Judgment 2097
92nd Session, 2002
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 18
Extract:
Because of serious financial difficulties the organisation had to employ the complainants simultaneously under a fixed- term appointment at half-time and a short-term part-time appointment. After being restored to their full-time fixed-term status they complained about the rates of remuneration received by them under their short-term contracts. "The principle which guarantees equal remuneration for work of equal value [...] is designed to prevent discrimination by employers between employees and to ensure that persons performing different work of the same or similar value shall receive equal remuneration. The organization is right to submit that its most common application is to the classification or grading of jobs [...]. That principle was never intended to apply so as to give rise to a claim by an individual to be paid at the same rate for all work which he or she performs: differential rates for work performed under different conditions, such as overtime to take a common example, are not discriminatory. In the present case there is nothing improper in the who's paying lower rates to persons such as the complainants doing temporary work on a short-term basis."
Keywords:
amount; budgetary reasons; condition; contract; difference; enforcement; equal treatment; fixed-term; general principle; official; organisation; overtime; part-time employment; post classification; safeguard; salary; scale; short-term; status of complainant; terms of appointment;
Judgment 2017
90th Session, 2001
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 2(A)
Extract:
"The complainant enjoyed the status of official from October 1974 to the end of December 1992. From 1 January 1993 to 31 December 1994 he was employed on the basis of special agreements, which contained an arbitration clause providing for an "arbitral panel" composed of three members. The Tribunal's jurisdiction is therefore limited to the effects of the relationship between the [organisation] and the complainant from October 1974 to the end of December 1992."
Keywords:
arbitration; competence of tribunal; contract; date; external collaborator; limits; ratione personae; status of complainant;
Judgment 2008
90th Session, 2001
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 4
Extract:
"[The organization] submits that the Tribunal is not competent to entertain the complaint because, having left [the organization] many years ago the complainant is not in a position to assert any statutory or contractual rights: he benefited from a special extra-statutory arrangement made ex gratia and may not assert for his family any right arising under the terms of his appointment. The objection to the Tribunal's jurisdiction fails: [the organization] allowed its former employee to retain coverage by a health insurance scheme which he had originally been able to join only because of his employment relationship with [it]. Whether the continued protection he was granted albeit ex gratia may also be extended to his family can be determined only by ascertaining his rights as a former employee of the organization."
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; complainant; ex gratia; extension of contract; health insurance; locus standi; medical expenses; receivability of the complaint; right; status of complainant; tribunal;
Judgment 1964
89th Session, 2000
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 4
Extract:
"It is within the competence of the Tribunal to determine whether or not there is a contract of appointment by which the parties are bound and which would entitle the official covered by the contract to the rights enjoyed by the officials of an organisation that has recognised the Tribunal's jurisdiction. However, in the material case, the [organisation's] agreement to appoint the complainant was subject to the fulfilment of a condition which cannot be said to be a mere formality, namely, recognition that he was physically fit enough to discharge his functions. [...] Consequently, the complainant, who has never been an employee of the [organisation], is raising a matter which is not within the scope of the Tribunal's competence."
Keywords:
appointment; competence of tribunal; complainant; complaint; condition; contract; locus standi; medical examination; non official; offer; offer withdrawn; official; receivability of the complaint; status of complainant; tribunal;
Judgment 1752
85th Session, 1998
International Labour Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 11
Extract:
The complainant's wife, who was a member of the staff of the International Labour Office committed suicide. Among other things, the complainant seeks awards of damages for the moral injury suffered by his wife as well as by his son and himself. "[The complainant] has access to the Tribunal under Article II(6) of its Statute only as the successor to any rights his wife may have had, since she alone was an official of the ILO. He may claim damages only for moral injury he says she suffered in its employ because of its failure to treat her with due care or for whatever other reason."
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE II(6) OF THE STATUTE
Keywords:
injury; locus standi; moral injury; ratione personae; receivability of the complaint; respect for dignity; status of complainant; successor;
Judgment 1554
81st Session, 1996
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 10
Extract:
"The complainant is wrong in contending that for challenging the non-renewal of his contract the time limit of ninety days was somehow held over because of a connexion with his application for a post. His complaint shows two distinct elements: the non-renewal of his contract on 31 January 1994 and his unsuccessful application for a post in April 1994. His failure to file a complaint with the Tribunal within ninety days of 31 January 1994 means that any claim in relation to his contract is time-barred. As for his application for a post, by the time he made it he was no longer an employee of the Organisation. Since an outside candidate for employment does not have access to the Tribunal his complaint is irreceivable in that regard as well."
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE VII OF THE STATUTE
Keywords:
candidate; competition; complainant; contract; external candidate; locus standi; non-renewal of contract; ratione personae; receivability of the complaint; status of complainant; time bar; time limit;
Judgment 1542
81st Session, 1996
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
"A complaint is receivable only if it is about an individual official's status as an employee of the organisation, not about the collective interests of trade unionists." Insofar as the present complaint purports to be made on behalf of a trade union it is irreceivable.
Keywords:
cause of action; competence of tribunal; complainant; complaint; contract; locus standi; receivability of the complaint; staff representative; staff union; status of complainant;
Consideration 5
Extract:
"This complaint, which seeks the grant of staff union facilities [...], does concern the exercise of the freedom of association that Article 30 of the Service Regulations guarantees. So the Tribunal is competent ratione materiae under Article II(5) and (6)(a) of its Statute, whereby it is open to any official - even one whose employment has ceased - who alleges breach in substance or in form of the Staff Regulations."
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE II (5) AND (6)(A) OF THE STATUTE
Organization rules reference: ARTICLE 30 OF THE EPO SERVICE REGULATIONS
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; complainant; complaint; facilities; freedom of association; iloat statute; locus standi; receivability of the complaint; staff regulations and rules; staff representative; staff union; staff union activity; status of complainant; vested competence;
Consideration 7
Extract:
"The complainant has no locus standi to make a claim against his former employer. After dismissal he no longer had any connection with the EPO in law. Nor, since he was in the EPO's employ for under ten years, is he entitled [...] to draw a pension: he can therefore derive no cause of action from the breach of any provision of the EPO's Rules and Regulations."
Keywords:
breach; cause of action; complainant; complaint; locus standi; receivability of the complaint; seniority; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant; termination of employment;
Judgment 1539
81st Session, 1996
European Free Trade Association
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 7
Extract:
"Since the complainant was in Switzerland at the time of recruitment she was not locally recruited for employment at the Brussels Office. It is true that the Association was free to incorporate in the letters of appointment a clause saying that she was nevertheless deemed to have local status. [...] For want of a clause expressly prescribing local status the presumption is that the parties did not agree that she should have such status. The conclusion is that the contracts, read together with the Staff Regulations, set out all the terms and conditions of employment, which conferred non-local status on the complainant and gave the association no right or power to treat her as having any other. And even if there was doubt on that score it was the association, which was the source of all the relevant documents, that had the duty to resolve it."
Keywords:
complainant; contract; duty station; intention of parties; local status; non-local status; offer; organisation's duties; place of origin; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant; terms of appointment;
Consideration 13
Extract:
"Inasmuch as the letters of appointment say nothing of 'local' or 'non-local' status, the Tribunal will treat the facts of the case as decisive. A contractual provision on status would be necessary only if the matter were uncertain or if the parties had agreed that she should have a status different to the status that the facts determine. Since such agreement would involve a waiver by the complainant of her rights of non-local status, it may not be presumed in the absence of clear evidence of such waiver."
Keywords:
appraisal of evidence; contract; evidence; intention of parties; local status; non-local status; place of origin; status of complainant; terms of appointment;
Consideration 12
Extract:
"The material issue is not what the complainant believed her status to be. Whatever she may have believed is immaterial to the meaning and effect of her contract. Her contract implicitly gave her non-local status".
Keywords:
contract; local status; non-local status; status of complainant;
Judgment 1509
81st Session, 1996
United Nations Industrial Development Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 16
Extract:
When the complainant lodged a claim to reinstatement "he was neither a serving nor a former official of UNIDO, to which he was no more than an outside applicant for employment and whose decision was in fact a refusal to recruit him. That decision raises no question of non-observance of the terms of appointment of an official of UNIDO, or of its Staff Regulations. So again the Tribunal may not entertain the claim."
Keywords:
appointment; breach; candidate; competence of tribunal; competition; complainant; contract; external candidate; locus standi; official; refusal; reinstatement; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Consideration 13
Extract:
"The fact that UNIDO was administering the [joint UN and UNIDO service in which the complainant was working] made neither the complainant one of its officials nor the organization a party to the contract of employment. According to his letters of appointment the complainant was subject to the Staff Regulations and Staff Rules of the United Nations, not of UNIDO. And even if in administering the service UNIDO did apply its own Staff Regulations to the complainant he did not on that account become a member of its staff. So any complaint by him that UNDO failed to apply, or misapplied, its Staff Regulations to him is not within the Tribunal's competence."
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE 11 OF THE STATUTE
Keywords:
applicable law; competence of tribunal; contract; iloat statute; locus standi; non official; official; rule of another organisation; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Consideration 12
Extract:
"Article II(5) empowers the Tribunal to hear a complaint which an official of an international organisation that has duly recognised its jurisdiction has filed and which alleges non-observance of either the terms of the official's appointment or the Staff Regulations. As the Tribunal said in Judgment 231 [...], those are 'two conditions which in practice coincide'. The reference to 'Staff Regulations' means those of the organisation of which a complainant is or was an official and does not include the Staff Regulations of any other."
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE II(5) OF THE STATUTE
ILOAT Judgment(s): 231
Keywords:
applicable law; breach; case law; competence of tribunal; contract; declaration of recognition; iloat statute; locus standi; official; rule of another organisation; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Judgment 1450
79th Session, 1995
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 20
Extract:
Having been denied permanent appointments, the complainants are seeking compensation failing reinstatement. The EPO pleads that the claim is irreceivable for failure to exhaust the internal remedies open to them. "The EPO fails in its preliminary objection to the complainants' claim to damages. [...] It may not refuse the complainants access to the appeal procedure on the grounds that they are 'auxiliary' staff, yet say that they ought, in what amounted to preliminary appeal [...] to have demarcated the full ambit of any future litigation."
Keywords:
claim; good faith; internal appeal; internal remedies exhausted; material damages; organisation's duties; receivability of the complaint; status of complainant;
Judgment 1399
78th Session, 1995
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 7
Extract:
"The first [question] is whether the complainant may come to the Tribunal if he is no longer on the staff of CERN and that is the reason why the Director-General has declined to entertain his internal appeal. There need be no doubt about the answer. [...] The Tribunal is open to any official, 'even' - as Article II (6)(a) of the Statute puts it - 'if his employment has ceased', who lodges a complaint alleging non-observance of the terms of his contract or of the rules that apply to him."
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE II (6)(A) OF THE STATUTE
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; former official; iloat statute; locus standi; ratione materiae; ratione personae; receivability of the complaint; status of complainant;
Consideration 10
Extract:
"Inasmuch as Rule VI 1.01 [of the Staff Regulations] confers the right of appeal on 'every member of the personnel' it may be that someone does forfeit that right on leaving the organization and so ceasing to be a staff member provided that the issues they are objecting to or the decisions they are challenging did not occur before they left. There is no danger thereby of any miscarriage of justice since [...] a former official who alleges breach of contract or of the rules he was subject to may still come to the Tribunal."
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: CERN STAFF REGULATION VI 1.01
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; former official; internal appeal; locus standi; ratione personae; right of appeal; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Judgment 1317
76th Session, 1994
International Telecommunication Union
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations 20-21
Extract:
The ITU alleges that as a member of project personnel the complainant could not expect his appointment to be renewed after a restructuring exercise, unlike headquarters officials whose appointments were extended. "It is clear from the Staff Regulations and the relevant rules that the provisions on fixed-term appointments are in substance the same for both [headquarters and project personnel]. [...] The Union is mistaken in relying on [a rule] to rebut the complainant's charge of discrimination in favour of other staff".
Keywords:
contract; equal treatment; fixed-term; headquarters official; legitimate expectation; non-renewal of contract; project personnel; reorganisation; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Judgment 1302
76th Session, 1994
European Southern Observatory
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 9
Extract:
The complainant submits but the organisation denies that he had the status of an ESO official. "The fact of the matter is that [a private company] employed him on its own behalf, not as an agent of the ESO. Since he is wrong in contending that the ESO was his employer the Tribunal is not competent to entertain his complaint, and it must fail."
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; complaint; locus standi; non official; official; receivability of the complaint; status of complainant;
Judgment 1292
75th Session, 1993
Universal Postal Union
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
"When the Director-General asks the Swiss government to confer diplomatic status, he is exercising his discretion. [...] So the Tribunal will not interfere with his decision unless he has committed some procedural or formal error or a mistake of law or of fact, or applied some wrong principle, or drawn illogical conclusions from the evidence before him."
Keywords:
discretion; executive head; flaw; judicial review; mistake of fact; mistaken conclusion; privileges and immunities; procedural flaw; status of complainant;
Judgment 1237
74th Session, 1993
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 3
Extract:
"As was held in Judgment 1166, under 2, unpaid associates come under 'non-established members of the personnel' by virtue of [CERN Staff] Rule I 2.01. Being an unpaid associate the complainant was not entitled to unemployment benefit, which CERN grants only to 'established members of the personnel'."
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: CERN STAFF RULE I 2.01
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1166
Keywords:
allowance; right; social benefits; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Judgment 1220
74th Session, 1993
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 4
Extract:
The complainant is challenging a decision whereby another official, he alleges, was wrongfully granted or allowed to keep financial and other benefits. The complainant was no longer in the WHO's employ when the impugned decision was taken. "As the Tribunal held in Judgment 732 [...], a complaint 'would succeed only if the complainant had suffered injury and established a sufficient causal link between the organization's act and the injury'; and again, in Judgment 764 [...] 'a decision by an international organisation is challengeable before the Tribunal only if it causes the complainant injury'. the complainant having suffered no injury and being therefore unable to show any cause of action, his application is irreceivable and must fail."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 732, 764
Keywords:
application for execution; case law; cause; cause of action; complaint; injury; lack of injury; receivability of the complaint; status of complainant;
Judgment 1166
73rd Session, 1992
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 3
Extract:
"The organization challenges the Tribunal's competence on the grounds that it has no employment relationship with the complainant: an unpaid associate like him does not serve CERN and is not subject to its rules, and the organization does not pay the complainant for his work. The plea fails. [...] It is not in dispute that CERN has recognised the Tribunal's jurisdiction, as indeed is reflected in Rule VI 1.05 of its Staff Rules. Moreover, the complainant, who belongs to the staff of CERN as an unpaid associate, is alleging non-observance of provisions of the Staff Rules and Regulations. As for his not working for CERN, not being subject to its rules and not getting payment from it, those are issues that have a bearing, not on the Tribunal's competence, but on the receivability of his complaint. The Tribunal has jurisdiction."
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: CERN STAFF RULE VI 1.05
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; declaration of recognition; receivability of the complaint; salary; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Considerations 4-5
Extract:
"The organization contends that the complaint is irreceivable. In its submission the complainant has no locus standi because he was not an official of CERN, had no relationship of employment with it, did not work for it and was subject to its rules only to a strictly limited extent. [...] In accordance with the terms of his appointment and [the relevant] Staff Rules the complainant was [...] free to [...] lodge a complaint as a member of CERN's staff. [...] But the complaint is irreceivable for another reason [...] the decision he impugns is irrelevant to his contract with CERN".
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; contract; decision; locus standi; receivability of the complaint; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Judgment 1147
72nd Session, 1992
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 4
Extract:
"The Staff Committee, which does not even have personality in law, may not itself appeal. But its members may nevertheless rely on their position as such to ensure observance of the Regulations. Indeed that is why Article 34(2) empowers them to enforce their rights. Were that not so the system of staff representation set up by the EPO would prove meaningless. The staff member has a direct interest in making the organisation respect his rights because he derives them directly from his status as such. The contingency is one that Article II of the Tribunal's Statute contemplates. If the EPO were right, a further effect would be to hamper the functioning of a body established under the Service Regulations and acting within the bounds of authority the Regulations set."
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE II OF THE STATUTE
Organization rules reference: ARTICLE 34(2) OF THE EPO SERVICE REGULATIONS
Keywords:
collective rights; competence of tribunal; locus standi; staff regulations and rules; staff union; status of complainant;
Judgment 1052
69th Session, 1990
International Labour Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Summary
Extract:
The complainant worked in the International Labour Office as a language teacher. Though the complainant was not an ILO official, the Tribunal is competent to hear the complaint under Article II(4) of its Statute.
Reference(s)
ILOAT reference: ARTICLE II(4) OF THE STATUTE
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; contract; iloat statute; locus standi; status of complainant;
Judgment 967
66th Session, 1989
General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
The application of the Staff Regulations to the complainant "was expressly excluded by his successive contracts of employment." As a result the Tribunal is not competent to hear the complaint.
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; contract; locus standi; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
