Administration of Justice at the United Nations

A/RES/80/238View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A document of the General Assembly, under agenda item 146Administration of justice at the United Nations, published in 2025.

What other versions does this mandate have?

23 versions · 2004–2025

2025A/RES/80/238Administration of justice at the United NationsLatestCompare with previous version
2024A/RES/79/254Administration of justice at the United NationsCompare with previous version
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Who cites this mandate in the budget?

5 entities

Extracted automatically from each entity’s budget submission.

What subjects does this mandate have?

9 topics

Accountability Administration of Justice Grievance Procedures Labour Disputes Legal Remedies Legal Services Mediation Multilingualism Racial Discrimination

What does this mandate say?

25 operative paragraphs

Takes note of the report of the Secretary-General on administration of justice at the United Nations and on the activities of the Office of the United Nations Ombudsman and Mediation Services, the report of the Internal Justice Council on administration of justice at the United Nations and the related report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions;

Endorses the conclusions and recommendations contained in the report of the Advisory Committee;

I.System of administration of justice

Emphasizes the importance of the principle of judicial independence in the system of administration of justice;

Stresses the importance of ensuring access for all staff members to the system of administration of justice, regardless of their duty station;

Acknowledges the evolving nature of the system of administration of justice and the need to carefully monitor its implementation to ensure that it remains within the parameters set out by the General Assembly;

‎Reaffirms its decision, contained in paragraph 4 of its resolution 61/261, to establish a new, independent, transparent, professionalized, adequately resourced and decentralized system of administration of justice consistent with the relevant rules of international law and the principles of the rule of law and due process to ensure respect for the rights and obligations of staff members and the accountability of managers and staff members alike;

Requests the Secretary-General to continue to ensure a strong culture of accountability throughout the Secretariat, in particular with proactive and transparent application of the United Nations three-pillared approach to the management of misconduct, namely, prevention, enforcement and remedial action, and to ensure access to effective remedies for all categories of personnel;

Notes the potential impact of the UN80 Initiative on the functioning of the system of administration of justice, notes the expected increase in caseloads across the system of administration of justice, further notes with concern the increase in requests to the Management Advice and Evaluation Section and the Office of Staff Legal Assistance, and requests the Secretary-General to continue to collect and report statistics on caseloads, processing times and settlements for the various entities, including those based in the field, and to provide enhanced trend analysis and assessment of the functioning of the system including in the light of the UN80 Initiative in his next annual report, and to identify measures, within existing resources, to manage caseloads and limit litigation;

Recalls paragraphs 16 and 19 of the report of the Advisory Committee, requests the Secretary-General to provide further information and additional proposals for a potential cost-efficient single repository database, including modalities for the possible use of artificial intelligence limited to support tasks and while ensuring full accountability of staff, and to present revised and updated proposals to the General Assembly at its eighty-third session;

Also recalls paragraph 23 of the report of the Advisory Committee, and requests the Secretary-General to intensify his efforts to implement multilingualism within the system of administration of justice, and also requests the Secretary-General to report on his efforts to continue to promote multilingualism in the system of administration of justice in the context of his future reports;

Further recalls paragraph 23 of the report of the Advisory Committee, invites the Secretary-General to present costed and phased options to improve multilingual access to the jurisprudence, including the Caselaw portal, while avoiding the accumulation of new backlogs;

Recalls that, in section XII, paragraph 9, of its resolution 78/253 of 22 December 2023 and paragraph 17 of its resolution 79/254, it requested the collection of comprehensive and reliable data regarding racism and racial discrimination and their trends, which do not include workforce composition, and the Secretary-General to report on remedial actions taken, and decides that, should the Secretary-General begin to collect race-related data from staff members, it shall only be on a voluntary basis and be used only in anonymized and aggregated form and for the sole purpose of taking remedial actions to reverse patterns of racism and racial discrimination and their trends and shall not be used to make decisions regarding benchmarks or staff recruitment, selection, promotion, retention, performance assessment or separation from service for individuals;

Reiterates its requests to the Secretary-General to refine the strategic action plan for addressing racism and promoting dignity for all in the United Nations Secretariat and stresses that continuous learning and dialogue on racism is essential to embed an anti‑racist awareness culture in the Organization and transform organizational culture, encourages the Secretary-General to continue working closely with the Anti-Racism Office, and requests the Secretary-General to continue providing observations and data on the trends and patterns of racism and racial discrimination and remedial actions taken within the Organization;

Reiterates that retaliation against complainants or staff appearing as witnesses constitutes misconduct, notes with appreciation the policy on protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations, which applies to all categories of United Nations personnel, as well as the efforts to continuously improve the framework for protection from retaliation, and in this regard requests the Secretary-General to provide information on the implementation of the policy for all categories of personnel covered in his next report;

II.Informal system

Recognizes that the informal system of administration of justice is an efficient and effective option both for staff who seek redress of grievances and for the participation of managers;

Reaffirms that the informal resolution of conflict is a crucial element of the system of administration of justice, emphasizes that all possible use should be made of the informal system in order to avoid unnecessary litigation, without prejudice to the basic right of staff members to access the formal system, and encourages recourse to the informal resolution of disputes;

Recognizes mediation as a core part of the work of the Office of the United Nations Ombudsman and Mediation Services and as a cost-effective method of informal conflict resolution, and underlines the importance of increasing the use of mediation services and improved communication between all parts of the system of administration of justice;

Requests the Secretary-General to present comparative information between mediation in the Secretariat and other entities of the system with a view to trying to identify lessons learned and best practices and enhancing the Secretariat’s efforts in promoting mediation;

Notes that non‑staff personnel do not have access to the formal component of the Organization’s internal justice system, in accordance with paragraph 7 of resolution 62/228, except that interns, type II gratis personnel and volunteers (other than United Nations Volunteers) have access to the management evaluation process, in accordance with paragraph 7 of resolution 63/253;

III.Formal system

Recognizes the ongoing positive contribution of the Office of Staff Legal Assistance to the system of administration of justice;

Welcomes the efforts made by the United Nations Dispute Tribunal to reduce the number of pending and ageing cases, stresses the importance of continued implementation of all measures to avoid backlog of cases, with priority for cases which are pending for over 400 days, and requests the Secretary-General to continuously monitor cases via the case disposal plan and real-time case-tracking dashboard;

Takes note of the proposal of the Secretary-General on honoraria for members of the United Nations Appeals Tribunal, recalls that any adjustments shall be cost-neutral and absorbed within existing resources of the system of administration of justice, and requests the Secretary-General to explain in future reports how such adjustments are managed within the existing budget for the system of administration of justice;

Notes the information provided by the Secretary-General, the United Nations Dispute Tribunal, the Internal Justice Council and the Advisory Committee on the proposed pilot programme on judicial mediation, and requests an updated assessment by all relevant stakeholders, including the Dispute Tribunal in its new composition, the Secretary-General and staff representatives, on the recommendation for a pilot programme on judicial mediation, including the viability and potential of judicial mediation to achieve cost-efficiencies, the cost implications of a pilot programme, and stresses that the proposed judicial mediation should not duplicate but complement functions and not blur the clear separation between informal and formal mechanisms or weaken existing informal mechanisms within their current mandate;

IV.Other issues

Invites the Sixth Committee to consider the legal aspects of the report to be submitted by the Secretary-General, without prejudice to the role of the Fifth Committee as the Main Committee entrusted with responsibilities for administrative and budgetary matters;

Recalls that the respective views of the Appeals Tribunal and the Dispute Tribunal had previously been included as annexes to the report of the Internal Justice Council, notes the usefulness of such information and stresses that the Council can help to ensure independence, professionalism and accountability in the system of administrative of justice, and requests the Secretary-General to entrust the Council with including the views of both the Dispute Tribunal and the Appeals Tribunal in its report at the future sessions of the General Assembly.

69th (resumed) plenary meeting

30 December 2025

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