UN asked to launch Syria chlorine case

UNITED NATIONS: The United States circulated a draft UN resolution on Thursday aimed at identifying the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks in Syria so they can be brought to justice.

The United States has been promoting Security Council action to assess blame for an increasing number of alleged chlorine attacks, and Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin said last month that the council should look at the best way to ensure that the people allegedly responsible for chlorine attacks are brought before a court and punished.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the global chemical weapons watchdog based in The Hague, Netherlands, has a mandate to carry out fact-finding missions and has condemned the use of chlorine in Syria as a breach of international law.

But neither the OPCW nor the United Nations have a mandate to determine responsibility for the use of chemical weapons.

US Ambassador Samantha Power said in a statement that “given the frequent allegations of chlorine attacks in Syria, and the absence of any international body to identify the perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks, it is critical that the UN Security Council find consensus and set up an independent investigative mechanism’’.

The draft resolution asks UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in coordination with OPCW director-general Ahmet Uzumcu, to submit to the council within 15 days recommendations to establish an “OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism’’.

It says this investigative body will identify “entities, groups or governments who were perpetrators, organisers, sponsors or otherwise involved in use of chemical weapons’’ in Syria in instances where an OPCW fact-finding mission has determined that an incident involved or likely involved the use of chemical weapons.

The draft resolution reiterates that Syria is banned from using or retaining chemical weapons and that “no party in Syria’’ should use or acquire such weapons.

It expresses the council’s determination “to identify those responsible for these acts’’. And it reiterates “that those individuals, entities, groups or governments responsible for any use of chemicals as weapons, including chlorine or any other toxic chemical, must be held accountable’’.

Chlorine is not a banned agent used in chemical weapons, like sarin or ricin. But it is toxic and its use in attacks in Syria started being reported last year.