UN: CONDITIONS OF SERVICE AND COMPENSATION FOR

UNCLAS USUN NEW YORK 000199

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: UNGA AORC KUNR
SUBJECT: UN: CONDITIONS OF SERVICE AND COMPENSATION FOR
NON-SECRETARIAT OFFICIALS


1. ACTION REQUEST: See paragraph 16. This is an action
request. USUN requests instructions for upcoming negotiations
in the Fifth Committee.


2. SUMMARY: As requested by General Assembly resolution
A/59/282, the Secretary-General (SG),in his report A/61/554:
Conditions of service and compensation for officials other
than Secretariat officials, presents proposals for
remuneration and other conditions of service for members of
the International Court of Justice (ICJ),and judges and ad
litem judges of the International Tribunal for the Former
Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda (ICTR). The proposals include: a mechanism of
remuneration based on market exchange rates and local retail
price fluctuations, protection of pensions in payment to
former judges and their survivors and increases to other
conditions of service, i.e., education costs, special
allowance, travel and subsistence. The follow-up
Administrative Committee on Administrative and Budgetary
Questions (ACABQ) report (reference A) provides a detailed
analysis of the SG's proposals, revealing the SG's flawed
assumptions and recommending elaboration of alternative
methods for adjusting remuneration and addressing other
matters. Regarding the longstanding question of the disparity
between retirement benefits of the members of the
International Court of Justice and the judges of the ICTY and
ICTR, the ACABQ offers background but no opinion and states
this matter should be decided by the General Assembly.


3. Financial implications of the SG's proposals requesting
approval of increases in the annual salary, an increase in
the president's allowance, increases in the costs of
educating children and additional pension payments for former
judges and the widows of the judges of ICJ and the judges of
the ICTY and ICTR are estimated at $2,186,500 for the
biennium 2006-2007. END SUMMARY.


4. REMUNERATION: Article 32 of the International Court of
Justice provides that the General Assembly shall fix the
salaries and allowances of the members of the Court and that
they may not be decreased during the term of office. Per
Security Council adoption of relevant ICTY and ICTR statutes,
the terms and conditions of service for ICTY judges are the
same as those of judges in the ICJ, and the terms and
conditions for judges in the ICTR are the same as those of
the ICTY. Currently, a floor/ceiling mechanism, with rates
set at 4 per cent below and 4 per cent above the average
exchange rate of the previous year, is applied to the
salaries of the Members of the ICJ and the Judges.


5. During the 59th GA, the SG proposed to increase the
judges' annual salaries to $177,000. At that time, ACABQ
supported the increase, but expressed a number of concerns
regarding the current system, which is based on the
floor/ceiling mechanism put in place during the 48th GA.
ACABQ recommended during the last review that the SG be
requested to submit proposals for an alternate system to be
considered during the 61st GA. The GA made such a request in
resolution 59/282, and decided, as an interim measure, to
increase the annual salary of the members of the Court and
the judges of the Tribunals to $170,080, pending its decision
on the report requested.


6. In the report under consideration, the SG recommended
replacing the floor/ceiling mechanism with a new mechanism
based on a net base salary with a corresponding post
adjustment amount per index point equal to 1 per cent of net
base salary at each level and step of the salary scale
(similar to the one that pertains to salaries of UN staff in
the Professional and higher categories). Based on current
post adjustment multipliers for the Netherlands and the
United Republic of Tanzania and the current salary of judges,
this mechanism would yield an annual remuneration (base
salary plus post adjustment) of $255,460 for judges serving
in The Hague (14% increase) and $235,731 for judges serving
in Arusha (38.6% increase). The SG highlights that this
approach would be administratively simple and respond to the
GA's request in its resolution A/RES/59/282 for the
establishment of a mechanism of remuneration based on market
exchange rates and local retail price fluctuation that would
limit the divergence of such remuneration from that of
comparable positions of seniority with the UN.


7. The ACABQ report noted that this proposal, which uses the
current net remuneration as the base salary, unduly inflates
the remuneration calculated under a post adjustment system,
since the current net remuneration already includes a
cost-of-living component. ACABQ recommended elaboration of
alternative methods for adjusting remuneration according to
market exchange rates and movement of the local
cost-of-living index with a view towards protecting the level
of the remuneration to be presented to the GA at its 62nd
session.


OTHER CONDITIONS OF SERVICE


8. EDUCATION GRANT: The SG recommended that any decision
taken by the GA at its 61st session to update the levels of
the education grant or changes in the provisions regarding
disabled children be extended to the members of the Court and
the judges of the Tribunals. Although ACABQ supports in
principle an increase in the education grant, ACABQ believes
that all conditions of service should be considered together
as part of the periodic review carried out by the GA and not
linked to any developments with regard to staff.


9. SPECIAL ALLOWANCES: The SG proposed that the special
allowances for the Presidents of the ICJ and the two
tribunals be increased from $15,000 to $20,000 and the
Vice-Presidents' allowances from $94 a day to $125 a day.
ACABQ recommended against the proposal, which it believed was
not justified based on real needs and expenditure patterns.


10. TRAVEL AND SUBSISTENCE REGULATIONS: The Registrar of
the ICJ has proposed, and the SG and ACABQ agreed, that the
Travel and Subsistence Regulations for assignment grants
should be reviewed and updated to conform to current
standards of the Organization.


11. RETIREMENT BENEFITS: The SG recommended that the pension
benefits of the judges of the Tribunals and of the judges of
the Court be brought once again to the attention of the GA
for its consideration since the GA is the sole authority to
determine the conditions of service of the judges.


12. PENSIONS IN PAYMENT: In April 2004, the Registrar of the
Court transmitted a letter to the Secretariat expressing
concern that the level of pensions for judges and surviving
spouses are not protected in value since they are set in U.S.
dollars and then converted into a foreign currency. After
reviewing the mechanisms used by the ICSC (floor/ceiling) and
the UNFSPF (two-track system) as suggested by ACABQ, the SG
decided these mechanisms were too complex for the
administration of the 50 pensions currently being
administered. Instead, he proposed a 36-month average
exchange rate. Under this system, members of ICJ and the
judges of the Tribunals would be given the option of having
their pension benefit converted from U.S. dollars to a local
currency using the 36-month average exchange rate established
by UNJSPF applicable to the country or zone considered. A
judge in receipt of a pension or a survivor in receipt of a
pension benefit would be given the opportunity to request, on
an annual basis, at six-month intervals, that the monthly
pension benefit in U.S. dollars be converted. ACABQ
recommended that this proposal be adopted, on the
understanding that retirees and their survivors would be
given a one-time option to request conversion of their
pension into another currency, rather than on an annual basis.


13. FINANCIAL IMPLICATIONS: The total cost of the proposals
contained in the SG's report, not including the revisions
suggested by ACABQ, are estimated at 2,186,500 dollars for
the biennium 2006-2007.


14. NEXT COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW: Should the GA decide to
revert the three-year review cycle, the next comprehensive
review by the Assembly would be undertaken at its
sixty-fourth session, in 2009.


15. ACTION REQUEST: The Fifth Committee has completed its
formal and begun its informal consultations on Conditions of
Service. Preliminary negotiations on a draft resolution began
March 7. USUN requests instructions prior to the start of
these negotiations.

WOLFF