Last week I blogged on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's proposal that whistleblowers be denied the ability to challenge Ethics Office decisions before the UN internal justice system – the mechanism through which UN employees contest violations of their rights. Because the Ethics Office, which is charged with reviewing retaliation complaints and safeguarding the interests of whistleblowers, has ultimately substantiated retaliation in less than 1% of cases it has reviewed since August 2007, the Secretary-General's proposal would result in UN whistleblowers having little recourse when they are subjected to retaliation and would effectively render whistleblower protections at the United Nations meaningless.

GAP has learned that the judges of the United Nations Dispute Tribunal (UNDT), the court of first instance of the UN's two-tier justice system, are also opposed to the Secretary-General's proposal.

In October, UNDT President Judge Memooda Ebrahim-Carstens sent a letter to the General Assembly opposing Ban's proposal to amend UNDT's statutes to remove authority to review the decisions of the Ethics Office and the Office of Internal Oversight Services, which investigates misconduct. The judges observed that the proposal is "tantamount to allowing these entities to exercise power without accountability" and would "raise serious concerns regarding the respect for the rule of law within the Organization, especially taking into account the far-reaching consequences for staff members of decisions taken by such independent entities." [emphasis added]

Courtesy of Flickr user electric.porcupineThe New York Times: Olympus Hid Investing Losses in Big Merger Payouts

Summary: Major camera company Olympus has admitted to hiding years of losses on investments through large merger payments. The company had previously denied any wrongdoing. 

The case was first brought by a former executive turned whistleblower who was fired for attempting to investigate a series of acquisitions made before he was appointed. Now, a panel of outside experts has validated his concerns, making this potentially “one of the biggest accounting fraud cases in corporate history.”

DC Circuit Review: Circuits Split on First-to-File Rule for Whistleblower Suits

Summary: A DC Circuit Court ruled that if a whistleblower files a qui tam suit against a company suspected of defrauding the government, but fails to fully comply with a specific procedure, another whistleblower cannot file a suit alleging the same wrongdoing, even if this suit is procedurally correct, because of the "first-to-file" rule. 

However, this ruling contradicts an earlier Sixth Circuit Court ruling holding that only properly filed suits “can have a preemptive effect” because a strict reading of the "first-to-file" rule would encourage filing of insufficient suits just to be ‘first in line.’

Hindustan Times (India): UP Calls Whistleblower DIG Insane, Hospitalizes Him

Summary: A whistleblower who revealed the corrupt actions of politicians in a provincial government in India was labeled as mentally ill by the same government and forcibly hospitalized. 

India has a notoriously bad track record with protecting whistleblowers. This individual – a deputy inspector general (policeman) for the provincial fire services department – said that he feared for his life when he was speaking out.

Key Quote: “If I am arrested or killed, my family members should be aware of the facts,” [the whistleblower] said. “I have discussed the issue with my wife before exposing corruption in the fire services department.”

The government responded by forcibly taking Mishra to the psychiatric ward of Chahtrapati Shahuji Maharaj Medical University, saying he had a “mental problem”.

Related Article: IBN Live (India)

Main Justice: Issa, Grassley Say Sensitive Information About ATF Whistleblower Was Leaked

Summary: Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) have sent a letter to the Attorney General, stating that sensitive information was leaked about the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives whistleblower who disclosed problems related to the 'Fast & Furious' scandal, which led to American guns falling into the hands of Mexican drug cartels. The senators are asking which officials in the Justice Department had access to that information.

At a film screening of The Whistleblower at UN headquarters in New York last month, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon claimed to be committed to protecting whistleblowers. He said that the film, which details the true story of the United Nations' complicity in the sex-trafficking industry in Bosnia, "underscores how important it is to speak out against abuse or injustice ... Those who do so, in good faith, must not be punished ... We need to promote a culture in which people feel free and obliged to raise their voices in the face of wrongdoing and abuse."

The sad truth, however, is that the Secretary-General is not promoting that culture. In fact, he's doing the opposite.

In 2007, he sanctioned the fragmentation of the UN's whistleblower protection policy and allowed weaker standards to apply to funds and programmes. Now, he's taking this a step further, essentially proposing that whistleblowers be denied access to the UN internal justice system – the mechanism through which UN employees contest violations of their rights.

If passed, this horrendous proposal would effectively render whistleblower protections at the United Nations meaningless.

According to paragraph 276 of the Secretary-General's report to the General Assembly: (A/66/275) "a determination by the Ethics Office regarding retaliation should not be subject to challenge before the Dispute Tribunal." In paragraph 280, the Secretary-General recommends that the Tribunal's statutes be revised so that decisions made by the UN Ethics Office, which is charged with reviewing retaliation complaints and safeguarding the interests of whistleblowers, could no longer be appealed to the UN justice system.

Courtesy of Flickr user C-SPAN CommunityGovernment Executive: Whistleblower Protection Bill Clears House Oversight Panel

Summary: The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unanimously approved the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act yesterday. This key legislation would increase protections for federal whistleblowers. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee already approved a similar version of the bill last month. 

Click here to read GAP's full take on this exciting development!

Related Articles: Washington Post, Federal Times

Climate Science Watch: Interview on Muller Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature Study

Summary: The Director of Climate Science Watch – a GAP-sponsored program that holds public officials accountable for their use of climate change research – was interviewed on Al Jazeera English to discuss a recent study confirming some climate change data, even though the study was funded by a foundation that regularly supports climate change deniers.

Key Quote: The obstacles to action on climate change are not really about science and science communication anymore; they’re about politics, and the political resistance to taking action.

GAP today praised the unanimous action of a 35-0 vote by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to approve HR 3289, the Platts-Van Hollen Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2011.

This legislation – the companion bill to the Senate's Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (WPEA) legislation, passed last month – is a long-overdue overhaul of the ineffective Whistleblower Protection Act, the primary statute to protect federal whistleblowers who report waste, fraud and abuse.

The Committee introduced the legislation this past Tuesday. The WPEA was blocked from passage last Congress by an anonymous hold placed hours before adjournment, after the reform had passed, in some form, both the Senate and House of Representatives unanimously.

GAP Legal Director Tom Devine commented, "In the last month, nearly identical overhauls to give federal whistleblowers their strongest rights in history have passed both House and Senate committees unanimously. Congress should complete enactment of this long-overdue taxpayer reform before Christmas. No plan to cut federal waste and misspending will be credible without these protections."

Devine continued, "Fine tuning to the language is still needed before the law is ready, but the moment of truth will be whether the final House bill includes protections for intelligence community workers. Chairman Issa is courageously defending those whistleblowers despite threats from the House Intelligence committee to kill the entire reform if it includes modest protections for those workers – which were negotiated over seven months by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Whistleblowers from intelligence agencies have shown that the notion of secrecy is used to bilk taxpayers, enact hidden agendas that hurt national security, and threaten Americans' privacy. Credible whistleblower protections also are essential to stopping anonymous leaks by providing a safe alternative."

A coalition partner of GAP's International program – Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) – co-released a study earlier today that profiled 280 of our country's most profitable companies, and found that 78 paid no federal income tax in at least one of the last three years.

GAP and CTJ are both members of the FACT (Financial Accountability and Corporate Transparency) Coalition because of common ground in international anti-corruption work. Many corporations and wealthy American citizens escape taxes by parking assets abroad, often illegally. Once privately-owned assets have been moved to "secrecy" jurisdictions (e.g. the Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands) they are very hard to trace and tax.

One notable whistleblower who exposed such financial malfeasance is Bradley Birkenfeld, who revealed schemes involving financial services behemoth UBS (out of Switzerland) and approximately 52,000 wealthy corporate and individual US taxpayers.

This new report was co-released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. The study is online here.

Bea Edwards is Executive Director at the Government Accountability Project, the nation's leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization.