Statement by Deputy Permanent Representative Maria Zabolotskaya at a UNSC Briefing on ICC investigation of the situation in Libya
Mr. President,
I would like to begin by expressing my reservations regarding the briefing of the so-called ICC Prosecutor. We see no benefit to the Council in listening to Mr. Khan. We do not consider him to be an independent prosecutor. His reports are insubstantial and designed to obscure the real state of affairs. He is under investigation over allegations of sexual harassment of a young female colleague. In such circumstances, Mr. Khan, as an international official, should suspend the execution of his functions. However, he has not done that so far; moreover, he believes that he has the right to brief the Council. That speaks volumes about what exactly is going on in this pseudo-court.
Mr. President,
We would like to recall that until recently Mr. Khan headed another international body, the UN Investigative Team to Promote Accountability for Crimes Committed by Da’esh/ISIL in Iraq (UNITAD). That team ended ingloriously, having wasted a lot of UN money and having failed to provide assistance to Iraq, which was stipulated in its mandate. However, Mr. Khan regularly travelled to New York and appeared before the Council to report on the work that presumably had been done.
We are now witnessing a similar situation regarding the ICC's work in Libya. Today, we have yet another empty report to consider – the 28th one. And this report still does not answer the main questions, as to what has been done to implement the Council's instructions stipulated in resolution 1970, why these instructions have not been implemented, and who is to be held accountable for that.
Instead, the prosecutor is reporting about successfully following a roadmap, even though the Council did not ask him to draw up or implement any.
The hallmark of Mr. Khan's activity is not only the fact that he fails to carry out the instructions of the Council, but that he acts contrary to the instructions given to him.
For example, we have learnt from the report that the ICC has taken up investigations into current events in Libya. The recently declassified arrest warrants for six individuals confirm that the ICC has begun implementing its own plans without any Council decision.
Let me remind you that Libya is not a party to the Rome Statute. The Security Council has not referred any new developments or situations in Libya to the ICC. Therefore, attempts by this pseudo-court to expand its own jurisdiction do not have any ground at all. This is just a plain overreach. Well, it has long become the norm for the ICC to sacrifice legal considerations and even logic for the sake of political expediency.
However, even within the ICC, there are people who realize that Security Council resolutions cannot be ignored. Thus, Judge S. Flores Liera in her dissenting opinion pointed out the excessively expansive interpretation by her colleagues of the ICC mandate based on UNSC Resolution 1970. She rightly disagreed that the 2019-2020 events in Tarhuna are part of the armed conflict that started in Libya back in 2011.
Indeed, the logic of the prosecutor, and that of the judges who authorized his request, is deeply flawed. It allows them to continue sabotaging the investigation into events related to the situation that was indeed referred to the ICC by UNSC resolution 1970. The Court, for example, has done nothing to find those responsible for the brutal assassination of Muammar Gaddafi committed with the assistance from NATO forces or to punish those Western soldiers whose actions led to the deaths of numerous civilians. At the same time, for some reason the Court deems itself entitled to deal with any other events in Libya, even though they took place ten years later. Incidentally, that resolution contained refernces to crimes against humanity, but the new arrest warrants bring charges of war crimes that the resolution did not mention whatsoever.
However, this pseudo-court ignores not only the documents of the Security Council, but also the norms of international law, including those that lay the foundations of multilateralism, constitute the premise of the UN, and are part of the UN Charter.
No one has ever conferred such powers on this institution. Mired in politicization, double standards and corruption, the ICC has nothing to do with the fight against impunity. This is becoming evident to an increasing number of states, as the recent GA vote on the ICC's annual report proves. Not even all the parties to the Rome Statute appeared to be willing to support cooperation with this pseudo-legal structure. Accordingly, there can be no talk of a universal nature of this body. The ICC is simply a treaty body with a limited number of parties, and it is completely separate from the UN.
Mr. President,
It is clear that the ICC has not helped in resolving the intra-Libyan conflict. On the contrary, by persistently pushing through some political agenda here and in other situations, it becomes an obstacle to achieving a lasting reconciliation based on a nationwide consensus among all political forces. In this regard, as well as in connection with the impermissible disregard for the decisions of the Security Council on the part of the ICC, we believe that it would be appropriate to recall both the Libyan and Darfur files from the Court. As for the fight against impunity, that task should be entrusted to those who are capable of handling it – namely, the national judicial authorities, in this case those of Libya.
Thank you.
