War crimes expert slates ‘UN talking’

Geneva – Former war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who for years was part of a UN commission probing rights abuses in Syria, is calling for reform of the UN “talk shop”.

She also argued that the upholding of human rights had reached a low point, questioning if they still existed.

“The UN is a big disappointment to me,” she told Swiss weekly NZZ Am Sonntag in an interview published yesterday, insisting that “the UN should be reorganised”.

Del Ponte, a 71-year-old Swiss national who came to prominence investigating war crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, was part of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria for five years, before walking out last year.

Del Ponte said she was disappointed to find that the UN was basically a “talk shop”.

She criticised the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Half of the 47 countries that currently hold rotating membership, including the likes of China, Saudi Arabia and Burundi, “are violating human rights on a daily basis”, she maintained. “They should be thrown out. Immediately. There are lots of civil servants, too many. Only a few of them do any work.”

Del Ponte, known for frankness, repeated her frustration at the lack of accountability for the crimes committed in Syria, where more than 360 000 people have been killed since 2011.

“We had hoped that the International Criminal Court or an ad hoc court would deal with the war crimes,” she said, criticising the blocked UN Security Council for “doing nothing”.