\n UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday again asked the Security Council to formally request that the International Criminal Court (ICC) begin investigations of war crimes in Syria.\n<\/p>\n
\n Such a request was blocked in 2014 by Russia and China, which have veto powers, but Ban said the council should try again.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I ask and urge the Security Council to bring this matter to the ICC. I am urging them again,\" Ban told reporters.\n<\/p>\n
\n Describing the situation in Aleppo as \"heartbreaking,\" Ban said he was disappointed that the council failed to take action during a meeting on Saturday when two resolutions were defeated.\n<\/p>\n
\n Russia vetoed a French-drafted text demanding an end to the aerial bombardment of Aleppo and to military flights over the city while a second measure drafted by Moscow urging a ceasefire was defeated.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"There is no such time to debate and disagree,\" Ban said, adding that it was \"evidently clear\" that the council must \"work to protect human lives.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n The 15-member council has the authority to refer a country to the Hague-based ICC for war crimes investigations as it has done for Libya and Sudan's troubled Darfur region.\n<\/p>\n
\n In May 2014, France presented a draft resolution calling for war crimes to be investigated in Syria, but the measure was defeated when Russia and China used their veto power to block the request.\n<\/p>\n
\n French Ambassador Francois Delattre did not rule out another attempt, but said diplomats need to be \"creative\" about how to get the ICC involved in a war crimes probe in Syria.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"When you bomb hospitals, when you bomb schools, when you kill children, if these are not war crimes then frankly then I don't know what war crimes are,\" said Delattre.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Security Council is deeply divided over Syria between Russia, which is offering military support to President Bashar al-Assad, and Western powers backing rebel forces.\n<\/p>\n
\n More than 300,000 people have died in the five-year conflict in Syria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday again asked the Security Council to formally request that the International Criminal Court (ICC) begin investigations of war crimes in Syria. Such a request was blocked in 2014 by Russia and China, which have veto powers, but Ban said the council should try again. \"I ask and urge the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-29738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n