In late October 2016, Alston released a scathing report to the UN General Assembly, calling the UN's refusal to accept responsibility for the devastating 2010 Haiti cholera outbreak a "disgrace." The "deadly cholera bacterium" was imported to Haiti in 2010 by infected UN peacekeepers "who were relocated from Nepal" without first being "screened for the illness". The screening would have cost "as little as $2,000." The report criticized the "flawed and unfounded" advice given by the UN's Office of Legal Affairs (OLA), that he blames for preventing the UN from accepting responsibility for the outbreak. According to Alston, "The UN's explicit and unqualified denial of anything other than a moral responsibility is a disgrace. If the United Nations bluntly refuses to hold itself accountable for human rights violations, it makes a mockery of its efforts to hold governments and others to account." Alston said that the UN appeared to have been pressed by United States, the "main contributor to the UN's peacekeeping budget", to "adopt the position frequently taken by lawyers in the US that responsibility should never be accepted voluntarily, since it could complicate future litigation." Alston explained that "this rationale is completely inapplicable to the UN", which unlike the justice system in the United States, "enjoys absolute immunity from suit in national courts and whose reputation depends almost entirely on being seen to act with integrity." Alston expressed concern that the "$400m financial package being put together by the UN" might face funding hurdles. "If you deny responsibility then it's much harder to raise money, to mobilise resources because it becomes just another general development problem... And I think the UN has actually exacerbated the problem significantly through its denials for many years." In his opening and closing statements, Alston called on advocacy groups like the Boston-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) and the Haiti-based (BAI) to continue their work, and to keep up pressure on UN Member States.