OPINION: Del Ponte’s Resignation Highlights UN Failings

9 August 2017:On April 4, 2017, the town of Khan Shaykhun in Syria was struck by an airstrike, with all the evidence pointing to the Syrian government forces. The nerve agent, Sarin, dispersed through the town, indiscriminately killing all life in its path. Children, women and the elderly were among the 80+ people massacred alongside the targeted Tahrir al-Sham militants.

Skip forward eight days, and the Security Council met in New York to vote on a draft resolution which aimed to condemn the attack and the Syrian government, and to implement measures to prevent it happening again. To most people, these measures are not controversial. Yet, Russia once again applied their veto, halting retaliatory action.
In a bold move, former Chief Prosecutor for two United Nations war crimes tribunals, Cara Del Ponte, has resigned from her role as a member of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria.

Del Ponte joined the three-member Syria inquiry in September 2012, and has been a firm advocate of referring the situation to the International Criminal Court in the Hague. The failure of the UN, Del Ponte argues, is that the commission “is not backed by any political will”.

"I have no power as long as the Security Council does nothing," she said. "We are powerless, there is no justice for Syria."

Del Ponte’s resignation is another thorn in the side of the UN, as the organization continually fails to invoke any meaningful change in Syria.

The principal role of the Security Council is the “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security", yet geopolitical divisions and the lack of international consensus have halted effective resolutions from being passed.

Now this is not to say that the Security Council has taken no action regarding Syria.

Since the beginning of the conflict twenty-one resolutions have been passed. However, these have been limited to four areas: humanitarian access, political solutions, observer missions, and limiting the actions of Islamic militant groups, with a single resolution setting-out to demolish the Syrian government’s chemical weapons stockpiles after the chemical attack in 2013.

This is all good and well – yes some action has been taken. Nevertheless, any attempt to invoke meaningful change has been vetoed by Russia, occasionally with Chinese support.

Of the five resolutions vetoed since 2014, Russia has issued its veto four times, with a joint Chinese-Russian veto occurring on two occasions.

The most disturbing of Russian use of their veto occurred after the chemical weapons attack in Khan Shaykhun. Mr. Safronkov, Russia’s deputy envoy to the UN, cited the anti-Syrian rhetoric used in the draft resolution as justification for applying their veto, as well as arguing that to support the resolution would be to legitimize the US retaliatory strike which “was in violation of international law and lacked the approval of the Security Council”.

Yet, Del Ponte is correct when she says that the US is powerless.

“There is no justice for Syria”, she proclaimed. Yes, there is no justice for Syria. There is no justice for the 12 million civilians who have been uprooted from their homes, for the 470,000 people killed in the conflict, and for those who have simply had to bear witness to the capitulation their country has endured.

Crimes against humanity are being committed continually during this destructive conflict, and it is not until the shells stop raining over Syria that justice can be served, and those accountable can be held to reckoning.

Maybe it’s simply another flaw with the existence of the five veto bearing members of the Security Council. Calls for its reform are steadfast, and the Security Council’s inability to find consensus over Syria will only support those who demand reform.

However the mechanisms of the Security Council are not at fault here. The fault lies solely in the fact that the P-5 members favor their geo-political ambitions over their responsibilities. The Responsibility to Protect doctrine became a codified UN principle in 2005, yet it has failed Syria. The Syrian government has wholly failed to protect its citizens, yet the Security Council is unable to initiate the coercive response the doctrine demands.

The bells of NATO’s regime change in Libya are resonating through the heads of those in power in Russia and China. Mr Churkin, Russia's Permanent Representative to the United argued that “after destroying Libya and considering that a great success, [France, the UK and the US] turned on Syria”.

Although criticism of NATO’s actions in Libya may be founded, Russia’s unwavering support for Assad represents “immorality and a disturbing disregard for the Syrian people to the greatest extent.”

On the first occasion the Security Council was united against the massacre proliferated by chemical weapons, but how does this differ from barrel-bombs, death squads, and incendiary weapons? Repeated use of other unconventional weapons in Syria vastly outweighs the use of chemical weapons in terms of destruction caused, yet meaningful action is repeatedly denied.

Del Ponte’s resignation should be a wake-up call to the parties involved that something significant needs to change; but it won’t. This inability to act has been endured solely by the people of Syria, who continue to suffer unfathomable atrocities. The UN has displayed how the process has become overwhelmingly politicized, with the Security Council unable to move.

Any internationally supported attempt at halting the conflict now must come from alternate sources, with the hope that compromise may be possible.