UN May Be Asked To Intervene On Bashir Arrest - ICC Chief
"If states do not cooperate, there are provisions saying that the court will then have resort...to the Security Council," the outgoing ICC president told journalists on his last day in office.
"We would need to see first what happens, how states react, and then there will have to be a further move."
The ICC issued an arrest warrant last Wednesday for the Sudanese president on five counts of crimes against humanity and two of war crimes committed in Darfur - its first warrant for a sitting head of state.
The Security Council had referred the case to the ICC for investigation in March 2005.
The court has no means of enforcing the warrant on its own, and relies on states to execute it. It cannot try Bashir in absentia.
Many African and Arab states along with Sudan's key ally China have called for the warrant to be suspended.
Kirsch, who was the court's first president and headed the institution for six years, said its reliance on states to execute warrants was a key challenge.
"To be effective, however well the court may behave in the future, it will always depend on the practical support of states.
"The responsibility to make the system work at the operational level belongs to states and by extension to international organizations, and they have to do their part," he said.
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Publié le 10 mars 2009 Copyright © 2009 Dowjones
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