A federal appeals court has ruled that the World Health Organization branch for the Americas is not immune from being sued for its alleged role in a scheme to traffic Cuban doctors for the benefit of the island’s communist government, the first decision of its kind upholding a suit against an international organization for allegedly violating U.S. law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld a lower district court decision, ruling last week that a lawsuit brought by several Cuban doctors against the Pan American Health Organization may continue. The court concluded that the organization lost its immunity protections as a foreign entity by allegedly engaging in “commercial activities” in its role as a financial intermediary in an alleged forced-labor scheme in Brazil.
“The decision is important both as a legal precedent and as an opportunity for the doctors, my clients who were trafficked to Brazil by PAHO, to have an opportunity to hold PAHO accountable,” said Sam Dubin, a lawyer representing the Cuban doctors. “The Cuban government would have never been able to traffic my clients to Brazil without PAHO’s central role as the financial intermediator.”
