sexism against men,” suggesting that male managers were the real victims. He argued,
“It’s unfair that female employees behave in certain ways towards men and then complain of harassment and discrimination.”
This statement highlights a troubling and insidious new tactic employed by some senior male staff: weaponizing claims of reverse sexism to undermine genuine complaints. Such gaslighting adds another layer to the persistent problem of sexual harassment and serves to silence victims further while deflecting accountability from perpetrators.
The survivors’ reluctance to report their experiences speaks volumes about the culture of retaliation within the UN. Their silence is not an isolated phenomenon but rather indicative of a pervasive fear that reporting misconduct will result in swift and career-ending retribution. Take a loot at the the case of Martina Brostrom, who dared to denounce Luis Loures. Brostrom faced severe professional and personal consequences after coming forward with allegations. For readers interested in learning more about her ordeal, resources detailing her case can be accessed here. Her experience demonstrates the dire need for robust protections for whistleblowers within the UN system.
Inefficiency of the Ethics Office and Reporting Mechanisms
The Ethics Office, tasked with safeguarding staff from retaliation, is emblematic of the systemic rot within the UN. Staff in the Ethics Office have no real or genuine interest in understanding the complexity of such cases, and I don’t blame them. They are severely understaffed and receive hundreds of complaints every day. Moreover, there is no segregation between reporting lines, meaning the office often ends up reporting to the Executive Office, creating yet another conflict of interest. This deeply flawed system fails to inspire confidence and leaves victims vulnerable to further abuse. And so, the saga continues.
Credibility of Victim Testimony: The Power of Voice Without Witnesses
Another important reminder from this judgment is the emphasis made again by the UNDT on the credibility of the victims’ testimonies. The tribunal emphasized that credible oral testimonies are sufficient to establish allegations of sexual harassment, even in the absence of corroborating evidence. It highlighted the consistency and detail in the victims’ accounts as key factors in reaching its decision.
“due consideration must be given to the victim’s account, as these situations are not taken lightly by those affected. In fact, due to the sensitive nature of the matter, it is often extremely difficult for victims to file formal complaints and go through official procedures.”
It is well-established that
“in cases of sexual harassment, credible oral testimony alone can be fully sufficient to substantiate a conclusion of serious misconduct, even without additional corroboration” (Hallal; Haidar 2021-UNAT-1076, para. 43).
Further, the tribunal dismissed arguments that cultural misunderstandings could explain the perpetrator’s behavior. It reaffirmed that the perception of the victim is central to determining harassment.
Unmasking Predators: Survivors Take a Stand
Both UNHCR, the agency tasked with protecting refugees, and OHCHR, entrusted with upholding human rights, appear to be grappling with an alarming increase in sexual predators within their ranks. Many of these perpetrators remain employed and unpunished, while their victims continue to suffer in silence. Victims and survivors speak to me daily, sharing stories of fear, retaliation, and prolonged sick leave as their only escape from the hostile work environment. How can these organizations continue to turn a blind eye to such pervasive misconduct?
What we are witnessing now is a form of reverse accountability. Victims and survivors no longer trust in the system designed to protect them.
Neither the Secretary-General, the OIOS, the IGO, the Ethics Office, nor the Ombudsman have taken meaningful action to provide genuine safeguards or justice. Instead, survivors are left to fend for themselves, their trust in the system completely eroded. Many have shifted their focus from seeking protection to demanding exposure of their abusers.
They want these sexual predators held accountable and their contracts terminated, and I agree with them.
⚠️ Trigger Warning: This article contains detailed descriptions of workplace sexual harassment, which may be distressing to some readers, especially survivors of similar experiences. Please proceed with caution and prioritize your well-being.
“I’m a serial kisser.”
These were the chilling words of AAY, a P-5 level United Nations staff member, at UNHQ in New Yorkwhen describing his behavior during a farewell party at the United Nations headquarters in 2017. AAY’s actions that evening went far beyond social decorum, as he admitted to forcibly kissing, attempting to kiss, and physically restraining several female colleagues, leaving them shaken and traumatized.
In a UNAT judgment issued last week, AAY v. Secretary-General of the United Nations, Judgment No. 2024-UNAT-1493, the Appeals Tribunal reversed a previous UNDT judgment (Applicant v. Secretary-General of the United Nations, UNDT/2023/111) that astonishingly justified the actions of the “serial kisser” because they occurred in a festive context. The UNDT, presided over by Judge Margaret Tibulya, ruled that AAY’s actions could not “reasonably be perceived to cause offence or humiliation, let alone to give any sexual connotation to the conduct,” given the festive nature of the event.
This rationale, implying that workplace harassment is excusable at a party, is as baffling as it is dangerous.
Bias in Judgment: How Cultural Disparities and Selection Failures Undermine the UNDT
What does this mean for female staff members of the United Nations?
According to this logic, if you attend an end-of-year party or a Christmas gathering, and your boss or colleague forces himself on you, attempts to kiss you, or chases you down a hallway, you should simply brush it off.
Maybe so says the UN tribunal, as the “festive context” seems to render such behavior acceptable. One might sarcastically conclude that this is the justice system’s way of reminding women to avoid social gatherings entirely—lest they accidentally wander into a no-rules zone where basic human dignity no longer applies.
Are we moving forward or backward with this system of justice? A tribunal tasked with protecting the rights and dignity of United Nations staff instead normalized behavior that undermines safety and equality in the workplace. If workplace sexual harassment can be brushed aside as “festive,” one must question the integrity of the system itself.
What could have caused Judge Tibulya to be blinded in her judgment? While UNDT judges are selected based on recommendations from the Internal Justice Council, emphasizing high moral character, impartiality, and geographical representation, this process does not eliminate the potential for judges to bring their own cultural biases and preconceptions into their decisions.
Judges, like all individuals, carry their own perspectives and values, which may not always align with the principles of justice and equality upheld by the United Nations. Perhaps it is time to include specific training for UNDT judges not only on the organization’s zero-tolerance policies but also on recognizing and mitigating their own biases to ensure their decisions reflect UN values and uphold fairness.
How else can they understand that the setting of the misconduct does not absolve the perpetrator of responsibility? It’s alarming that in 2024, we are forced to reexamine the very basics of workplace ethics and accountability.
AAY’s admissions to investigators were nothing short of appalling. He admitted, “I was trying to kiss her, and that’s why she was retracting,” and “I kissed her or I managed to kiss her on the forehead…she retracted, you know just leaning on the back.” When questioned about holding AA’s face and forcing a kiss on her, he casually replied, “Yeah, that’s how it went actually,” and added, “it’s like what you do when you kiss someone, you take the face and then you kiss him.” Shockingly, he downplayed the incident further, remarking, “It was not like this was the most romantic moment in my life let’s say.”
Despite these confessions, corroborated by testimony from the victims, the United Nations Dispute Tribunal (UNDT) found that the evidence did not meet the threshold for establishing misconduct. Astonishingly, the tribunal rationalized its decision by stating that the incidents occurred in a “festive context,” as though the celebratory atmosphere excused AAY’s actions.
Serial Kisser’s Defense: It Was All Just Festive Fun
AAY’s behavior, by his own account, included intrusive and unwelcome physical advances toward three female staff members. Excerpts from the testimonies of these three women are chilling:
AA: “I kept on resisting then he … sort of forced my head down and kissed me on the forehead.”
BB: “He grabbed my face in front of everyone … my instinct at that moment was to freeze … it could have been a bit of an out-of-body experience.”
CC: “He kept asking, ‘Did I kiss you tonight? Let me kiss you.’ I said, ‘I’m not interested.’ I started shouting, ‘I’m not interested.’ He pulled my hands apart forcefully. I felt it was impossible for me to get out of that grip.”
CC (continued): “He fell on me, and I used all my strength to push him away. I almost bent completely back trying to avoid him. His whole body was on top of me, and I felt utterly trapped.”
These women’s testimonies highlight the physical and psychological trauma they endured. CC described the night as “traumatic,” adding that she “was utterly shocked… like this is my office space and colleagues who I saw every day.” The lingering impact of the event was severe, with victims reporting sleepless nights, anxiety attacks, and feelings of helplessness.
Excusing Harassment: A Dangerous Message from the UNDT
The UNDT’s handling of this case is nothing short of a dereliction of justice. By dismissing clear evidence of misconduct and prioritizing flimsy contextual justifications over the dignity, safety, and rights of the victims, the tribunal has sent an unacceptable and dangerous message. Allowing harassment to be excused under the guise of a “festive context” trivializes the severity of the misconduct and undermines the United Nations’ professed commitment to equality and accountability. Thankfully, the UNAT overturned this troubling judgment, restoring some semblance of justice. The victims’ courage in coming forward should serve as a reminder that workplace safety and dignity are non-negotiable.
However, the victims had to endure an agonizing seven-year wait for this final judgment, as the case was remanded multiple times, delaying closure and accountability. Adding to the indignity, in a stark departure from established jurisprudence, the name of the perpetrator was anonymized, shielding him from the full consequences of his actions and depriving the victims of the transparency they deserved.
Why can’t these senior leaders understand that sexual harassment is a real offense and that a woman has an unequivocal right to say no? The repeated recruitment of individuals who exploit their power and disregard the fundamental principles of dignity and respect raises urgent questions about the United Nations’ commitment to upholding its own values.
Why does it take the UN eight years to deliver justice? And why does it continue to allow predators to occupy positions of authority within its ranks, further tarnishing the trust of those they are meant to protect?
This case is a stark reminder of how far the system must go to achieve meaningful reform and ensure workplace safety, no matter the setting.
