Suchergebnisse

The acquired rights doctrine limits the ability of an international organisation (io) to unilaterally amend a staff member's conditions of employment to his or her detriment. The leading international administrative tribunals, especially the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation or the ILOAT refined and developed the doctrine's meaning and scope over decades. There has been a general consensus that the acquired rights doctrine protects a staff member's essential terms of employment both retrospectively and prospectively. However, in its recent jurisprudence, the United Nations Appeals Tribunal or the UNAT has rendered the acquired rights doctrine with little work to do by reducing it to the principle of non- retroactivity. As a result, the consensus as to the doctrine's core meaning is now undermined. International civil servants having access to the ILOAT are much better protected from unilateral adverse amendments to their conditions of employment when compared to those international public officials whose organisations have subscribed to the jurisdiction of the UNAT. This is an unwelcome development for the content of substantive protections is now more dependent on the tribunal approach, as opposed to a coherent development of the law.

Highlighting that the right to a fair trial in international law now forms an aspect of international administrative procedural law, I argue when international administrative tribunals administer justice to international civil servants, fair trial guarantees must be accorded. Particularly, in this paper I assess the two leading international administrative tribunals, the United Nations Dispute Tribunal and the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organisation, in terms of their compliance with fair trial standards. Focusing on the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, I first show how what I call an international procedural law of fair trial has been developed and requires that basic due process guarantees must be accorded wen delivering international administrative justice. I then develop fair trial standards with greater nuance, especially focusing on the quality of independence and impartiality. Then, the paper engages in a detailed analysis of the leading international administrative tribunals in terms of compliance with fair trial standards, concluding that significant deficits exist. If a fair trial for international civil servants is to be guaranteed, significant structural reforms are necessary.

Any future Multilateral Investment Court's independence and impartiality must be guaranteed. If it does not live up to the standards of independence expected of a modern international court, there is little point in contemplating this reform as it is unlikely to remedy the criticisms leveled at the investment arbitration regime.