Recommendations of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Board (UNJSPB)

The United Nations Joint Staff Pension Board held its 50^th session from 5 to 14 July 2000.

FICSA is pleased to report that the Board dealt with its business in an excellent atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect. The tripartite structure of the Board has again proven its effectiveness.

However, there are 2 issues where further work is needed:

(1) Transfer Agreements between the Pension Fund and the former USSR, Ukrainian SSR and Byelorussian SSR

Despite numerous efforts on the part of the Pension Board, the UN Secretary-General, the former participants of the Fund, FICSA and AFICS/Moscow to obtain a meaningful and fair resolution of this issue, retirees in Russia still have not received their entitlements under the Transfer Agreements. The Secretary-General is awaiting the response of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation to his letter.

"During the Board session, the President of AFICS/Moscow stated that the members of his chapter would be submitting demands for the 'complete and unconditional restoration of their UN pension rights and entitlements'. He went on to say that they would be pursuing their claims before the Standing Committee and eventually, if need be, the UN Administrative Tribunal. This position apparently represents a shift in the position on the part of the members of AFICS/Moscow; it is no doubt largely due to a sense of despair and frustration over the failure of the Government of the Russian Federation to give effect to the decisions and requests contained in past resolutions adopted by the General Assembly on this issue."

The statement caused considerable unrest and, as a consequence, the Board turned down a proposal (made by participants' representatives, FAFICS and FICSA at the meeting of the Standing Committee in July 1999) to amend the Emergency Fund Guidelines so as to permit, as an interim measure, ex gratia payments to the former participants concerned. The representatives of executive heads and governing bodies were indeed shaken by the prospect that such a humanitarian gesture might weaken the position of the Fund and the Board in a Court.

Proposals

• FICSA calls on all Member States to discuss this issue with the Russian representative(s) in New York and, pending resolution of the matter, to request the Secretary-General to make ex gratia payments to the Russian retirees concerned.

• FICSA calls on the Government of the Russian Federation to give effect to the decisions and requests contained in past resolutions of the General Assembly.

FICSA further calls on the Member States:

to direct the Board to revisit the question of amending the Emergency Fund Guidelines;

to request the General-Secretary, in the interim, to make ex gratia payments to the Russian retirees concerned.

(2) Entitlement to survivor's benefits for spouses and former spouses and related matters

Article 35bis of the Fund's regulations (adopted in 1998) established a limited contingent benefit for divorced surviving spouses and set out the criteria for eligibility. The amount of the benefit is based on a sharing of the surviving spouse's benefit between the surviving spouse and the former spouse(s) of a deceased Fund participant. Owing to the concerns regarding the acquired rights of existing beneficiaries and their survivors, the article was made applicable only to "any divorced spouse of a participant or former participant, separated on or after 1 April 1999 ...".

To address the issue of the "closed group" of divorced surviving spouses of former participants who had separated before 1 April 1999, the Board has recommended that they should be paid an amount equal to twice the minimum surviving spouse's benefit (currently equivalent to $600 a month), if that amount did not exceed the benefit payable to a surviving spouse.

Proposals

• FICSA supports the position that the amount be set at three times the minimum benefit ($900 a month), as proposed by FAFICS and by the UN Women's Guild - Geneva; four times if the marriage lasted at least 25 years.
• Under new article 35 bis - divorced surviving spouse's benefit - to ensure that the eligibility criteria are not arbitrary, FICSA strongly supports the following FAFICS proposals:

Article 35 bis (b)

• elimination of sub-paragraph (ii), stating that the former spouse had not remarried;

• elimination of sub-paragraph (iii), stating that the participant's death occurred within 15 years of the date when the divorce became final;

• addition to sub-paragraph (iv), after the words "whereby the former spouse is only entitled to a benefit after she/he reached the age of 40" the words "unless there is a child from the former spouse's marriage to the participant." (JSPB/50/CRP.4)