Holding individuals serving the United Nations to account for wrongdoing

This chapter analyses UN mechanisms of holding individual UN personnel to account for criminal, disciplinary, administrative, and civil misconduct of varying severity. The UN has focused its accountability efforts on dealing with sexual misconduct. UN accountability mechanisms have been developed in its Peace Operations settings first, followed by in the context of humanitarian assistance. For criminal accountability of uniformed personnel in Peace Operations, the UN considers their contributing States to be the primary forum for action. In such cases, jurisdiction and immunity do not shield prosecution. While current mechanisms follow the design developed in Peace Operations, the UN is shifting to make the mechanisms system-wide. Under Secretary-General Guterres, the Organization has made four other shifts: from individual discipline to a victims’ rights approach, from individual wrongdoer focus to leadership accountability, from UN-centred to increased community involvement mechanisms, and from a behind closed doors approach to greater transparency.