A US appeals court has ruled that the United Nations cannot be sued in American courts for the introduction of cholera in the Caribbean state of Haiti.
The ruling by the three-judge panel in New York City was released on Thursday, dealing a setback in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of thousands of cholera victims in Haiti.
A spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon acknowledged for the first time on Wednesday that the international body played a role in the Cholera outbreak, which killed thousands of people.
The appeals court said that the UN did not lose its legal immunity even if it failed to give the plaintiffs a chance to seek a settlement.
In 2011, lawyers with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti filed the case, Georges v. United Nations, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which ruled in favor of the UN in early 2015.
Thursday’s ruling was in response to an appeal of that…