UN Intellectual Property Agency WIPO Fires Staff Union Head Following Exposure of Dubious Management Practices

On 19 September 2014, the World Intellectual Property Agency (WIPO) fired Mr Moncef Kateb, president of the WIPO Staff Association, the accredited trade union of the UN specialized agency’s staff, in retaliation for his defense of staff and continued opposition to alleged misconduct by the WIPO Director General and his administration.

This extraordinary action follows Mr Kateb’s suspension without pay on 5 September, and coincides with a call for investigation into WIPO Director General, Australian Francis Gurry, and his administration for allegations of misconduct and abuse of power. The charges ostensibly relate to Mr Kateb’s actions in his capacity as a staff representative, and allege a breach of confidentiality and a conflict of interest (https://bit.ly/wipochargesheet).

Mr Kateb has been subject to numerous threats and disciplinary measures from WIPO administration during his four-year term as president of the staff union due to his efforts to protect staff from intimidation and unethical treatment. In 2012 the administration blocked a request by the U.S. Congress Foreign Affairs Committee for his testimony on WIPO’s secret transfer of sophisticated IT and computer equipment to North Korea.  More recently, the WIPO Staff Association has supported requests for an investigation into alleged misconduct by Mr Gurry and his Administration, including theft of DNA from staff members represented by the Staff Association, and corruption of the procurement process.

The three staff federations of the United Nations system representing 120,000 international civil servants worldwide (the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations—CCISUA; the Federation of International Civil Servants’ Associations—FICSA: and the United Nations International Civil Servants Federation—UNISERV) have released a joint statement (https://bit.ly/wipofederationletter) protesting his treatment, arguing that they believe the charges against Mr Kateb are groundless, and calling for his immediate reinstatement and the replacement of Mr Gurry as Director General of WIPO.

Mr Kateb has been on WIPO staff since April 1998, and was elected president of the Staff Council, the WIPO Staff Association’s governing body, in April 2010.  Previously he served as Director General of Algeria’s national copyright office.

The WIPO Staff Association comprises 710 members, representing more than half of WIPO employees.

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The Whistleblower: Dr. Miranda R. Brown

WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry, also Australian

GENEVA, March 5, 2014 – A senior UN official alleges that Francis Gurry, the Australian head of the world body’s intellectual property agency, engineered the theft of personal items from employees to extract DNA samples, and then covered it up by intimidation and by suppressing attempts to investigate it, according to a legal complaint filed recently at a UN tribunal in Geneva.
The allegations are expected to hurt Gurry’s chances for reelection next week as director-general of the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a bid already weakened amid controversy over his role in running what a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers described as “a secret program to ship high-end computers and other electronic gear to North Korea and Iran.”
Gurry’s competitors in next week’s contest to head WIPO are his colleague, deputy director-general Geoffrey Onyeama from Nigeria, and two ambassadors, Alfredo Suescum of Panama, and Jüri Seilenthal of Estonia.
Led by California Democrat Zoe Lofgen, 12 members of the U.S. Congress have urged Secretary of State John Kerry to oppose Gurry’s candidacy, saying his tenure harms “the interests of the United States and its large community of innovators.” 
The whistleblower behind the new legal complaint, Dr. Miranda Brown, was Gurry’s strategic advisor at WIPO from June 2011 until November 2012, when she was allegedly pressured to leave.
The charges are being taken seriously in Geneva’s international circles where Brown is held in high regard, say insiders.
As a senior Australian diplomat, her allegations against a fellow Australian are unusual within the UN’s highly politicized culture of solidarity among fellow nationals. Brown was even her country’s deputy ambassador when Gurry was first elected.
She now serves as a high-level official in the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights.
Her complaint also alleges that Gurry’s conduct in running the agency showed “a pattern of degrading treatment, discrimination and abusive behavior towards staff.”
The criticism is echoed by other top officials within the organization, who have described Gurry as “erratic”, “manipulative”, “unpredictable”, and “secretive,” saying he fosters a negative work environment at WIPO.
The international agency is considered important in business and government circles worldwide because it runs the global patent system, processing over 200,000 confidential invention applications every year, many of them from America. The system generates more than $300 million in annual fees.
“This organization, more than most UN agencies, requires trustworthy leadership,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.
“This was exactly the point that the U.S. made back in 2007, when Gurry’s predecessor, Kamil Idris of Sudan, was found to have lied about his age, and we trust that America would not apply a different standard to an Australian than was applied to his African predecessor.”
The U.S. ambassador at the time, Warren Tichenor, forcefully demanded Idris’ resignation, saying that “member states and the employees of WIPO deserve to have an organization that is led with the highest professional and ethical standards.”  As a result, Idris resigned.
“The sense of déjà vu is palpable,” said Neuer, “only this time it’s not someone who merely fibbed about his age.”
“By any account, Gurry’s conduct falls far short of the ‘highest professional and ethical standards’ set by the United States in 2007.”
Brown’s complaint alleges serious wrongdoing by Gurry compounded by intensive efforts by him to cover it up and prevent an investigation.
According to the complaint, Gurry, in the run-up to his election in 2008, had been the target of anonymous letters accusing him of financial improprieties and sexual harassment. He suspected senior staff members, but had no proof and could not get Idris to allow a staff dragnet for DNA testing, the complaint alleges.
According to Brown, he then arranged to have personal items secretly removed from employees’ offices and handed over to the Swiss authorities for DNA analysis.
When everyone was cleared, he allegedly tried to keep the theft secret.  However, one of the victims found out and complained. According to the complaint, Gurry then threatened to move her job overseas in order to buy her silence. Brown tried to have the incident investigated, but Gurry managed to block it, according to the complaint.

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Australian WIPO chief Francis Gurry is accused of vote-buying,
embargoed tech transfers to Iran and North Korea,
and obstructing U.S. congressional inquiry

GENEVA, Sept. 21 – The participation of the UN’s top intellectual property official on today’s Human Rights Council panel for Nelson Mandela International Day is being criticized by UN Watch in light of revelations that his agency shipped embargoed technology to North Korea and Iran, and accusations of misconduct including vote-buying, as reported by Reuters.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental watchdog organization, called on the U.S., the EU and UN rights chief Navi Pillay to explain why Francis Gurry, the Australian head of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), is speaking this afternoon on a panel dedicated to human rights and Nelson Mandela’s values.

Panelists are to provide examples of “how the promotion and protection of human rights has been advanced by the values of reconciliation, peace, freedom and racial equality in their societies or personal experiences.”

Yet Neuer said the credibility of the council — which annually passes resolutions condemning abuses by Iran and North Korea — is now harmed by inviting the WIPO chief.

A bipartisan letter from the U.S. Congress, signed by House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Ranking Member Howard Berman, accuses Gurry of obstructing potentially damning testimony by WIPO staffers regarding the agency’s quiet transfer of U.N.-embargoed technology to North Korea and Iran, which could advance those regimes’ nuclear and missile programs.

Gurry is accused of breaching his pledge to cooperate with a Congressional inquiry into whether the agency’s actions had violated U.S. and U.N. sanctions.

Moreover, as reported by Reuters, Gurry is also accused of pledging the equipment to the two sanctioned countries in exchange for their votes, according to a U.N. lawsuit filed by a former WIPO manager.

The suit also alleges Gurry earmarked posts for member states who backed him in his 2008 election and those whose votes he is trying to secure as part of his 2014 re-election bid.

Two investigators who conducted an internal WIPO inquiry into the shipments said: “We simply cannot fathom how WIPO could have convinced itself that most Member States would support the delivery of equipment to countries whose behavior was so egregious it forced the international community to impose embargoes, and where the deliveries, if initiated by the recipient countries, would violate a Member State’s national Laws.”

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