Topic: Improving Accountability at the United Nations
Country: Austria
Delegate Name: Katrina Yeomans
School: Forest Hills Northern High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Austria position papers GLIMUN 2014 committees
Accountability is a major issue that must be addressed and a resolution must be drawn up as soon as possible in order to address it. If the United Nations advocates for others to follow the rule of law, then they as an international organization must do the same; peacekeepers and UN officials providing aid cannot be held above the law. The European Union as a whole has a “zero-tolerance” policy for crimes committed by UN officials and experts on missions. Currently, state members of the UN have their own criminal law and procedures to prosecute crimes and there are a number of bilateral or multilateral treaties along with UN rules which address crimes committed by UN personnel. However, these current measures are insufficient due to the fact that impunity for crimes committed by peacekeepers and UN officials is currently a serious issue.
Austria’s policy on dealing with crimes committed by UN personnel on their territory is to assist criminal investigations on the basis of applicable bilateral, multilateral, and mutual legal assistance treaties. In the absence of such treaties , Austria would offer assistance based on the Austrian Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Act.
In order to move towards a solution to the problem of UN accountability, jurisdictional gaps within individual Member States must be identified and addressed so the UN can provide a clear standard that crimes committed by UN officials and experts on missions will not be tolerated. For Member States without measures addressing crimes committed by UN personnel, they should be encouraged to establish jurisdiction over such crimes in existing domestic criminal law. Discussion on this topic accomplished by the Legal Committee has led to the proposal of combining both short- and long-term measures to deal with this issue effectively as well as strengthening existing training programs for peacekeepers and UN officials to improve adherence to the standards of conduct. This second proposition might include pre-deployment and in-mission training programs conducted by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of Field Support. This committee must find a way to hold UN personnel accountable for their crimes committed during missions while still following the rule of law, due process, human rights, and be in conformity with the UN Charter.
