Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Permanent Mission of the Russian Federation to the United Nations

Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Mr. Evgeniy Zagaynov at the UN Security Council on the Report of the ICC Prosecutor on the investigation of the situation in Darfur

We have familiarized ourselves with the twenty-sixth report of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the situation in Darfur and would like to begin by addressing some of the facts and figures in the report.

In particular, it notes a continued reduction in armed clashes between the Government of the Sudan and rebel forces. In actual fact, it appears that if there were any clashes at all, they took place only at the very beginning of the reporting period, during the first half of June. As the August report (S/2017/746) of the Secretary-General on the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) underscores, they were residual. We therefore believe that it might behoove the Prosecutor to reflect that trend more accurately.

Regrettably, there is no mention in the report of the measures taken by Khartoum to implement the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, to which there is still no alternative, or of the beginning steps to implement the decisions of the National Dialogue Conference of October 2016. Another positive was the recent extension by the Government and the movements that are non-signatories to the Doha Document of their obligations under the ceasefire.

With regard to cooperation between Khartoum and the international community, we should note the progress in the Government’s efforts to solve the obstacles that have been hindering UNAMID, including the granting of visas and customs clearance for contingentowned equipment, while flight authorizations are now also in good shape.

The Sudanese forces have been working constructively with the mission to protect its equipment and personnel. There is also clear progress in the provision of humanitarian access, where the new directives and procedures for humanitarian assistance and the transfer of humanitarian personnel are proving effective.

We welcome the measures taken by the Government of the Sudan to facilitate access for humanitarian assistance to South Sudan. The authors of the report clearly thought these facts were not worth mentioning, despite the fact that the report is stuffed with selective references to resolution 2363 (2017), on the extension of the UNAMID mandate. I would now like to consider the Prosecutor’s activities in the context of criminal justice procedure.

Going on the report, there have been no developments in the Sudanese dossier for the past six months. As in other cases, the Court has nothing to brag about as far as making progress in the genuine fight against impunity is concerned, an objective that our delegation shares, needless to say. Instead of conducting an objective, independent investigation of the crimes allegedly committed by all parties to the conflict, the Prosecutor continues to exaggerate the issue of immunity for senior Sudanese officials. It would appear that the main aim is to attempt to justify the absence of immunity for the President of the Sudan.

As the report emphasizes, the States that he has visited, including those that are party to the Rome Statute, have no intention of going along with the ICC’s thinking and interpretation with regard to questions of immunity. The African Union’s position on the issue is also well known. For our part, we reiterate that resolution 1593 (2005) does not render invalid the norms of international law on immunity for senior officials of States that are not party to the Rome Statute. They still apply, and no decisions by the ICC can change that. Any reference in the Prosecutor’s report to the recent visit of the President of the Sudan to our country is completely inappropriate.

The issue does not come within her purview. We have no intention of accounting for our bilateral contacts with the Government of the Sudan to anyone, especially since resolution 1593 (2005) does not apply that obligation to States that are not party to the Rome Statute, as is clearly reflected in its text. In conclusion, I want to draw the Council’s attention to the fact that the current report, like those on the situation in Libya, once again brings up the issue of the provision of resources to the ICC from the United Nations budget and follow-up action by the Security Council.

Our position on those issues is well known and we will not reiterate it. We hope that such passages will stop migrating from one report of the International Criminal Court to the next.