By Ali Al-Bassam
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DAMASCUS, Syria — Last Monday, United Nations (U.N.) Commission of Inquiry pleaded to the U.N. Security Council to refer cases involving war crimes committed in Syria, by both the government and rebel fighters, to the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.).

Carla del Ponte, former Chief Prosecutor for the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, who is now working on a rolling U.N. inquiry into Syria, said that high-level perpetrators have been identified and should be brought in front of the I.C.C.  “Now really it’s time… We have a permanent court, the I.C.C., who would be ready to take this case,” said del Ponte.

The commission plans to submit a confidential list of names of suspected war criminals to the U.N. Human Rights Office, and has repeatedly urged the U.N. Security Council to refer the cases to the I.C.C.  The Security Council has been deadlocked in doing so.  “We are in very close dialogue with all five permanent members of the Security Council, but we don’t have the key that will open the path to cooperation inside the Security Council,” said Paulo Pinheiro, Head of the Commission of Inquiry.

Since Syria is not party to the Rome Statute, which created the I.C.C., the only way the court can investigate cases arising from the country is if it receives a referral from the Security Council.

Russia, a member of the Security Council, and ally to President Bashar Al-Assad, has blocked three U.N. Security Council resolutions that would increase pressure on the Syrian government.  Moscow is hesitant to refer these cases to the I.C.C, a move which Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov called “untimely and unconstructive.”

Human rights watchdog Amnesty International also called on the U.N. to refer war crimes committed in Syria by both parties to the I.C.C.  “While the vast majority of war crimes and other gross violations continue to be committed by government forces, our research points to an escalation in abuses by armed opposition groups,” said Ann Harrison, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

Amnesty International documented regime forces’ use of “internationally banned weapons against civilians,” and “the torture and summary killing of soldiers, pro-government militias and civilians, captured or abducted by rebel fighters.”  It also found evidence of the army’s use of ballistic missiles on the northern city and province of Aleppo.  It provided the testimony of civilians who survived such attacks.  One such testimony came from Sabah, a 31 year old mother who lost three daughters, her husband, mother, sister, and three nephews in one missile attack.  “They were killed; what is left for me in this life?”

For further information, please see:

Alert Net — ICC War Crime Requests for Syria “Untimely” – Russian Official — 19 March 2013

Daily Nation — UN Must Refer Syria War Crimes to ICC: Amnesty — 19 March 2013

The Guardian — Syrian Leaders Should Face Justice at ICC, UN Says — 18 March 2013

Naharnet — U.N. Syria Investigators Seek to Refer Report to ICC — 11 March 2013