By Laura Johnson and Ian Richards
GENEVA, Jun 5 2025 – Like you, we attended last week’s townhall where UN High Commissioner (for Human Rights) Volker Turk presented his latest plans for moving staff out of headquarters. We note that this project has been carried out without adequate consultation with the staff union. The key points we learned and which we are concerned about:

• It’s expensive: It will involve the move of 120 staff. We conservatively estimate the cost of relocation or indemnities at $12 million. We did not hear any figures to show whether the moves will justify the cost in the long run.


Volker Turk

• It’s mandate is unclear: Volker Turk claims that the General Assembly backed his project. Reading the relevant resolution, it is not clear how he inferred this.

• The justification is questionable: The main reason given was increased demand for OHCHR’s physical presence within countries. We would like to see the letters from governments requesting this. Instead, we hear from you that governments are generally less keen on OHCHR presence, are delaying visas and discouraging meetings on the ground with civil society.

• It’s being rushed unnecessarily: Staff may have mere months to move. One Director told her staff that if they didn’t like it, they could leave, despite the initial management rhetoric of ‘moving posts not people’. We don’t understand the urgency. For UN 80 the current plan is for moves to take place in summer 2026. In addition, if UN 80 results in human rights activities from other entities being merged with OHCHR, new changes might be necessary and such moves might prove premature and unjustified.

• Personal considerations are not taken into account: staff with special constraints have not been listened to, despite this being a key element of the UN’s overall mobility policy. There has been no compendium developed and management has not informed staff on how to contest a move if necessary.

• It copies UNHCR without learning the lessons: UNHCR also expanded regional offices to embellish the organigramme. With the financial crisis, these middle layer offices, neither headquarters nor field, are seen as a luxury, reminiscent of an empire-building past, and are being downsized. Repeating the same mistake at OHCHR carries risks for staff. At the same time OHCHR is a normative entity not an operational one that requires regular mandatory rotation. In the last three years, Volker Turk’s vision appears to have shifted from the former to the latter.

• Questions about conflicts of interest persist: There will be expansion at the Vienna regional field office, which has triggered allegations of favouritism. We have received concerns from you and would appreciate clarification from management on the ethical guardrails used.

We understand that this restructuring will make the careers of some, and we wish them well. But this is being done at huge expense to many on the basis of unclear reasons and objectives that may raise sustainability questions in the future.

Many of you have been in touch about the personal costs these sudden changes will have and the harm you believe it will do to the Office.

In the last few years, human rights around the world have been taking a turn for the worse. We call on Volker Turk and member states to make sure that OHCHR is strengthened rather than being weakened through wasting money, moving staff for the sake of moving, modelling OHCHR after a humanitarian agency, and splashing $12 million on empire-building.

We also call on Volker Turk to treat his staff with the dignity that all human beings deserve in the workplace. This includes hearing each staff member’s concerns with care and attention.

IPS UN Bureau

Excerpt:

Laura Johnson is Executive Secretary and Ian Richards is President of the UN Staff Union in Geneva– in a message to OHCHR staff.