UNSC fails to deter ICC trials of Kenyan officials

The UN Security Council on Friday failed to defer for a year the International Criminal Court (ICC) trails of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Samoei Ruto, as allowed by Article 16 of the Court's Rome Statute. The draft resolution, presented by African UNSC members, including Morocco and Rwanda at the request of the African Union (AU), was not rejected by the Council because of vetoes cast by Council permanent members, but because it did not get the nine-vote quorum needed to pass a resolution. It got seven votes in favour, none against and eight abstentions. The AU request to defer the trials was based on the argument that both officials are dealing with the aftermath of the Nairobi Westgate mall attack in September by the al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab, in which at least 67 people died. The charges against the two Kenyan officials are related to the violence that accompanied the 2007 elections, in which 1,200 people died. They denied the charges and have tried to have the cases either deferred or dismissed. Such kind of vote where a resolution was put to a vote in the Council despite the prior knowledge of lack of support was not seen in the Council for decades. There have been cases, however, of Council draft resolutions that did not get the necessary nine votes, especially when related to the Palestinian issue, but the Arab group usually withdrew the draft realizing it is a futile effort and in order not to embarrass the Council members opposed to it. Guatemala's Ambassador Gert Rosenthal told the Council today in explanation of vote, that the African countries' insistence to put the draft resolution to a vote despite lack of support uncovered the division in the Council and "the contrary was achieved. There was no need to so. All of us lost, not just the bunch of losers."