Global Values in International Organisations 425decisions, and behavior of the approximately 45,000 individuals who
work for the United Nations Secretariat.
In reality, these two entities do not intersect. During the political dis-
cussions leading up to the revision of the Standards of Conduct in 2013,
the ICSC purposefully excluded the UN Ethics Office from formal de-
liberations. Explaining that individual agencies had the option to include
ethics office staff at the working party level of deliberations, the chair-
man of the ICSC wrote to the Director, UN Ethics Office and Chair of
the UN Ethics Committee in June 2011, “It is therefore not clear precise-
ly what added value further involvement by the Ethics Committee would
bring to the process at this final stage.” In essence, politics trumped
good common sense. The office created by the General Assembly to
consider behavioural ethics and the ethical principles and virtues of the
international civil service was prevented from having any substantive
input on the very standards and expectations that the General Assembly
later adopted.
32.6 What then Can and Should Be Done?
In 2013, the UN Ethics Office issued the UN Ethics Guide, a plain
language summary of the most important ethics rules and expectations
impacting the work lives of UN staff members. Adopted specifically as
guidance and not as an enforceable rule, the Guide helps inform—but
does not control—staff behavior. The Guide is not a particularly well-
known document, despite its availability in print and electronic ver-
sions.^333
333
http://www.un.org/en/ethics/leadership_dialogue.shtml. Even on the UN
Ethics Office website, the Ethics Guide is poorly referenced.