Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative Gennady Kuzmin at UNSC briefing on ICC report (Libya)
Mme.President,
It is good that Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court K.Khan is currently in Libya, where he can see with his own eyes the blood, the tears, and all the pain that the Libyan people are living through. Our position as to the biased and politicized activities of the ICC has not changed.
For the past 11 years, the Security Council has convened sessions once every 6 months to listen to reports on the course of investigations into the Libyan file. For all this time, there has been no progress at this track, which our delegation states frankly and openly.
The latest ICC report did not become a revelation either. It does not make any breakthroughs. The only progress we can talk about is the progressive growth of ICC’s financial appetites, which the Security Council is offered to make do with. We can hardly agree with this logic.
The report itself was put forward to the Council on the eve of the briefing, which leaves no time to analyze it and get prepared for a meaningful discussion. Mme.President, you also spoke about it. In fact, this was what you opened this meeting with.
Failed deadlines and postponements has become part of ICC’s working practice. Perhaps, the Court is not ashamed to demonstrate that accountability to the Council is just an importunate formality for them.
A question begs itself: should the Council continue wasting its precious time on reports that testify to the lack of any results? This drives us towards making a fair conclusion (uneasy as it may be for the delegations who gave credence to the ICC) that referral of the Libyan situation to the ICC back in 2011 was a mistake.
In the Libyan context, the ICC has accomplished only one task, and this is not administering of justice. Expedited – it only took three days – concoction of false charges against M.Gaddafi justified in the eyes of the global community the illegal bombardment of Libya by NATO forces, which caused huge casualties, devastated the economy, industries, and the very statehood of this once flourishing country. Who knows, maybe if the then ICC Prosecutor had not come up with those fakes and wild tales, the Libyan leader would not have been subjected to the deadly Lynch-law.
By the way, the ICC never reacted to this atrocious crime against a head of a state. Apparently, the ICC thinks it is okay to obliterate “unwanted” leaders of developing countries. For quite understandable reasons, the ICC showed no interest in the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the NATO coalition.
After Libya fell in 2011, the ICC immediately lost interest in it, although the years of chaos caused by the civil war that came after the illegal NATO aggression not only led to many thousands of civilian casualties, including women and children, but also gave plenty of materials for investigations based on the Rome Statute. However, this time the ICC was not that zealous. To date, the ICC only pretends to be active at this track, whereas its numerous and shallow reports only maintain appearance of progress.
It is high time the Security Council considered seriously if it should correct the mistakes of the past and perhaps recall the Libyan file from the ICC. It has become clear by now, that the Court has nothing to offer to Libya. This mechanism has little to do with the high standards of justice. The ICC has long turned into an instrument that the West uses to exert pressure on the unwanted states.
This would be a much more honest thing to do for the Council than to keep considering endless hollow reports on the investigations where the main perpetrators of the Libyan catastrophe were timely taken out of the equation and saved from accountability. In this case, we also would not have to listen to the ICC wailing about a lack of funds.
Those complaints appear particularly strange if we recall what colossal investment the ICC received as voluntary contributions from Western states who sheltered their war criminals from the ICC investigations in Libya, but also in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now these hypocritical, who pretend to champion justice, unabashedly sponsor the paid-for process on Ukraine.
As we understand, it is not only about dozens of millions of dollars of ostensibly voluntary contributions. At this point, almost all human and financial resources of the ICC serve the Ukrainian cause. This participants of the Rome Statute from among developing states become more and more indignant at the ICC’s morbid fixation on Ukraine.
One can easily understand them. Doesn’t it look like too much of a focus on a state that never became part of the Rome Statute, having limited itself to making rather scandalous statements about the recognition of the ICC jurisdiction, which sort of pre-appointed the perpetrators? For Ukraine, this is the same thing as trying to exculpate itself. We regret that the ICC is so preoccupied with Ukraine’s story that even reports on the tracks that are designated by the Prosecutor as priorities are submitted to the Security Council a few days prior to the meetings.
Mme.President,
Only 11 years after the tragic events in Libya, we see some progress at the political track. We call on all sides to act in a reserved manner and keep from imposing their rules on the Libyans. We are convinced that elaboration of a draft constitution and convening of nation-wide elections in Libya should happen without any external interference.
Thank you.
