UN voices concern over US’ ICC threats

The Unit­ed Na­tions has ex­pressed se­ri­ous con­cern over the Unit­ed States’ de­ci­sion to sanc­tion two ad­di­tion­al judges of the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC), warn­ing that the move un­der­mines ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence and in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice.

Speak­ing at UN Head­quar­ters, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesper­son for the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, said the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al was trou­bled by the lat­est des­ig­na­tions un­der a US ex­ec­u­tive or­der, as well as the on­go­ing sanc­tion­ing of oth­er ICC and UN of­fi­cials.

“While the UN and the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court are sep­a­rate in­sti­tu­tions with sep­a­rate and dis­tinct man­dates, the UN con­sid­ers the ICC a key pil­lar of in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal jus­tice, and the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al re­spects its work,” Haq said.

He added that the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al had stressed “the im­por­tance of the ba­sic prin­ci­ple of ju­di­cial in­de­pen­dence.”

Haq said the UN re­mains com­mit­ted to co­op­er­at­ing with the ICC in ac­cor­dance with the re­la­tion­ship agree­ment ap­proved by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly in 2004.

The com­ments came a day af­ter the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al re­ceived a phone call from Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro amid height­ened re­gion­al ten­sions. Dur­ing that call, the Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al re­it­er­at­ed the need for mem­ber states to re­spect in­ter­na­tion­al law, ex­er­cise re­straint and de-es­ca­late ten­sions to pre­serve re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty.