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Haitians urge judges to find UN culpable for cholera outbreak that killed thousands
Source: The Guardian
Haitians urge judges to find UN culpable for cholera outbreak that killed thousands
• Supreme court consider whether to take up Laventure v UN
• UN peacekeepers introduced disease after 2010 earthquake
Ed Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington
Tue 1 Oct 2019 08.00 BST
Victims of the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti, which killed at least 10,000 people and infected hundreds of thousands more, are petitioning the US supreme court on Tuesday to hold the UN accountable for having brought the disease to the stricken country.
The nine supreme court justices will meet in conference to discuss whether to hear Laventure v UN as one of their cases of the new term. The petition goes to the heart of the question: should the world body be answerable in domestic courts for the harm it causes people it is there to serve?
The UN has admitted that cholera was introduced to Haiti by peacekeepers in 2010 after about 1,000 troops were redeployed from Nepal to help in emergency work following a devastating earthquake. Basic health measures that could have been taken to prevent the transfer of the disease at the cost to the UN of only $2,000 were not taken, and instead raw sewage from the peackekeepers’ camps was dumped directly into rivers from which thousands of Haitians routinely drew water for cooking and drinking.
A leaked report carried out by the UN itself a month after the initial outbreak of cholera found serious sanitation flaws in the Haiti peacekeeping mission. Yet for six years the world body continued to deny it had anything to do with the health catastrophe.
Crucially, the UN continues to reject any requests for compensation from the hundreds of thousands of Haitian victims. It insists that it has total immunity from such claims relating to the harmful impact caused by its staff carrying out routine business.
-snip-
• Supreme court consider whether to take up Laventure v UN
• UN peacekeepers introduced disease after 2010 earthquake
Ed Pilkington in New York
@edpilkington
Tue 1 Oct 2019 08.00 BST
Victims of the 2010 cholera outbreak in Haiti, which killed at least 10,000 people and infected hundreds of thousands more, are petitioning the US supreme court on Tuesday to hold the UN accountable for having brought the disease to the stricken country.
The nine supreme court justices will meet in conference to discuss whether to hear Laventure v UN as one of their cases of the new term. The petition goes to the heart of the question: should the world body be answerable in domestic courts for the harm it causes people it is there to serve?
The UN has admitted that cholera was introduced to Haiti by peacekeepers in 2010 after about 1,000 troops were redeployed from Nepal to help in emergency work following a devastating earthquake. Basic health measures that could have been taken to prevent the transfer of the disease at the cost to the UN of only $2,000 were not taken, and instead raw sewage from the peackekeepers’ camps was dumped directly into rivers from which thousands of Haitians routinely drew water for cooking and drinking.
A leaked report carried out by the UN itself a month after the initial outbreak of cholera found serious sanitation flaws in the Haiti peacekeeping mission. Yet for six years the world body continued to deny it had anything to do with the health catastrophe.
Crucially, the UN continues to reject any requests for compensation from the hundreds of thousands of Haitian victims. It insists that it has total immunity from such claims relating to the harmful impact caused by its staff carrying out routine business.
-snip-
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/01/haiti-cholera-2010-un-us-supreme-court
