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Geographical Distribution of the Staff of the UN Secretariat

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Leland M. Goodrich
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Extract

One of the perennial questions before the General Assembly and its Fifth Committee is that of the geographical distribution of the staff of the Secretariat. With the admission of sixteen new African members in 1960 and the sudden interest of the Soviet Union in filling its “quota,” the question took on special interest and urgency in the fifteenth and sixteenth sessions. The Committee of Experts, set up by the General Assembly in 1959 to review the organization and activities of the Secretariat, was asked to consider and make recommendations on certain aspects of the problem. The Fifth Committee spent much of its time during the sixteenth session in discussing the matter, and ended by inviting the Secretary-General to take into account the two draft resolutions introduced and views expressed in the Committee on the question, and to present to the General Assembly at its seventeenth session “a statement of his considered views on how to improve the geographical distribution of the staff of the Secretariat.” The question is, therefore, one which directly and immediately concerns the present position and future development of the Secretariat.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , Summer 1962 , pp. 465 - 482
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1962

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References

1 General Assembly Resolution 1559 (XV), December 18, 1960. Its recommendations are to be found in Document A/4776, June 14, 1961.

2 Documents A/C.5/L.689 and Add. 1, 2, and 3, and A/C.5/L.683 (thrice revised).

3 Document A/5063, December 18, 1961, p. 32–33.

4 See Ranshofen-Wertheimer, Egon F., The International Secretariat (Washington, 1945), p. 351Google Scholar.

5 Ibid., p. 351–353.

6 League of Nations Document C. 3M.3 1931, x, p. 4.

7 Postwar Foreign Policy Preparation, 1939–1945. Department of State Publication 3580 (Washington, 1949), p. 605Google Scholar.

8 UNCIO, Documents, Vol. 7, p. 558Google Scholar.

9 Report of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations, PC/20, December 23, 1945, pp. 84–94.

10 Ibid., p. 85.

11 Lie, Trygve, In the Cause of Peace (New York, 1954), p. 53Google Scholar.

12 See table, Yearbook, of the United Nations, 1948–1949, p. 910.

13 General Assembly Resolution 153 (II), November 15, 1947.

14 See Document A/652, especially Annex I (SGB/77).

15 Discussed later, p. 473.

16 For statements of Soviet position, see separate opinion of Mr. Roshchin, Report of the Committee of Experts, Document A/4776, Appendix 1, and his statement in the Fifth Committee, Official Records, October 9, 1961.

17 Lippmann, Walter in The New York Herald Tribune, 04 17, 1961Google Scholar.

18 Review of the Activities and Organization of the Secretariat, Report of the Committee of Experts …, Document A/4776, June 14, 1961, paragraph 48. The Committee was appointed under General Assembly Resolution 1446 (XIV), December 5, 1959.

19 Ranshofen-Wertheimer, , op. cit., p. 355Google Scholar. The First Division comprised staff which gave effect to the resolutions of organs or carried out preparatory work on which decisions were based. The Second Division comprised personnel performing strictly secretarial and routine administrative duties. The Third Division consisted of manual workers. Ibid., p. 279.

20 Staff Rule 104.5 provides that recruitment on as wide a geographical basis as possible shall not apply to posts in the General Service category, “except the principal level of that service at Headquarters.”

21 Thus the United Nations Field Service, the staff of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the staff of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the staff of the Registrar of the International Court of Justice, and personnel recruited specifically for special missions are excluded.

22 Document A/4776, Annex 1, p. 4.

23 See Document A/4776 for views of the Committee of Experts, and Summary Records of the Fifth Committee for views expressed by governments.

24 According to the Secretary-General's report of October 18, 1961 (Document A/C.5/890), out of 162 posts in the G-5 category, 115 are occupied by United States nationals.

25 Document A/652.

26 The principal criterion has been national income, which has been shown to have a high degree of correlation with the social and economic factors such as literacy, school enrollment, and the level of economic and social development which are relevant to capacity to provide technically qualified personnel for international secretariat work. See Report on the World Social Situation, Document E/CN.5/346/Rev. 1, chapter III.

27 Document A/4776, p. 27–28.

28 The comparison is between the mean figures under the Lie formula and the target figures under the Committee of Experts' proposal. For a detailed comparison of quotas under the Lie and Committee of Experts formulas, see ibid., Annex V.

29 Report of the Secretary-General, Document A/C.5/890, October 18, 1961.

30 This is provided under the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) system of geographical distribution.

31 The FAO plan in its simplest terms consists of giving a varying number of points to different levels of posts (one to P-1 up to fifteen to Deputy Director-General), and attaching a value of 0.04 to each point (obtained by dividing the total number of budget posts by the total number of points) for the purpose of allocating posts. Thus Norway, contributing 0.64 percent of the budget, would have used up all of its quota if the Deputy Director-General and one P-1 were Norwegian. If the P-1 were promoted, Norway would be in excess.

32 For geographical distribution in the Secretariat as of August 31, 1961, see the Secretary-General's Report to the Fifth Committee, Document A/C.5/890, October 18, 1961.

33 Ibid., p. 12–16.

34 The Salary Review Committee in its 1956 report endorsed the proposal of the Secretary-General “that a greater proportion of staff should be employed on a fixed-term basis, on recruitment from Governments, universities and similar institutions.” The majority of the Committee saw no objection to raising the proportion of fixed-term appointments to 20 percent of the total number of professional and higher posts subject to geographical distribution. This view was accepted by the General Assembly. Document A/3209.

35 Report of the Preparatory Commission, PC/20, p. 92–93.

36 It may be a hopeful omen that a Soviet national has recently received and accepted a permanent appointment in the Division of Human Rights.

37 Document A/C.5/890, p. 7.