Accountability must be sought in Syria regardless of the Geneva II

UNITED NATIONS

No matter of the ongoing political and diplomatic efforts to end the brutal war in Syria, international community will need to pursue the accountability for the heinous crimes committed in Syria, experts said, adding the hands of the UN Secretary General might be tied by the lack of readiness of the big powers to do so.

William R. Pace, 
convenor for Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) and Steering Committee member told Anadolu Agency (AA) that “the divisions of opinion by UN member states are quite alarming.”

“The Russian and presumably China positions against Security Council resolutions on Syria are betrayals of their Charter responsibilities,” he said. 

- Limitations and leadership

“There are real limits to what the Secretary General can do when the ‘veto’ of permanent members of the UN Security Council openly and stridently disagree on taking action,” Pace said. 

He added, the US, Britain and France (other three permanent UNSC members – P3) are also “undermining previous UN chief envoy in Syria, (former UN Secretary General) Kofi Annan’s early peace mediating efforts by forming a ‘friends of Syria’ group whose goal was ‘regime change'.” Pace underlined - it was “devastating to any peace talks.” 

“The P3 ruined what was overall a significant success in Libya by misrepresenting the Security Council resolutions as ‘regime change.’  It is astounding they repeated the mistake with Syria,” Pace said. 

In addition, the international community needs to address major issues -- overall regarding the United Nations and UN Security Council’s (UNSC) responsibilities to “maintain international peace and security,” Mr. Pace, told AA.

Also talking about Syria, the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon repeatedly said the international community “has a moral and political responsibility to hold accountable those responsible.” All this, as UN chief stressed, “to deter future incidents and to ensure that chemical weapons can never re-emerge as an instrument of warfare.”

But, experts say that holding accountable those responsible will be challenging process in the light of global political reality and legal possibilities.

“One step would be for the General Assembly to ask the veto members in the Security Council to refrain from using the veto to block action by the Council in situations in which International Criminal Court (ICC) level war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide are threatened or occurring,” Pace said.

He said, “Security Council referring the crimes in Syria to the ICC is very unlikely for many reasons.”

“One is that a large area of Syria is occupied by Israel and is an on-going war crime," Mr. Pace said, adding there are other ongoing issues for other countries in the region that did not ratify ICC treaty – including Turkey. He reminded this remains “at the heart of the purpose” of the Rome Statute and the ICC.   

- What kind of tribunals for Syria

The challenge remains in the fact – what would be the international court to stand trial those accused of horrible crimes in Syria, including the use of forbidden chemical weapons.

“The US government has been proposing an ad hoc tribunal for Syria in part because of the occupied territory issues, but it is also unlikely the Security Council would support this alternative.”

It is also the planning Geneva II peace conference on Syria, that UN called for on January 22nd, which add to same challenges. It proved already to be a difficult task – how to compose negotiating delegations out of those who participate in a bloody Syrian civil war that claimed more than 100,000 lives in last three years. Like in the case of former Yugoslavia, some of the participants at Dayton Peace conference in USA in 1995, to end the war in Bosnia – were later accused and tried at the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

Pace said that since “both, the government and rebel forces are committing crimes against humanity in the Syria civil war, insisting on justice and individual accountability will be more and more difficult to achieve – but the truth is that there can not be peace without justice.” 

“Without justice, peace agreements are usually temporary cease-fires, reshufflings of corrupt leaders, transitions to re-armament.  It may be called ‘real politics or political pragmatism’, but these are lies.” 

The failure to enforce human rights doesn’t ‘hurt’ human rights – it hurts the victims – it is the same with justice.

- Transitional process for Syria

UN said the Geneva II peace conference on Syria will also mark return to the UN-backed Action Group for Syria communiqué released on June 30th, 2012. It calls “for all parties to immediately re-commit to a sustained cessation of armed violence.”

That includes “the establishment of a transitional governing body that would exercise full executive powers and that would be made up by members of the present government and the opposition and other groups."

In the meantime, the third challenge which is determining the precise responsibility for the commission of crime that goes to the highest officials of the regime in Damascus is also in place.

Yet, it is still not known who first is going to call upon those responsible for the crimes against humanity to face the international justice.

Many times in a row the UN Secretary General said the UN did not have mandate to look for those who used the chemical weapons in Syria, for what the ultimate accountability was sought.

But as a kind of sober reminder, the Swedish scientist Dr. Ake Sellstrom who headed the UN inspectors team to confirm that chemical weapons were indeed used in Syria also repeated he did not have at his disposal “the necessary information to identify those responsible for attacks with chemical weapons that have taken place in Syria.”

- Security Council at take

Thus, pushing for accountability of those responsible in Syria now is in the UN member states’ court, with emphasis on the five permanent members of the Security Council: US, Britain, France, Russia and China.

“It would be for member states either to revisit that mechanism or to look at it in a different way,” Martin Nesirky, a chief spokesperson for the UN Secretary General told AA. 

“And there are a number of different methods that could be used, that are available to Member States.  But, it would be for them to do that,” Nesirky explained.

Asked, will the Secretary General call member states to look or seek that accountability, UN spokesperson said that by addressing that issue at the UN General Assembly and Security Council, Mr. Ban Ki-moon “has already done that.” 

No matter who will pursue the justice for Syria – it has to be done.

“The failure to enforce human rights doesn’t ‘hurt’ human rights – it hurts the victims – it is the same with justice,” William Pace said.

By Erol Avdovic - Anadolu Agency

englishnews@aa.com.tr