Topic: 2025 – Criminal Accountability of UN Officials
Country: Ecuador
Delegate Name: Rafay Dar
Topic: Criminal accountability for UN officials-2025
Country: Ecuador
Delegate Name:Rafay Dar
School: Forest Hills Central High
For over seven decades, the United Nations has been conducting operations in many operations in other countries, and the limits and jurisdiction of the United Nations has often been unnoticed or overlooked as implemented limits would end up impeding their mission. However, with this great power and authority comes great responsibility to not abuse it. A vast majority of the cases in which the United Nations has to work in a specific country result in a swift and efficient job without struggle and impediments. Sometimes, this is not the case as UN officials sometimes end up overstepping their bounds resulting in misconduct, abuse, and sexual exploitation in several countries: most prevalent being the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.
Oftentimes, these individuals from the UN would end up never facing criminal accountability for the atrocious acts they commit, due to the “functional immunity” that these United Nations officials possess when on missions in foreign countries. This can only be waived by the UN secretary general, but this rarely happens. Often, many nations would be hesitant to prosecute for the crimes committed out of fear of the repercussions they may face, and this was a very widely recognized problem as reports of United Nations misconduct continued to rise. As a result, the 2007 resolution A/RES/62/63 was passed in order to address these issues and hold some accountability for the problems caused by these violations.While the system currently in place is a great step in the right direction to hold officials accountable for misconduct, the delegation of Ecuador believes that more preventative measures need to be implemented in order to prevent incidents like this from happening frequently in countries at risk.
While the country of Ecuador has not suffered many of these abuses, it is imperative that the cycle must not be perpetuated. The nation of Ecuador urges United Nations member states to implement some sort of system reliant on checks and balances of the power that these UN missionaries hold, as it is the UN’s responsibility to prevent crimes and abuses from happening. There still needs to be a way to prevent these instances from occurring in the first place. Systems such as background checks, extensive surveillance, and accountability incentives would lead to a safer and less abusive system for UN officials to do their work in other countries, which would restore the faith the UN has in their operatives as well as the trust that many exploited countries have in the United Nations.
Works Cited:
https://www.un.org/en/ga/sixth/71/criminal_accountability.shtml https://usun.usmission.gov/statement-at-the-80th-general-assembly-sixth-committee-agenda-item-77-criminal-accountability-of-united-nations-officials/
https://docs.un.org/en/A/78/129
https://docs.un.org/en/A/RES/62/63
