United Nations Organization

• 20 May 2019

Why is it in News?

The Delhi High Court has directed that the United Nations Organization (UNO) is not a State under Article 12 of the Constitution of India and is not compliant to its jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution.

Section 86 of Civil Procedure Code, 1908:

• Under section 86 of the CrPC, 1908 a foreign State may be sued in any Court with the consent of the Central government.
• A former UNO employee who was sentenced to 97 months imprisonment for misconduct maintains that the rightful process was not followed by the UNO in the trial and sought the permission of Ministry of External Affairs to initiate legal action against the UNO under section 86 of Civil Procedure Code, 1908.
• However, the Ministry replied that the consent of the Government of India is not needed to open a legal suit against UNO as it is not a foreign state and is only an Internal Organization.

Immunity to UNO:

• As per the Ministry, the UNO and its officials enjoy immunity under the United Nations (Privileges and Immunities) Act, 1947.
• As per Section 2 of Article II of the Schedule of Act, 1947, UNO has immunity from every form of legal process except in any case where it has expressly waived its immunity.
• The immunity granted is all comprehensive and applicability of any national law is subject to the waiver of the immunity by UNO.
• In the present case the UNO has not waived its immunity and hence the national laws cannot be applied in this case.