As UN Lawyer Says Peacekeepers Work with ICC in Congo, Sudan Aftermath Approaches

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/icc1michel072808.html

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 see, www.innercitypress.com/icc1michel072808.html