Note to Correspondents

PANEL TO DISCUSS FUTURE OF INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SERVICE, 4 DECEMBER

     “The future of the international civil service” will be the subject of a panel discussion on Wednesday, 4 December, at 1:15 p.m. in Conference Room 1 at United Nations Headquarters.

Panellists will include James O.C. Jonah, former Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; Rosemarie Waters, President of the United Nations Staff Council; Dimitri Samaras, Chairperson of the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Staff Council; and Richard Nottidge, President of the Association of Former International Civil Servants/New York, who will moderate.

Topics will include the possible erosion of the concept of international civil service; the possible impact of recent human resources reforms on the character and notion of career service in the United Nations; the notion of a career service with permanent contracts as a tool to protect the independence of the Organization; and whether an independent international civil service is still needed.

The panel is organized to mark Human Rights Day by the United Nations Staff Union, together with the UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Staff Association, the Federation of Associations of Former International Civil Servants, and the Association of Former International Civil Servants/New York.

      Background

The concept of an autonomous civil service responsible to international organizations rather than to governments or other entities dates back at least to the League of Nations, established in 1919.  From the League’s very beginning in 1919, there was a major divergence between one of the concept’s major supporters, Sir Eric Drummond, who became the League’s first Secretary-General, and Sir Maurice Hankey, Britain’s Secretary to the Cabinet.  Sir Maurice opposed the concept of an international civil service on the ground that the British system of civil service could not be translated into the League, since the major powers would not have influence in the League’s Secretariat.  However, most governments agreed with Sir Eric and the concept was established.

The same principles were enshrined and defended in the United Nations Charter.  Articles 100 and 101 laid out the requirements for Secretariat staff and stipulated that the staff should have the highest competence and integrity, that it should not seek or receive instructions from governments or other authorities, and that governments should not seek to influence staff.

                                    - 2 -                   Note No. 5770

                                                            2 December 2002

Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld defended the principle of an independent international civil service in his last major public speech at Oxford University in May 1961, “The international civil servant in law and in fact” (available at www.un.org/Depts/dhl/dag/docs/internationalcivilservant.pdf).  Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had maintained that “there are, no neutral men”, and, therefore a neutral, independent Secretariat was a fiction.  Mr. Hammarskjöld’s reply was that you could not have a neutral man, but you could have an impartial man.  He also warned that if the visionary concept of the international civil service was allowed to die, it would be the “Munich” of international cooperation as conceived in the United Nations Charter.

For information, please contact Guy Candusso, Second Vice-President, United Nations Staff Council, at (212) 963-3801, candusso@un.org, or Edoardo Bellando, Co-Chair, Committee on the Security and Independence of the International Civil Service, at (212) 963-8275, bellando@un.org.

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