Yesterday, United Nations Dispute Tribunal Judge Memooda Ebrahim-Carstens issued a judgment in the long pending case of Artjon Shkurtaj, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) whistleblower who made much publicized disclosures regarding UNDP wrongdoing at its North Korean office. The judge ordered Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to award Shkurtaj fourteen months’ net base salary as compensation for the failure of the ad hoc External Independent Investigative Review Panel (EIIRP) – appointed by UNDP to investigate the case – to allow Shkurtaj to comment on adverse findings contained in its publicly released report.

According to the decision:

Even if the EIIRP did not identify the applicant as the subject of its investigation, its report contained significant adverse findings about his credibility, trustworthiness and integrity. The Tribunal finds that not only was the applicant not given an opportunity to respond to these adverse findings, he was not even made aware of the EIIRP’s concerns regarding his credibility at any point prior to the issuance of the report. The Tribunal is persuaded by the applicant’s argument that the report of the EIIRP contained adverse findings against him and that, in the particular circumstances of this case, he should have been made aware of them prior to the issuance of the report and provided with the opportunity to comment on them and provide his explanations. Therefore, the Ethics Office’s finding that there was a violation of the applicant’s procedural right to be made aware of—and to have the opportunity to respond to—the adverse findings concerning his credibility and trustworthiness was reasonable and justified. This is particularly so considering the report was made public, following which there was no further process made available to the applicant to contest these findings. This failure resulted in a violation of the applicant’s due process rights, damaged his career prospects and professional reputation, and caused him emotional distress, for all of which he should be compensated. (para. 47)

The Judge also ordered the respondent to pay an additional $5,000 as compensation for its inordinate delay in considering the UN Ethics Office’s June 2008 decision in Shkurtaj’s case. According to Judge Ebrahim-Carstens, “to date, i.e. in over two years, UNDP has not made a decision on the Ethics Office’s recommendation to compensate the applicant as stated in its report dated 27 June 2008.” Again, according to the ruling:

World Radio Switzerland: Former Bankers Willing to Blow Whistle

This story features an interview with GAP's Homeland Security and Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack about four Swiss bankers who may come forward with information about billions of dollars of fraud and tax evasion committed by affluent Americans.

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U.K. Guardian: Hewlett-Packard Pays $55m to Settle 'Kickbacks' Case

HP has agreed to pay $55 million to settle U.S. government claims that it paid other IT companies to recommend its products, and misled government agencies over contract pricing. The suit was initially brought by a whistleblower.

Related Article: Federal News Radio

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CNN: FDA Reports Numerous Violations at Egg Farms

Deeper investigations into Iowa farms at the center of the recent egg recall and salmonella outbreak have exposed numerous other violations, including the presence of rodents, maggots, piles of manure, and chickens tracking manure into henhouses. The farms in question failed to properly respond to new egg-safety rules imposed by the FDA after the outbreak began in mid-July, and will continue to be inspected in coming weeks.

Washington Post: U.S. Citizens Who Say They Were Tortured Get Their Day in Court

This editorial from the Washington Post questions a federal District Court decision, which allowed a torture lawsuit brought by American citizens to proceed against high-level U.S. officials, including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

The editorial suggests that judges should not be "second-guessing or micromanaging" the executive's battlefield decisions. Yet the plaintiffs' kidnapping and torture -- which occurred three years after the invasion of Iraq began -- was made possible by the harsh-interrogation tactic policies put forth by high-level Bush administration officials, including Rumsfeld.

The real responsibility lies with these officers, argues GAP Homeland Security & Human Rights Director Jesselyn Radack. None of these persons have been held accountable for the use of coercive interrogation techniques. Furthermore, this case reflects the larger problem of U.S. citizens being treated as "enemy combatants," or taken captive for fear of their potential whistleblowing.

Click here to read more on GAP's blog

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Associated Press: Climate Science Panel Needs Change at the Top

An independent review panel is recommending that the U.N. International Panel on Climate Change undergo major reform of its leadership process and the methods by which it manages the assessment of climate change.

Related Article: New York Times

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The New York Times: Lenders Back Off of Environmental Risks

Large banks are curtailing lending projects that are regarded as detrimental to the environment, as well as damaging to their reputations. Most recently, Wells Fargo stated it was backing off from financing mountaintop removal mining -- a controversial process that involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the debris below. These policy changes reflect a global interest in developing best practices for assessing the environmental risks of financed projects.

The Washington Post has an editorial today, U.S. citizens who say they were tortured get their day in court, questioning a federal District Court decision, which allowed a torture lawsuit to proceed against high level U.S. officials, including former Secretary of Defense Donald "I stand for 8-10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to four hours?" Rumsfeld.

While the Washington Post says, “Judges should not be in the business of second-guessing or micromanaging the executive's battlefield decisions.”

I submit that the Washington Post should not be in the business of second-guessing judicial decisions.

The Post implies there are other avenues available to hold high-level officials accountable, and the plaintiffs “should have availed themselves of processes within the military justice system to ferret out and punish miscreants.”

Prosecuting the Charles Graner's and Lynndie England’s of the torture universe is a band-aid on a bullet wound. The real responsibility lies at the top of the heap with the lawyers and officials who conceived the policies, none of whom have been held accountable for the use of coercive interrogation techniques (a.k.a. torture).

While it's not clear from the editorial, the American citizen plaintiffs were not taken captive, blindfolded, strip-searched, held incommunicado almost entirely in solitary confinement often with blaring music, denied food and water, and subjected to sensory deprivation and harsh interrogation tactics for their own protection.  They were taken captive because the powers that be feared the plaintiffs' potential whistleblowing.

The plaintiffs' kidnapping had nothing had nothing to do with the battlefield.  They were kidnapped in 2006, three years after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.  They were held at Camp Cropper, not in some temporary battlefield tent.

A recent Washington Post column sheds much-needed light on long overdue federal whistleblower reform currently pending in Congress. America is at the climax of a major campaign to overhaul the Whistleblower Protection Act (WPA), which has been gutted after years of hostile judicial activism. A federal whistleblower’s only legal recourse is a costly administrative hearing at Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB), and an option to appeal to the Federal Circuit. Yet, as the column points out, these forums rule against the whistleblower on the merits over 95% of the time.

This offers little light at the end of the tunnel for employees who put the public interest before their own when they make the brave decision to report waste, fraud, abuse, or public safety threats. Common forms of retaliation include demotion, security clearance removal, blacklisting, isolation to a storage room or house arrest, and termination. Harassment compounded by legal fees invariably results in economic duress for the whistleblower, and even isolation by friends and family. Still, whistleblowers proceed anyway, unable to turn a blind eye to contaminated meat, nuclear waste in the backyard of a school, or mistreatment of veterans.

They deserve better.

Washington City Paper: FOP - Lanier Could be Fired

A civil suit initiated in 2005 was resolved on Thursday when a jury ruled that senior Washington, D.C. police officials illegally retaliated against Martin Freeman - a police officer who blew the whistle on an unlawful security arrangement. Two other officers who had planned to work with Freeman and were wrongfully suspended also joined the lawsuit.

The court ruled that Chief Cathy Lanier - the commander of the officer's unit - violated DC's Whistleblower Protection Act and could be fired.

In another case also involving the D.C. Whistleblower Protection Act, a Superior Court Judge ruled in a D.C. Fire Department whistleblower suit that recent amendments to the DCWPA allow the law to apply retroactively to previously barred claims.

Key Quote: But Richard Condit of the Government Accountability Project seems to think it's [Lanier's dismissal] at least possible. He cites the following passage from the amended DC Whistleblower protection act: a) As part of the relief ordered in an administrative, arbitration or judicial proceeding, any person who is found to have violated § 1-615.53 or § 2-223.02 shall be subject to appropriate disciplinary action including dismissal.

Related Article: Washington Post

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Associated Press: US Wasted Billions in Rebuilding Iraq

As the U.S. scales down its presence in Iraq, it leaves in its wake hundreds of abandoned or incomplete projects. An analysis of over 300 reports by auditors shows that the U.S. has squandered $5 billion in U.S. taxpayer funds on projects -such as a $40 million empty prison, a $165 million unused children's hospital, and a $100 million nonfunctional waste water treatment system.