17 LAWYER MONTHLY ADR AWARDS 2024 International Arbitration Lawyer of the Year USA Q of “disputes arising out of contracts or other disputes of a private law character to which the United Nations is a party.” Thus, as Senior Legal Officer in the United Nations, handling and resolving claims against and by the Organization, my principal responsibility included drafting dispute settlement clauses consistent with the Convention, offering to settle claims amicably or through mediation and, if not, through arbitration, as well as applying these clauses in all cases arising from UN contracting activities and its development cooperation and peacekeeping operations. Given your role in resolving disputes in UN peacekeeping operations, what unique challenges do you encounter in mediating international disputes? Main Challenges: The transition from my experience as an attorney and then a Judge in Uganda where almost all disputes are adjudicated (Uganda is a Common Law Country), was not easy. ADR has only been introduced in Uganda, formally, in the last 10 years, despite the fact that the majority of the people in Uganda traditionally resolve disputes through reconciliation and mediation, by clan elders and local chiefs. My first case at the United Nations was a claim by survivors of UN officials and experts that were killed while flying as passengers in a small aircraft owned by a state owned airline, that crashed on the way to the Capital City in the midst of a storm. The Government Aviation investigation determined that the aircraft was not airworthy and the pilot did not follow standard procedures in undertaking and operating the aircraft in the midst of a storm. Unfortunately, these findings enabled Lloyds, the airline underwriters, to deny liability or entertain any claims arising from the accident. The UN sought to recover compensation from the airline directly but failed. Through private Counsel, the UN initiated a law suit in the Courts in Tanzania which was dismissed on the grounds that since the UN is immune, it cannot litigate in the local courts. It is at that juncture, after more than four years of trying informal negotiation, that I initiated resolution of the case through diplomatic intervention by the UN Secretary-General with the President of Tanzania. An offer was made by the UN to compensate the Survivors,from funds held by the UN for Tanzania, using the the standard compensation formula for victims of aircraft accidents under the rules of the Warsaw or Montreal Convent. The President of Tanzania accepted the offer and the survivors of the victims of the accident were compensated. I give this unique example to demonstrate the delicacy of resolving international disputes, especially when they arise from civil disputes. The other cases arising from the Kosovo and Lebanon investigations are too delicate to elaborate here but they were equally, if not more complicated, as individual Governments of which the personnel involved were citizens, were involved in espousing the claims of the survivors. The resolution of the claims after the investigations completed, were handled diplomatically at the highest level of the Organization and the Governments involved. The results of the investigations formed the basis of the eventual resolution of those disputes. The other claims and incidents I handled involved contractors supplying equipment or services to the United Nations in the peacekeeping missions. These were much easier to resolve, mostly through negotiations with the contractors and occasionally mediation followed by arbitration where no settlement was not reached. An example of one such
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