Physicians and clinics of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) enjoy absolute immunity from local laws, according to a Jerusalem Magistrates Court. The case, decided Tuesday, involves a claim of negligent medical treatment of a young girl at a UN clinic. The petitioning family and UNRWA were made to pay the expenses of the Attorney General's Office, which represented the UN's interests in the suit.
UNRWA - dedicated to providing aid and services to Arab refugees from the 1948 Arab-Israeli war and their descendants in perpetuity - refused to take responsibility for a misdiagnosis of a child from the Palestinian Authority at one of its clinics. The family, whose eight-year-old girl is suffering from Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH), took UNRWA to court in Israel. DDH is a deformation of the hip joint that is treatable if identified in postnatal examination.
No one from UNRWA bothered to respond to the family's suit and the Attorney General's Office (AGO) took the case. The AGO argued that the petition should be summarily rejected due to the absolute diplomatic immunity enjoyed by the UN pursuant to the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations.
Israel, party to the 1946 Convention, also agreed to extend the Convention's provisions to UNRWA. The immunity from prosecution extended to the UN in international law, according to the AGO, is unlimited.
The PA family's representatives argued that immunity should not be extended to the civil sphere, as "that may lead to arbitrary behavior towards the citizens of the hosting state." The suit requested that the court find that UNRWA has only relative immunity, leaving it open to civil suits brought by individuals under Israeli law.
The court, however, distinguished between the UN's immunity and that of foreign states. Unlike diplomats and embassies, the judge explained, the UN enjoys "immunity from any legal action whatsoever against the United Nations, its property and assets." Finally, the court ordered both UNRWA and the suing family to pay the AGO 5,000 NIS in legal fees.