Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 7, with a song -- On having brought cholera to Haiti, the UN on February 28 rebuffed the call of its own UN Independent Expert on Human Rights in Haiti Gustavo Gallon that "diplomatic difficulties must be overcome to ensure a prompt end to the epidemic and provide full compensation for the damage suffered by the Haitian people."

  But today the US government filed a briefing supporting the UN's immunity -- or in this case, impunity. From the State Department's briefing transcript:

    To many, this is shocking. Members of Congress have written to State Department diplomats about this case; Inner City Press, having twice asked asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's spokespeople to confirm Ban has been served with legal papers, on February 28 asked about Gallon's report:

Inner City Press: on Haiti, there is a recent report just out by Gustavo Gallón, who is the UN independent expert on human rights in Haiti, and he says, as a direct quote, that full compensation for the damage suffered by the Haitian people by the introduction of cholera to the island should be paid as quickly as possible. So, I understand that he is an independent expert and doesn’t work for the Secretariat; at the same time, it’s a respected position and a mandate formed by the Human Rights Council, so I wanted to know what in the face of this sort of either intra-UN or intra-UN system critique, what is the response of the United Nations?

Spokesperson Martin Nesirky: Well, simply, that you answered the question yourself. The Human Rights Council-appointed special rapporteurs and other special advisers of various kinds are independent and they are not appointed by the Secretary-General and I don’t have anything further to say on that.

Inner City Press: But does the UN system expect, for example, countries when when they are subject to these type recommendations or criticism by an independent experts of the Human Rights Council to respond in some way to them to say: we agree or disagree, or that is why we disagree?

Spokesperson Nesirky: That’s for each individual Member State to decide.

Ah, leadership. Meanwhile, while the UN has refused to answer if Ban was served the court papers, beyond this song, Inner City Press will now publish the sad litany of attempts to serve what could be described as a scoff law:

On December 19, 2013, at approximately 3:11 PM, a paralegal for Plaintiffs’ counsel contacted OLA by telephone and spoke to a woman who identified herself as “Mae” (who, upon information and belief, is Mae Arkoncel, Assistant to the UN Legal Counsel). Mae confirmed that OLA had received the faxed documents from Plaintiffs’ counsel and stated that the UN was currently 'reviewing the documents'...

Service of process by delivery to Defendant Ban personally through the use of a private process server... was attempted again on January 20, 2014, at approximately 10:05 AM, at Defendant Ban’s residence located at [redacted by ICP]. A security guard informed the server that Defendant Ban was not present, and refused to open the door or accept service.

8. Service of process by delivery to Defendant Ban personally through the use of a private process server... was perfected on January 20, 2014, at approximately 2:00 PM, at Defendant’s Ban residence located at [redacted by ICP]. A male who identified himself as 'security' answered the door and informed the server that he would not accept service and that Defendant Ban was not present. The server affixed the process to the front door with masking tape and informed the security guard that he was doing so with the intention that the documents would be forwarded to Defendant Ban. The server then mailed another copy of the process to Defendant Ban at the same address.

That's called "nail-and-mail," and it's what's used with a fugitive or scoff law. Is that what this UN has become? It's the basis of this lyric, can't serve the papers up in the townhouse, song here. Watch this site.