Statement by Gennady Kuzmin, Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, at the open VTC of UNSC members on the report of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals
Mme. President,
Let me first of all welcome President Agius and Prosecutor Brammertz at the VTC of the Security Council. We have carefully studied their reports.
The Mechanism was created in 2010 to be a “small, temporary and efficient structure”. I would emphasize the word “temporary” in this definition. It started its operations in 2012, thus, it has been active for 8 years and undergone two reviews of its work, the third one being underway.
In this regard we expected that the year of 2020 would become, as was indicated by the principals of the Mechanism, a milestone for this structure. All cases would be completed according to the reported timelines, and the Council would finally be able to deal with the legal closure of the Mechanism. Unfortunately, this stage yet has to be achieved, one of the reasons being COVID-19 and its consequences.
The Mechanism’s current two-year mandate ends on 30 June. By the end of June, the terms of office of the judges from the roster, the President and the Prosecutor of the Mechanism will expire as well. This month the Security Council is engaged in reviewing the Mechanism’s activities and will reflect the results of this review in a resolution, the adoption of which is sine qua non for extending the mandate of the Mechanism for another two years.
We have carefully studied the conclusions and recommendations of OIOS for the Mechanism. They confirmed what our delegation has referred to on numerous occasions: the criminal tribunals created by the Security Council did not have a judicial planning system as such, and all the forecasts were made at random.
Thus, the conclusion of the inspectors that “the Mechanism was not systematic in presenting focused projections in reports, insofar as they declined to methodically predict the future progress of trial or estimate a completion date at the start of the proceedings” is of particular relevance.
We fully support the recommendation of OIOS prescribing the Mechanism to provide and adhere to clear and focused projections of completion timelines at the earliest stage possible in its reports. It must be duly reflected in a resolution of the Security Council on the review of the Mechanism.
We understand that circumstances are extremely unusual now. Nevertheless, we urge the management of the Mechanism to rectify the situation and reduce the projected deadlines for completing the trials. We look forward to the results during this year.
Another point of particular importance for our delegation is the protection of rights of persons detained on the authority of the Mechanism, especially with respect to the access to a timely and qualified medical assistance. We are all aware of the sad record of the ICTY in that regard. Today at the time of the COVID-19 this issue becomes even more relevant. In particular, the poor state of health of Ratko Mladic is very well known.
Thus we call on the Mechanism to pay special attention to the state of health of the detained, provide them with appropriate medical assistance and consider favourably the offers of respective assistance from Member-States.
In conclusion I would like to acknowledge the work of the Prosecutor of the Mechanism in ascertaining the fate of the two persons accused by the ICTR and apprehension of one of them, Mr. Kabuga, in France. In that respect we would encourage the Mechanism and also the Council to look into options for delivering justice without overburdening the Mechanism and indefinitely prolonging its functions.
Thank you, Mme. President.
