At ICC, Ocampo Got Leaked French & HRW Placating UN Documents from Le Fraper: ICP

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, October 24 – Former International Criminal Court Luis Moreno Ocampo was getting leaked French Mission to the UN documents, including HRW's heads-up to Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff Vijay Nambiar, from his former intimate Beatrice Le Fraper du Hellen, documents obtained by Inner City Press show. She forwarded him, calling it hypocritical and funny, her government's "demarche" to Washington, London and Berlin against Ibrahim Gambari. See here. She forwarded Ocampo Human Rights Watch's Philippe Bolopion's message to Nambiar from Ken Roth, saying HRW would sit on the letter to the benefit of the UN (whose Herve Ladsous was also sent a copy). See Tweeted photos, here. She sent Ocampo more - but first, let's see how France deals with this, and how the ICC which they say they love so much deals with it. While there's (much) more to say about the International Criminal Court including as illuminated by the recent reporting on Luis Moreno Ocampo, the UN is trying to steer clear of the issues, both saying the ICC is separate and more specifically in Kenya. On October 9 Inner City Press asked the UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, UN transcript here: I actually wanted to ask you about what seems to be a connection to the UN Secretariat or at least it's OIOS (Office of Internal Oversight Services).  You may have seen these leaked documents being analysed concerning former prosecutor Moreno… Luis Moreno Ocampo.  And the reason I want to ask you is they touch on Kenya and the decision to try to have… give Mr. [Uhuru] Kenyatta a way out, but Fatou Bensouda has said it's being investigated by something called the IOM, not the other IOM but the Internal Oversight Mechanism, which, in its bylaws, cooperates in some way with OIOS.  So, I wanted to know, is there any… it's always been said from here that there's no connection between the ICC and the UN Secretariat. OIOS -  do they work with IOM? Spokesman:  No, there is… listen…  You have read those bylaws.  I have not.  There is no operational link between the UN and the ICC.  Whether or not it… often the case that various internal oversight bodies have different parts of the system writ very large cooperate with each other, but OIOS does not have any jurisdictional oversight over the ICC. Inner City Press: I'm just wondering, I don't know if they'll answer if I ask them, so could you ask them whether OIOS is playing any role in the… in the… they've des… what's described as an investigation of these Moreno Ocampo…Spokesman:  What I'm telling you is OIOS does not have any jurisdiction over the International Criminal Court. Inner City Press: "Then why are they--" Then cut off. We'll have more on this. 

At UN, SC Meets in Secret on Transparency, Down Closed Hall, Concept Paper Here

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, March 23 -- On Monday the UN Security Council Permanent Members met in their consultations room about transparency. Inner City Press later obtained from an unnamed source the underlying Concept Paper, which it puts online below.

On Friday the Council's Committee on Working Methods took up the topic again, this time amid in the North Lawn building amid even greater secrecy.

Inner City Press stood in the hall outside Conference Room 7, as media often do. A non-Council diplomat told Inner City Press, "Transparency and the Security Council? Give me a break."

The Council's substantive work of the day was the negotiation of a long-stalled Presidential Statement about the Sahel, unblocked in light of the coup d'etat in Mali. (Our next articles is on that.)

On March 22 Inner City Press asked Council president Mark Lyall Grant about the stalled Sahel statement and was told that political coordinators would meet on Friday at 10:30. But it was not at the Council, and only at 3 pm was it learned that a draft of the Sahel would go now go "under silence."

Non-Permanent members of the Council were mostly represented on Working Methods by their Political Coordinators; the Permanent Five at a lower level. The UK and France, for example, were represented by the diplomats who represented them during the recent meetings of the International Criminal Court state parties. Friday after France's Beatrice Le Fraper du Hellen walked in, soon Inner City Press was told to leave even the hallway. So much for transparency.

The Press' ability to cover UN meeting should not depend so much on in which UN building the hosts choose to hold the meeting. This is similar to the meeting in UN-rented 380 Madison Avenue of the UN Senior Advisory Group on Peacekeeping Operations, including Sri Lankan General Shavendra Silva whose Division 58 is depicted in the UN's own Panel of Experts report as engaged in war crimes.

When Inner City Press covered it as it would in the UN, Sri Lanka got UN Security to throw Inner City Press. Now the North Lawn building is said to have secret corridors, and the Council tries to meet in them.

And so we have the Concept Paper, which invited comment on among other things a proposal to not have Ambassadorial level meetings on, "say," Friday afternoons:

The Council is allotted five full conference days per week but, on average, our figures indicate that only around half of these allotted conference resources are used. Just under half of the unused resources can be re-allocated within the UN system, but around a tbird of the overall allotted time is not utilized. While maintaining the capacity to meet at any time and at short notice should the need arise, we believe there is a case for the Council agreeing to a practice that it should not meet, say, on Friday afternoons (other than when urgently necessary). Providing this level of clarity to the Secretariat would enable them to adjust their planning so that the level of unused resources would be sharply reduced. Our estimates indicate that this modest reform would save several million dollars. Additionally, we think that we should look at redeploying some of the time from the Council itself to subsidiary organs, whose number and frequency of meeting have increased in recent years.

Periodicity. Recently steps have been taken to reduce the number of mandate renewals concentrated disproportionately at a few points in the year (notably June and December). However more can be done to avoid spikes in the work of the Council with consequences for the workload of the Secretariat and all Missions of Council members. We believe that recent planning documents from the Secretariat (see Secretariat Note of 1 March 2012) demonstrate that there is scope for the Council to spread its workload more evenly throughout the year by adjusting mandate renewal periods and reporting requirements so that these are not concentrated at particular points. There is also scope to align related reporting requirements (e.g. of mission reports and sanctions committee reports concerning the same country) so that Council consideration of related items could easily be "clustered" into a single thematically consistent session.

Interactivity, We welcome the greater level of interactivity achieved in recent months through, for example, less recourse to speakers' lists for consultations, more informality of discussion, through regular horizon-scanning sessions and through the judicious use of videoconferencing technology wherever appropriate and practically feasible (which increased from 3 uses in 2010 to 28 in 2011). Our view is that this leads to more productive and stimulating exchanges and generates purposeful debate. We believe that we should actively explore further such changes.

And so ostensibly to discuss reform, and greater openness in publishing the full year's schedule on the Council's website, the Council meet Friday in a closed door down a hallway some wanted the Press out of. We'll have more on this.

For Kim Jong-Il, Moment of Silence in UNGA, Shot Down in SC, Ban No Comment

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 22 -- The UN General Assembly held a standing moment of silence in "tribute" to Kim Jong-Il on Thursday afternoon. In front of the GA a range of diplomats, most of them not Permanent Representatives or lead Ambassadors, told Inner City Press they were uncomfortable with the tribute.

Security Council president Vitaly Churkin, on his way into the Security Council for its 4 pm meeting, said that a request had been received for a similar minute of silence in the Council, it was circulated but there was no consensus - and hence, no Council minute of silence.

Moments earlier Inner City Press had asked North Korean Permanent Representative Sin Son Ho if there had been a request to the Security Council for a moment of silence. He said he didn't know, and gestured upstairs where the General Assembly minute had just taken place.

Downstairs, a Deputy Permanent Representative said that "one country" broken consensus. Another responded, more than one - "there was no consensus" -- adding that many countries did not go to the GA before the moment of silence.

Up in front of the GA French diplomat Beatrice Le Fraper du Hellen, last seen trying to procure a International Criminal Court judgeship for Bruno Cathala for whom a vote trade with an unqualified candidate was offered, walked into the GA before the moment of silence. But did she stay inside for the minute? Only the shadow - l'ombre -- knows. Watch this site.