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Assignment grant: Rule 107.20 clearly envisages a situation in which a newly recruited staff member from an area “within commuting distance of the duty station” would be entitled to an assignment grant where he had been “settled” in the duty station perhaps by a former employer who due to the new recruitment would no longer take responsibility for such things as his accommodation. He would be given the assignment grant to “resettle” himself, as it were. By the same token, a newly recruited staff member who had previously worked for the Organisation for a period of time as a consultant and most...

Outcome: The respondent is to pay interest from the date the payment of the relocation grant became due, namely 4 May 2008, and until payment at the rate of 8 per cent per annum.

ST/IC/2006/60, the legality of which has not been contested by the Applicant, is clear as far as the rates for relocation grant are concerned. It stipulates on the one hand that for single staff members “separating from service following appointments or assignments of one year or more”, the applicable rate is USD10,000, and on the other hand that “for assignments of less than one year” the rate is USD1,200. It is clear that the Applicant, who was assigned to Geneva for six months only because he decided to resign, falls within the latter category. The Administration could thus rely on this...

Receivability - The Tribunal accepted that the extended use of the temporary appointments was the reason for the disparity in the amount of relocation grant that the Applicant was entitled to and that this negatively affected the Applicant. This however was the subject of a settlement agreement between the parties. Further, in this Application the Applicant was effectively asking the Tribunal to find that the Rules on relocation grant for temporary employees are unlawful. Those rules were based on resolutions of the General Assembly. Pursuant to art. 2 of the UNDT Statute the Tribunal’s...

Receivability - The Tribunal accepted that the extended use of the temporary appointments was the reason for the disparity in the amount of relocation grant that the Applicant was entitled to and that this negatively affected the Applicant. This however was the subject of a settlement agreement between the parties. Further, in this Application the Applicant was effectively asking the Tribunal to find that the Rules on relocation grant for temporary employees are unlawful. Those rules were based on resolutions of the General Assembly. Pursuant to art. 2 of the UNDT Statute the Tribunal’s...

The Tribunal found the Applicant's reassignment was a proper exercise of the Secretary-General's discretion and dismissed the application. Reassignment of the Applicant: The Tribunal found that the relocation of the Applicant to Kuwait was prompted by administrative and humanitarian reasons based on space constraints in UNAMI in order to accommodate more humanitarian staff who were dealing with the influx of refugees from Syria. Accordingly, the Tribunal concluded that the Secretary-General's exercise of discretion was not tainted by any improper motives. Payment of DSA, hardship and mobility...

Mission area was not defined in ST/AI/2006/5. However, the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) Hardship Classification provided a list of duty stations located in a country and, for the DRC where MONUSCO is, Kinshasa and Goma were classified as separate duty stations. For purposes of classification of family duty stations or non-family duty stations, the Office of Human Resource Management’s (OHRM) list of non-family “duty stations,” as at 1 January 2014, classified Kinshasa and Goma as two distinct duty stations. Additionally, the report of the Secretary-General to the General...

Mission area was not defined in ST/AI/2006/5. However, the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) Hardship Classification provided a list of duty stations located in a country and, for the DRC where MONUSCO is, Kinshasa and Goma were classified as separate duty stations. For purposes of classification of family duty stations or non-family duty stations, the Office of Human Resource Management’s (OHRM) list of non-family “duty stations,” as at 1 January 2014, classified Kinshasa and Goma as two distinct duty stations. Additionally, the report of the Secretary-General to the General...

Mission area was not defined in ST/AI/2006/5. However, the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) Hardship Classification provided a list of duty stations located in a country and, for the DRC where MONUSCO is, Kinshasa and Goma were classified as separate duty stations. For purposes of classification of family duty stations or non-family duty stations, the Office of Human Resource Management’s (OHRM) list of non-family “duty stations,” as at 1 January 2014, classified Kinshasa and Goma as two distinct duty stations. Additionally, the report of the Secretary-General to the General...