ChapterV
DECISIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNALS
OF THE UNITEDNATIONS AND RELATED
INTERGOVERN MENTAL ORG ANIZATIONS1
A. UnitedNations DisputeTribunal
In 2014, the UnitedNations Dispute Tribunal in New York, Geneva and Nairobi issued
a total of 148 judgments. Summaries of se ven selected judgments are reproducedbelow.
1. Judgment No.UNDT/2014/040 (14 April 2014): Yakovlev v. Sec retary-General of the
UnitedNations2
L —P
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12. 3()—A
e Applicant, a former sta member who had ser ved as a procurement ocer in the
Secretariat, cha llenged the decision of the administration to dism iss his request, made
six years aer t he expiry of the applicable t ime limit, to proceed with payment of several
entitlements he claimed were due to him upon sepa ration. e Applicant asserted that ex-
ceptional circums tances beyond his control had made it impossible for him to claim t hose
entitlements in a timely man ner. e administration denied t he request for an exception
but indicated that it might consider payi ng for tickets for the Applicant and his sp ouse if
the Applicant could prove that he had no nancia l means to return to his home country.
e Applicant did not respond or provide any proof. e issues before the Tribunal were
whether the Applicant had sta nding to bring his application; whether the ad ministration’s
discretion to deny the request for an except ion was properly and lawful ly exercised; and
whether the Applicant had manifestly abused the proceed ings and, if so, whether costs
should be ordered under article10.6 of the UN DT Statute.
1 In view of the large number of jud gments which were rendered in 2014 by the administ rative
tribunals of t he United Nations and related i ntergovernmental organizations , only those judgment s
which address sig nicant issues of UnitedNations a dministrati ve law or are otherwise of genera l inter-
est have been summa rized in the prese nt edition of the Yearbook. For the f ull text of the complete se ries
of judgments rendered by the t ribunals, namely, Judgments Nos. UN DT/2014/001 to UNDT/2014/148
of the United Nations Dispute Tribun al, Judgments Nos. 2014-UNAT-395 to 2014-UNAT-494 of
the United Nations Appea ls Tribunal, a nd Judgment Nos. 2014-1 to 2014-2 of the International
Monetary Fund Ad ministr ative Tribunal, see , respectively, see t he websites of the United Nations
Dispute Tribunal (htt p://www.un.org/en/oaj/dispute/judgment s.shtml), the United Nations Appeals
Tribunal (http://ww w.un.org/en/oaj/appeals/judgments.shtm l) and the Administrat ive Tribunal of the
International Monet ary Fund (https://ww w.imf.org/external/im fat/jdgmnts.htm).
2 Judge Goolam Mee ran (New York).
e Tribunal found that the Applicant had sta nding to bring his application, but
failed to establish t hat the administrat ion’s decision to refuse to grant him a n exception to
the two-year time li mit under sta rule 12.3(b) and proceed with payment was un lawful.
e Tribunal furt her found that the Applicant manifestly a bused the proceedings beforeit.
With regard to the issue of stand ing, the Tribunal referred to article3, parag raph1, of
its Statute which provides that an appl ication under the Statute may be led by “any former
sta member of the UnitedNations”. e Tribunal also referred to sta ru le 12.3(b) and the
absence of language t herein that would limit the application of the r ule to current or former
sta members in respect of entit lements that had not expired, and found t hat the rule en-
compassed exceptions that a llowed the waiver of time limits provided for in t he StaRules.
With respect to the exercise of discretion, the Tribunal obser ved that the Applicant
asserted his own t urpitude against the Organi zation as a ground for not having been able
to comply with the Rules. e Tribunal noted t hat the Applicant had had ample opportu-
nity to request a deferment of payment of his separat ion entitlements but had opted not to
do so. e Tribunal also noted that the Applicant had eectively refus ed to prove that he
was impecunious a nd thus obtain payment of the cost of return tr avel home. e Tribunal
found that the Applicant fai led to establish that the administ ration’s decision to refuse to
grant him an exce ption under sta rule 12.3(b) was unlawfu l.
With respect to abuse of process, t he Tribunal considered that the Applicant chose
deliberately to omit disclosing i nformation with respect to the very sa me factors that led the
administration to exercise its discretion to ref use his request, and chose to ignore the ad-
ministration’s will ingness to consider, for humanitarian reasons, payment of his t ravel back
home prior to ling his application wit h the Tribunal. By choosing to bring the mat ter before
the Tribunal while the ad ministration stood ready to reconsider its decision at least in pa rt,
the Applicant used up valuable resou rces and time that would otherwise h ave been devoted
to other more urgent matters pending before the Tribunal. e Tribunal also rejected t he
Applicant’s reliance on his incarceration (following his arrest and convict ion for nancial
crimes he committed against the Organization) as force majeure and found it to be disi n-
genuous, frivolous and unreasonable. ere were no unpredict able or uncontrollable events
that would have prevented the Applicant from li ng his claim for separation entitlements.
As a result, the Tribunal found that the Applicant had manifestly abused the proceedings
before it and ordered the Applicant to pay costs in the sum of USD5,000 for abuse ofprocess.