Personnel policy

The UN and its agencies are immune to the laws of the countries where they operate, safeguarding UN's impartiality with regard to the host and member countries. Hiring and firing practices, working hours and environment, holiday time, pension plans, health insurance, life insurance, salaries, expatriation benefits and general conditions of employment are governed by UN rules and regulations. This independence allows agencies to implement human resources policies which may even be contrary to the laws of a host- or a member country. For instance, a person who is otherwise eligible for employment in Switzerland may not be employed by the International Labour Organization (ILO) unless he or she is a citizen of an ILO member state.

Smokers

The World Health Organization, an agency of the UN, has banned all recruitment of cigarette smokers as of 1 December 2005, in order to promote the principle of a tobacco-free work environment. There is a smoking ban within the UN headquarters, but some member nations allow smoking in their UN embassies. Moreover, users of illegal drugs are ineligible for employment in the UN.

Same-sex marriages

Despite their independence in matters of personnel policy, UN agencies voluntarily apply the laws of member states regarding same-sex marriages, allowing decisions about the status of employees in a same-sex partnership to be based on nationality. They recognize same-sex marriages only if the employees are citizens of countries that recognize the marriage. Some agencies provide limited benefits to domestic partners of their staff.

The information is taken from Wikipedia.org under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.