55 countries demand UN Council orders Syria war crimes case

European countries have provided majority of the signatories At least 55 countries will on Monday demand that the UN Security Council refer the Syria conflict to the International Criminal Court for a war crimes investigation. The demand will be made in a letter organised by Switzerland, which has spent seven months collecting signatories. The 15-member Security Council is the only body that can refer the case to the ICC.
Swiss UN mission spokesman Adrian Sollberger has said the letter will be handed over Monday.
Other diplomatic sources said 55 countries have signed and others could still join even though the initiative has little immediate chance of successThe Security Council is in a crippling deadlock over the 22-month old Syria conflict. Permanent members Russia and China have vetoed three resolutions which would have threatened sanctions against Syria's President Bashar al-Assad.
As neither are members of The Hague-based court, both countries would almost certainly reject any new resolution proposing war crimes charges. Syria is also not a member.
"In the face of spiralling carnage, Russia and China have shamefully paralysed the Security Council for far too long," said Richard Dicker, an international justice expert for Human Rights Watch.
He said the Swiss petition "an unprecedented act of 'justice diplomacy'."
"A court investigation would strip all sides to the conflict of their sense of impunity, signalling that abuses could land them in a cell in The Hague," Dicker said.
European countries have provided the majority of the signatories, according to diplomatic sources.
The United States has not signed the letter because it is not an ICC member, but does support the initiative, diplomats said.
"Our proposal is supported throughout Europe and also in most other regions of the world," Switzerland's Foreign Minister Didier Burkhalter told SRF Swiss broadcaster on Friday. "We can get this operation moving now," he added.
"There are horrific war crimes happening in Syria," Burkhalter said. "People must realise that these crimes will not go unpunished."
Russia has been the main opponent of international action on the conflict, which the UN estimates has now left more than 60,000 dead.
The Russian government reaffirmed Sunday that it opposes any move to force Assad from power as part of any deal to get talks started on a political settlement.
Assad's ouster will be "impossible to implement," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russian media.
"This is a precondition that is not contained in the Geneva communiqué (agreed by world powers in June) and which is impossible to implement because it does not depend on anyone," news agencies quoted Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov as saying.
Lavrov conceded that a defiant speech Assad delivered on January 6 calling for peace in Syria on his own terms probably did not go far enough and would not appease the armed opposition. But he also urged Assad's enemies to come out with a counterproposal that could get serious peace talks started between the two sides for the first time.