[1] It was established by the UN General Assembly in December 2008 to review appeals against judgments rendered by the United Nations Dispute Tribunal (UNDT).
The UNAT like the UNDT, is dependent for its administrative, office, staffing, and travel needs including that of the judges, on the UN secretariat.
[3]: article 11 The UNAT is competent to hear and pass judgement on an appeal filed against a judgement by the United Nations Dispute Tribunal when (a) UNDT Exceeded its jurisdiction or competence;(b) Failed to exercise jurisdiction vested in it; (c) Erred on a question of law;(d) Committed an error in procedure, such as to affect the decision of the case; or (e) Erred on a question of fact, resulting in a manifestly unreasonable decision.
The Appeals Tribunal may order one or both of the following:(a) Rescission of the contested administrative decision or.... set an amount of compensation that the respondent may elect to pay as an alternative to the rescission of the contested administrative decision(b) Compensation for harm, ... which shall normally not exceed the equivalent of two years’ net base salary of the applicant.
The application for revision is to be submitted within "30 calendar days of the discovery of the fact and within one year of the date of the judgement."
[5] : Article 9 Judgements are given by panels of three judges are adopted by majority vote, and contain the reasons, facts and law on which they are based.
[5] : Article 19–20 The UNAT tribunal has laid down that all documents are to be filed on US letter or A4 paper, should conform to standard forms issued by the Appeals Tribunal, be page numbered, adhere to the page limit and word count with typeface at 12 points with 1.5 line spacing, and 10 points for footnotes with single line spacing.
In contrast out of the 38 appeals filed by the UN Secretary-General against staff members, 31 or 82 percent were granted in full or in part.