General picture

It is hardly surprising that the outcome of disputes involving staff members provide most of the relevant data for this Part of the study, given the confidentiality surrounding the resolution of differences and disputes between an international organisation and third-party claimants concerning contractual and non-contractual liability: relevant case law is difficult to find, and barely accessible, if at all.

Claims submitted by staff members can be satisfactorily settled in a pre-litigation procedure, and most complaints are settled in that way. If the difference or the dispute persists then international administrative tribunals, because of their attribution of jurisdiction, are competent, within the exercise of a legality control, to annul administrative decisions, but not to replace or adjust them. Nor, indeed, can the tribunals maintain, ‘because of a more equitable interpretation’, a kind of compromise solution between the position of the claimant staff member and the respondent international organisation. Neither the promotion of justice nor the implementation of accountability of international organisations can be considered to gain from such a manifest excès de pouvoir.

The substantive remedial outcome is determined not only by the subject-matter of the claim – which could include a plea for damages and a request for costs and fees – but evidently also by the way international administrative tribunals interpret the scope of their jurisdiction ratione personae and ratione materiae and by the views that they hold regarding the sources of law applicable to the case before them.