UNDT/2010/093, Kamanou
Since it was ECOWAS and not UNSD that took the decision not to attribute the applicant for her contributions to the ECOWAS Poverty Profile, this decision is therefore not a decision in respect of which the respondent, ie, the Secretary-General as the Chief Administrative Office of the United Nations, has any responsibility. Even if the ultimate decision to exclude the applicant from attribution was that of ECOWAS, it could, nevertheless, be held that the administrative decision in question was that UNSD decided to accept the decision of ECOWAS in respect of the applicant, contrary to its obligations to her. Such a case would be so closely related to the complaint that the applicant did not receive attribution contrary to (her claimed interpretation of) the relevant administrative instruction and the Organization's contractual responsibility towards her as a staff member as to be encompassed by the substance of her application, even in its present form. However, UNDS acted reasonably in respect of the criterion imposed by ECOWAS and there was no breach of any contractual obligation owed to the applicant.
The applicant, a UNSD staff member, was involved in developing some aspects of the material used in a publication named “ECOWAS [the Economic Community of West African States] Poverty Profile”, but was not attributed in its preface, unlike some others working for the UNSD who had also contributed to the project. The reason was that ECOWAS (not a UN entity) had decided that only those who had contributed to the implementation of the project should be included and not those who had only been involved in the initial preparatory work. Accordingly, ECOWAS took out the name of the applicant, which UNSD had originally inserted.
N/A
Application in the issue of non-attribution is dismissed (issues of non selection and harassment/discrimination against the applicant remain for another judgment as evidence not ready for adjudication).