Judgment 4090
127th Session, 2019
International Atomic Energy Agency
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the processing of his application for a disability benefit and the calculation of his sick leave entitlements.
Consideration 10
Extract:
Even accepting, for present purposes, that the field of operation of the Flemming principle would comprehend, as an aspect of establishing appropriate levels of pay, payment of sick leave entitlements, it is not appropriate to isolate one element of salary only and compare that element with prevailing local conditions. As the Tribunal observed in Judgment 1334, consideration 24, “[the Flemming principle] offers [...] a guide for setting general levels of pay for local staff: it offers no basis for claims about any particular component of such pay”.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1334
Keywords:
allowance; flemming principle; local status; salary; sick leave;
Judgment 4022
126th Session, 2018
World Trade Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the WTO’s decision to grant him local recruitment status upon joining the Organization.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; local status;
Judgment 4021
126th Session, 2018
World Trade Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to grant her local recruitment status.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; local status;
Considerations 5-6
Extract:
The present case is similar, in the material respects, to that which was the subject of Judgment 3603, in which the WTO was also the defendant. The Tribunal considers that the following analysis, extracted from considerations 19 and 20 of that judgment, is equally applicable to the present case:
“19. The critical factor for determining a staff member’s recruitment status is her or his residence at the time of recruitment, as provided in Rule ST03.1 of the Short-Term Staff Rules (for short-term staff) and Staff Rule 103.1 read together with Staff Rule 104.2 (for staff under fixed-term and regular contracts). Under the clear and unambiguous provisions of Rule ST03.1 of the Short-Term Staff Rules, the complainant’s recruitment status on recruitment on a short-term basis in 2002 was ‘local’. She was correctly so recruited as, at the time, she gave her ‘present address’ as Pully. That was perhaps convenient for her because she then benefitted from the provision of Rule ST03.1(a) to the effect that recruitment of short-term staff ‘shall normally be made locally’.
20. Under Staff Rule 104.2(a) she was recruited under the Staff Regulations and Staff Rules when she was given a fixed-term contract. Her place of residence at that time for the purpose of her recruitment status under Staff Rule 103.1 was Switzerland, as it also was at the time when she was given the regular contract. Therefore, the WTO was entitled to recruit her as a local staff member under her short-term, fixed-term and regular contracts and her claim that she was at any time entitled to international recruitment status is unmeritorious.”
As in the case leading to Judgment 3603, the WTO was entitled to recruit the complainant in the present case as a local staff member and her claim that that decision was unlawful is unsustainable. She was in fact resident in Geneva from 14 August 2011, when she first entered Switzerland to be with her husband. She obtained a residence permit and worked there before the WTO employed her. Her first WTO contract, which she signed on 16 April 2012, lists as her address an address at Rue de Zurich in Geneva. More importantly, however, the complainant resided in Geneva when she signed her first short-term contract commencing in May 2013 and was, therefore, at the time of recruitment “resident” within the specified radius to attract the “locally recruited” designation under Rule ST03.1 of the Short-Term Staff Rules. She then continued to reside in Geneva, as her address in her Personal History Form of April 2015 shows, and was, therefore, also at the time when she commenced work under a fixed-term contract “resident” within the specified radius to attract the “locally recruited” designation pursuant to Staff Rule 103.1(a).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 3603
Keywords:
local status;
Judgment 3603
121st Session, 2016
World Trade Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary: The complainant contests the WTO’s rejection of her request to consider her as an internationally recruited official.
Judgment keywords
Keywords:
complaint dismissed; local status;
Judgment 2667
104th Session, 2008
World Tourism Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 11
Extract:
"The complainant now claims that when she signed her initial contract the Organization did not inform her of the consequences of her declaration [concerning her residential address] or, in particular, of the differences between local and international status. But this assertion cannot be accepted. It was up to the complainant to ask the Organization about the implications of the main clauses of the offer she was invited to accept and about the consequences of her replies on points which were decisive for her future career and salary. Rapid perusal of the Staff Regulations and Rules would have revealed the implications of accepting the offer of local recruitment."
Keywords:
acceptance; consequence; contract; law of contract; local status; non-local status; offer; organisation's duties; staff member's duties; staff regulations and rules;
Judgment 1666
83rd Session, 1997
International Labour Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6(c)
Extract:
It may not be inferred from Short-Term Rule 3.5 and from the extension of his appointment that the complainant was entitled to the retroactive grant of non-local status. "The effect of the Rule is to bestow retroactively on a short-term official benefits granted to the holder of a fixed-term appointment. If, like the complainant, he belongs to the professional category the place of recruitment will have no bearing on the terms of his appointment. So neither does it have any bearing on entitlements granted retroactively."
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: ILO SHORT-TERM STAFF RULE 3.5
Keywords:
appointment; contract; duty station; local status; non-local status; professional category; short-term; staff regulations and rules; terms of appointment;
Judgment 1616
82nd Session, 1997
European Southern Observatory
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
"The provisions of the combined [Staff] Rules apply to international and local staff alike, and so any provision that applies to one category of staff and not to the other offends against those rules and is unlawful. Here the Director General had no authority to treat as a mere option the consultation of the Joint Board on Appeals from local staff: the combined [Staff] Rules apply to all staff and so does the duty those rules lay down. The rule under which the Director General exercised discretion was an unlawful one and he thereby committed a mistake of law."
Keywords:
advisory body; consultation; discretion; executive head; local status; non-local status; precedence of rules; staff regulations and rules;
Judgment 1539
81st Session, 1996
European Free Trade Association
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 7
Extract:
"Since the complainant was in Switzerland at the time of recruitment she was not locally recruited for employment at the Brussels Office. It is true that the Association was free to incorporate in the letters of appointment a clause saying that she was nevertheless deemed to have local status. [...] For want of a clause expressly prescribing local status the presumption is that the parties did not agree that she should have such status. The conclusion is that the contracts, read together with the Staff Regulations, set out all the terms and conditions of employment, which conferred non-local status on the complainant and gave the association no right or power to treat her as having any other. And even if there was doubt on that score it was the association, which was the source of all the relevant documents, that had the duty to resolve it."
Keywords:
complainant; contract; duty station; intention of parties; local status; non-local status; offer; organisation's duties; place of origin; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant; terms of appointment;
Consideration 13
Extract:
"Inasmuch as the letters of appointment say nothing of 'local' or 'non-local' status, the Tribunal will treat the facts of the case as decisive. A contractual provision on status would be necessary only if the matter were uncertain or if the parties had agreed that she should have a status different to the status that the facts determine. Since such agreement would involve a waiver by the complainant of her rights of non-local status, it may not be presumed in the absence of clear evidence of such waiver."
Keywords:
appraisal of evidence; contract; evidence; intention of parties; local status; non-local status; place of origin; status of complainant; terms of appointment;
Consideration 12
Extract:
"The material issue is not what the complainant believed her status to be. Whatever she may have believed is immaterial to the meaning and effect of her contract. Her contract implicitly gave her non-local status".
Keywords:
contract; local status; non-local status; status of complainant;
Judgment 1382
78th Session, 1995
Pan American Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations 4-6
Extract:
The complainant was a locally recruited official in the general service category whose appointment was terminated after the paho abolished his post. He submits that the Organization ruled out the possibility of reassignment by limiting the geographical scope of a competition. The plea fails. WHO Manual paragraph II.9.290 confers no right on general service staff to reassignment on a post outside their duty station. Staff Rule 510.1 precludes reassignment of such staff outside their duty station unless there is mutual agreement and under Rule 1310.2 all posts in the general service category are subject to local recruitment.
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: WHO MANUAL PARAGRAPH II.9.290; PAHO STAFF RULE 510.1; PAHO STAFF RULE 1310.2
Keywords:
appointment; duty station; general service category; interpretation; local status; reassignment; right; staff regulations and rules; written rule;
Judgment 1334
76th Session, 1994
International Atomic Energy Agency
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 24
Extract:
"As for the Flemming principle, it offers [...] a guide for setting general levels of pay for local staff: it offers no basis for claims about any particular component of such pay."
Keywords:
allowance; flemming principle; local status; salary;
Judgment 1280
75th Session, 1993
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 29
Extract:
Vide Judgment 1279, consideration 29.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1279
Keywords:
adjustment; discretion; executive head; flemming principle; general service category; local status; reckoning; salary; scale;
Judgment 1279
75th Session, 1993
Pan American Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 29
Extract:
The organization carried out a review of the salary scales for general-service staff on the basis of an overall survey of local employment conditions. The complainants object to the new scales. "Whether the list of local employers makes a reasonable cross- section of economic sectors and whether the fund and the world bank are too closely linked to be taken separately are matters of appreciation that must ultimately be decided by the Director in the exercise of his discretion."
Keywords:
adjustment; discretion; executive head; flemming principle; general service category; local status; reckoning; salary; scale;
Judgment 1266
75th Session, 1993
International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 21
Extract:
Vide Judgment 1265, consideration 21.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 382, 825
Keywords:
adjustment; case law; coordinated organisations; general service category; icsc decision; local status; organisation's duties; reckoning; right of appeal; salary; scale; tribunal;
Consideration 24
Extract:
Vide Judgment 1265, consideration 24.
Keywords:
adjustment; competence of tribunal; coordinated organisations; declaration of recognition; general service category; icsc decision; local status; official; organisation's duties; reckoning; right of appeal; salary; scale; written rule;
Consideration 23
Extract:
Vide Judgment 1265, consideration 23.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1197
Keywords:
adjustment; adversarial proceedings; coordinated organisations; duty to inform; general service category; icsc decision; local status; organisation's duties; reckoning; salary; scale; tribunal;
Considerations 26 and 28
Extract:
Vide Judgment 1265, considerations 26 and 28.
Keywords:
adjustment; case law; criteria; discretion; general service category; icsc decision; judicial review; limits; local status; reckoning; salary; scale;
Considerations 26-27
Extract:
Vide Judgment 1265, considerations 26 and 27.
Keywords:
adjustment; criteria; discretion; general service category; icsc decision; judicial review; limits; local status; reckoning; salary; scale; staff member's interest;
Judgment 1265
75th Session, 1993
World Intellectual Property Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 24
Extract:
The organization, a member of the "common system" administered by the ICSC, revised the salaries of staff in the general service category in keeping with a scale drawn up by the ICSC for organisations whose headquarters are in Geneva. The complainants submit that the ICSC's decisions are invalid. "Insofar as such standards are found to be flawed they may not be imposed on the staff and WIPO must if need be replace them with provisions that comply with the law of the international civil service. That is an essential feature of the principles governing the international legal system the Tribunal is called upon to safeguard. It is therefore plain that the complainants' rights to judicial process are safeguarded by the defendant organization's recognition of the Tribunal's jurisdiction. Such jurisdiction may not be restricted by the introduction into the organization's Staff Regulations or Rules adopted by bodies outside the Tribunal's competence."
Keywords:
adjustment; competence of tribunal; coordinated organisations; declaration of recognition; general service category; icsc decision; international civil service principles; judicial review; local status; official; organisation's duties; reckoning; right of appeal; salary; scale; staff member's interest; written rule;
Considerations 26 and 28
Extract:
The organization, a member of the "common system" administered by the ICSC, revised the salaries of staff in the general service category in keeping with a scale drawn up by the ICSC for organisations whose headquarters are in Geneva. The complainants submit that the ICSC's decisions are invalid. "The Tribunal may not interfere in the exercise of such discretion or in the drafting of the salary policy it is based on. But it does have a power of review in this area which is clearly defined [...] there are specific [factors] that in this comparative sort of exercise must be taken in isolation from the rest and subject to critical evaluation. Judgment 1000 [...] illustrates how such a procedure may yield notable results. In this case the information provided by the Commission shows that it is quite possible to isolate the factor at issue and even to put exact figures on the effects they have on the salary scale."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1000
Keywords:
adjustment; case law; criteria; discretion; general service category; icsc decision; judicial review; limits; local status; reckoning; salary; scale;
Consideration 21
Extract:
The organization, a member of the "common system" administered by the ICSC, revised the salaries of its staff in the general service category in keeping with a scale drawn up by the ICSC for organisations whose headquarters are in Geneva. The organization, having thus complied with the obligations it derives from membership of the common system, "may not in that way decline or limit its own responsibility towards the members of its staff or lessen the degree of judicial protection it owes them. The Tribunal has already had occasion to speak of that responsibility and to stress the duty of any organisation that introduces elements of the common system or any other outside system into its own rules to make sure that the texts it thereby imports are lawful: see Judgment 825 [...], under 18, which in turn refers to Judgment 382 [...], under 6."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 382, 825
Keywords:
adjustment; case law; coordinated organisations; general service category; icsc decision; judicial review; local status; organisation's duties; reckoning; right of appeal; salary; scale;
Considerations 26-27
Extract:
The organization, a member of the "common system" administered by the ICSC, revised the salaries of staff in the general service category in keeping with a scale drawn up by the ICSC for organisations whose headquarters are in Geneva. The complainants submit that the ICSC's decisions are invalid. "[T]he Tribunal may not interfere in the exercise of such discretion or in the drafting of the salary policy it is based on. But it does have a power of review in this area which is clearly defined [...] it will consider in the event of dispute whether the Commission's methodology has been properly observed. The methodology is an important factor in ensuring that the results are stable, foreseeable and clearly understood. And though the Commission is free to choose its methods, once it has chosen them the staff may expect them to be followed in all circumstances."
Keywords:
adjustment; criteria; discretion; general service category; icsc decision; judicial review; limits; local status; patere legem; reckoning; salary; scale; staff member's interest;
Consideration 23
Extract:
The organization, a member of the "common system" administered by the ICSC, revised the salaries of staff in the general service category in keeping with a scale drawn up by the ICSC for organistions whose headquarters are in Geneva. WIPO says it is unable to submit any comments on the complainants arguments because it lacked authority to set the salary scales. Having done what was required to import the challenged scale in full into WIPO's own rules and thereby endorsed the ICSC's decisions without qualification, the Director General then "took up an unhelpful posture and thereby prevented before the Tribunal the adversarial pleadings that are an essential feature of judicial process and, besides, indispensable for providing the Tribunal with adequate information: see Judgment 1197 [...], under 13 and 14."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1197
Keywords:
adjustment; adversarial proceedings; coordinated organisations; duty to inform; general service category; icsc decision; judicial review; local status; organisation's duties; reckoning; salary; scale;
Judgment 1196
73rd Session, 1992
World Intellectual Property Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 19
Extract:
The complainants, who belong to the professional and higher categories of staff, contend that the repeal of a provision in the Staff Regulations which insure the stability of their conditions of pay discriminated in favour of local staff. "According to consistent precedent the distinction between international and local staff is a fundamental one inherent in the very nature of an international organisation. It is due to the peculiar circumstances in which such organisations work and it is concurred in, with both its advantages and its drawbacks, by anyone who seeks employment with them, be it in one category of staff or in the other. Each category of staff offers career prospects and conditions of recruitment and pay that differ according to its own requirements, and a staff member may not plead breach of equal treatment if treated differently because he belongs to one category rather than to the other."
Keywords:
appointment; career; case law; equal treatment; general service category; international civil service principles; local status; non-local status; professional category; salary;
Judgment 1189
73rd Session, 1992
International Labour Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 5
Extract:
The complainant is objecting to the local status he was granted upon recruitment. The Tribunal observes that on his application form he himself stated that he had been living in Geneva, which was his duty station, for several years. In signing that form he stated that the information he had given was "true, complete and correct". The Tribunal concludes that since he had thus declared at the time of recruitment that he had been residing in Geneva for several years, "the complainant is now estopped from contending that he was wrongly given such status".
Keywords:
duty station; good faith; local status; non-local status; residence; staff member's duties;
Judgment 1160
72nd Session, 1992
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations 11, 12 and 17
Extract:
Salary scales for locally-recruited staff in the general service category are reviewed every few years on the strength of comprehensive surveys of local practice. The ICSC having approved a new "general methodology" for making the surveys, WHO decided to apply it. "Although the methodology was not binding on the Organization merely by virtue of the Commission's approval of it, the Organization's decision to apply it is one that it is not free afterwards to disclaim. [...] It is inconsistent for the Organization to argue before the Tribunal that there was nothing wrong with the surveys when the methodology was not strictly followed. [...] Because the survey was not carried out in accordance with the approved methodology the case must be sent back to the Director-General for a new decision".
Keywords:
adjustment; general service category; icsc decision; inquiry; investigation; local status; organisation's duties; reckoning; salary; scale;
Judgment 1108
71st Session, 1991
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary
Extract:
After retiring from the Organization the complainant returned under a contract as a consultant. The letter of acceptance he signed indicated that he was being recruited locally. He argues that as a Swedish citizen whom the WHO contacted in Stockholm he was entitled to non-local status and the payment of a daily subsistence allowance. The Organization submits, rightly, that in putting his signature to the contract he accepted the terms of the offer.
Keywords:
acceptance; contract; daily subsistence allowance; external collaborator; local status; non-local status; terms of appointment;
Considerations 5-6
Extract:
"Although [WHO] Manual provision II.12.320 [...] says that consultants shall be paid the subsistence allowance applicable to the country of the duty station, Staff Rule 1330 empowers the Director-General to 'appoint consultants without regard to the provisions of the other sections of the Rules'. So the Director-General's offer of an appointment as a consultant without the per diem allowance was quite lawful anyway."
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: WHO STAFF RULE 1330 WHO MANUAL PROVISION II.12.320
Keywords:
contract; daily subsistence allowance; enforcement; external collaborator; local status; provision; staff regulations and rules;
Judgment 1006
68th Session, 1990
World Tourism Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 2
Extract:
In 1988 the Secretary-General decided to reverse a decision which the then Secretary-General took in 1979 to grant the complainant non-local status. The reason for the reversal was that the original decision had not been warranted. The Tribunal holds that "even if that decision was based on facts that were wrong and even if there was misinterpretation of Regulation 16 [now Staff Rule 14.6 on how to determine an official's home], it was in any event too late by 1988 to reverse a decision that the organization had already abided by for almost nine years." The impugned decision is quashed.
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: RULE 14.6 OF THE WTO STAFF REGULATIONS
Keywords:
flaw; local status; non-local status; time limit; withdrawal of decision;
Judgment 978
66th Session, 1989
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary
Extract:
UNESCO Staff Rule 031.14 (B) (III) formerly provided that "the non-resident's allowance shall not be paid, or shall cease to be paid, to a staff member [...] whose husband is a national of the country of the duty station" inasmuch as the word "husband" prevents the rule from applying to staff members whose wives are in the same situation, the provision is discriminatory and the impugned decision, which was based on the discriminatory provision, must therefore be quashed.
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: FORMER UNESCO STAFF RULE 103.14(B)(III)
Keywords:
amendment to the rules; equal treatment; flaw; local status; marital status; non-local status; non-resident allowance; provision; sex discrimination; staff regulations and rules;
