A recently filed legal petition claiming that the United Nations acted negligently and recklessly in Haiti is raising difficult questions about U.N. accountability -- and its legal immunity.
The petition (.pdf), submitted Nov. 3, is already raising the possibility that a legally mandated, but rarely implemented, judicial procedure for civilians living in countries with U.N. peacekeeping missions will be enforced.
As a result, the petition’s implications go far beyond the particulars of the Haiti case, in which more than 5,000 Haitians argue that the U.N. has so far failed to provide them with a means of remedy after cholera was introduced to Haiti for the first time in 50 years by Nepalese peacekeepers.