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As UN Lawyer Says Peacekeepers Work with ICC in
Congo, Sudan Aftermath Approaches
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
July 28 -- Outgoing UN legal chief
Nicolas Michel on July 25 said the the UN Secretariat, including its
peacekeeping operations, "have been in very close contact, repeatedly,
with the Office of the Prosecutor" of the International Criminal Court.
This undermines another argument the UN has been making, that the
government of
Sudan would be wrong to link the ICC Prosecutor's request earlier this
month
for an arrest warrant against President Omar Al-Bashir with the two UN
peacekeeping operations in the country. If, as Michel said Friday, UN
operations on the ground provide information to the ICC, and will
increasingly
do so in the future, why would it be surprising if potential or actual
targets
of the ICC barred access to or expelled UN operations?
Inner City
Press asked Michel about the Thomas Lubanga case, in which the UN
peacekeeping
mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, known by its French
acronym
MONUC, provided information to prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo about,
among other
things, the defendants' alleged recruitment of child soldiers.
Moreno-Ocampo
used this information, more than MONUC had anticipated, as the basis of
his
indictment of Lubanga.
Messrs. Michel and Ban, undisclosed
housing subsidy and ICC contacts not shown
But Moreno-Ocampo
did not share the information with the
defense lawyers. For that reason, the proceedings against Lubanga have
been put
on hold, in what many see as a sign that Moreno-Ocampo is not up to the
job of
ICC Prosecutor, particularly his attempted prosecution of a sitting
head of
state before he has convicted even a mid-level militia leader.
Michel
wrote a letter, which was read to the ICC judges, in which he offered
to show
the judges the documents but without them taking notes or making
copies. The
judges refused this, and suspended the case against Lubanga. Michel on
July 25
said that now, after the above-referenced "close work" with the ICC
Office of the Prosecutor, Moreno-Ocampo is "confident that the judges
will
be satisfied." But that's what he said last time.
The
implications of the collaboration by UN peacekeeping and legal
operations with
the ICC which Michel disclosed on July 25 have yet to be felt. They may
come
after the ICC judges rule on Moreno-Ocampo's request for an arrest
warrant against
Al-Bashir. If one or both UN peacekeeping missions in Sudan are then
ordered
out of the country, beyond Al-Bashir blame may be cast on not only
Moreno-Ocampo but also Nicolas Michel, wherever he may be at that time.
Michel's answers on ICC on July 25 are in video here,
from Minute 58. Watch this site. And
this --
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