UN reappoints prosecutor of International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals

UNITED NATIONS - The Security Council on Wednesday decided to reappoint Serge Brammertz of Belgium as prosecutor of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals for a term beginning on July 1, 2018 and ending on June 30, 2020.

By a vote of 14 in favor and none against, with one abstention, the Council adopted Resolution 2422 (2018), underlining that states should cooperate fully with the mechanism.

More precisely, the Council urged all states, especially those in which fugitives are suspected to be at large, to intensify their cooperation with, and render all necessary assistance to, the mechanism, in particular to ensure the arrest and surrender of all remaining fugitives indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as soon as possible.

Also, by the text, the Council reiterated its request that the mechanism report on its work every six months, and encouraged it to consider an appropriate solution to concerns expressed by some member states about its approach to the early release of persons convicted by the Rwanda tribunal.

Francisco Tenya of Peru, sponsor of the resolution and chair of the Council's working group on international tribunals, spoke after the vote, underscoring the importance of maintaining Council unity in supporting the Residual Mechanism.

Council President Vassily A. Nebenzia, permanent representative of Russia to the UN, said that his delegation had abstained as it had done in the case of a similar text presented in 2016.

The situation within the Residual Mechanism was far from cloudless, he explained, citing issues relating to its administration, staffing and approaches to justice.

He called attention to the case of Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic, saying he had repeatedly been denied release from detention for medical treatment in the Russian Federation despite exhaustive guarantees by that country.

He said Mladic, sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in November 2017 for genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of the laws or customs of war, was fearful of the doctors from the United Nations detention unit and did not wish to comply with their prescribed course of treatment.

The Security Council created the Residual Mechanism on Dec. 22, 2010, with one branch in Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania, inheriting the functions of the Rwanda tribunal, and the other, in The Hague, Netherlands, assuming the functions of the former Yugoslavia tribunal.

The Council, through Resolution 2269 (2016), had previously appointed Brammertz as prosecutor of the mechanism for a two-year term ending on June 30, 2018.