Update 2 13:10 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - A New York appeals court in the US has rejected an appeal by Cynthia Brzak and Nazr Ishak, who filed a sexual harassment suit against the former UN High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers and seven other high UN officials. Their lawyer in Geneva, Edward Flaherty, told Geneva Lunch they will appeal the decision, taking it to the US Supreme Court.
”My clients are disappointed with the Court’s judgment, but it was not unexpected,” Flaherty said in a written statement. “As the retaliation against both of them by officials within both UNHCR and the UN, which retaliation gave rise in part to the original suit, continues unabated through the present date, they have no choice but to seek vindication of their constitutional and other rights before the US Supreme Court. Their aim is to end the impunity exercised by UN officials everywhere who are placed beyond the reach of national laws by the UN’s outdated immunity, both in their own case, and on behalf of the many UN staff who have suffered and continue to suffer illegal and/or criminal acts in the workplace, as they have.”
Lubbers was named High Commissioner in 2001 but retired in 2005 under the shadow of the scandal. The appeals court ruled that Lubbers and the others, as United Nations diplomats, have immunity, in line with a US district court decision in 2007 that UN diplomats are immune under the 1946 Convention on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
The case was heard in the US because Brzak is a US citizen and the incident that provoked the case, accusations that Lubbers improperly touched her during a 2003 meeting, took place in New York. The UNHCR is based in Geneva, where both Brzak and Ishak still work.
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Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Set up to monitor states’ pledges to help Africa, the Africa Progress Panel’s future is “under review”, according to a spokesperson quoted in the UK’s Telegraph. The Panel was called into existence in 2007 by then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, “as a vehicle to maintain a focus on the commitments to Africa made by the international community in the wake of the Gleneagles G8 Summit and of the Commission for Africa Report in 2007.”
Despite very high-profile members including former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former IMF Director General Michel Camdessus, rocker Bob Geldoff and former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, critics claim that the panel has punched below its weight, and Blair has not even bothered to attend its last four meetings.
Members will hold a meeting 3 February to decide its future role. Its mandate expires in 2010.
Links to other sites: Africa Progress Panel, Daily Telegraph
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus and five in Southeast Asia are implementing early warning systems to protect against weather-related events, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Today 14 October is International Day for Disaster Reduction, and the agency is highlighting how early warning and disaster risk reduction can save many lives when extreme weather strikes. Similar projects were introduced in seven southeast European countries in 2007.
These national and regional cooperation projects are part of a concerted programme that relies on technical expertise and funding provided by the WMO, the World Bank, UNDP and the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR).
“Natural hazards are a part of life. But natural hazards only become disasters when people’s lives and livlihoods are swept away…” (Kofi Annan, World Disaster Reduction Day, 2003)
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who now heads the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum, has sent a sealed envelope with a list of names of people suspected of having fanned ethnic violence following the 2007 presidential election in Kenya, to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
Annan played a key role in mediating a settlement between opposing political forces.
Global Humanitarian Forum, Kofi Annan, 23 June 2009, Geneva
Update 2 13:01 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – “This conference must provide a powerful voice for the victims of climate change,” Kofi Annan said in opening remarks at the second annual Global Humanitarian Forum, Tuesday morning 23 June in Geneva. The forum is focusing on the impact on humans of climate change during the two day conference that brings together leaders from government, industry and academia.
”We have the knowledge, resources and the technology to reduce the pace of climate change,” said Annan. “What is needed is the vision, the courage” to act. He cited as an example of a good private and public partnership a weather information project recently launched in Africa by the Global Humanitarian Forum, Ericsson, World Meterological Organization and mobile phone operators. “Collecting accurate information about weather and climate across Africa will give farmers better guidance about when to plant and harvest crops as well as helping alert communities about severe storms.”
Kofi Annan
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – The Global Humanitarian Forum set up in 2007 by Kofi Annan, former UN director-general, is being audited by the Swiss government, reports TSR. Switzerland has contributed CHF500,000 in 2009 and is scheduled to pay another half million this year once the audit is completed. The decision to carry out a financial review was taken by Bern in September 2008. The forum’s “strategic focus” is the human impact of climate change, with its “centrepiece” a 23-24 June conference in Geneva, scheduled to host 400 world political and business leaders.
London, England and Geneva, Switzerland (Le Temps, Fre) – Kofi Annan’s new Africa project, to be called Africa Progress Panel, has been created and is living in temporary quarters in London. The undefined project that made world headlines shortly before Annan left office as head of the United Nations is beginning to take shape, says Le Temps, with ads run in The Economist last week for management positions. The new group is based in London but will move to Geneva at an unspecified date. On its new web site the organization describes its objectives: "to focus world leaders’
attention on delivering on their commitments, particularly the good
governance and economic support which is imperative for achieving the
Millennium Development Goals. Panel members will draw on the expertise
of institutions working on African issues to present a rigorous and
independent assessment of progress."
The panel members are: Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the UN and Nobel Laureate; Michel Camdessus, former managing director of the International Monetary Fund; Peter Eigen, founder and chair of the Advisory Council, Transparency International; Bob Geldof, musician and founder/chair of Band Aid, member of the Commission for Africa; Graça Machel, women and children’s rights activist, president of the Foundation for Community Development; Robert E Rubin, chairman of the Executive Committee, Citigroup, former US secretary of the Treasury; Mohammad Yunus, economist, founder of Grameen Bank and Nobel Laureate.
