News

USIS Washington 
File

23 March 1998

UNITED NATIONS REPORT, MONDAY, MARCH 23, 1998

Libya tells Security Council that sanctions are moot in wake of International Court of Justice ruling.


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Addressing the Security Council as numerous States debated the
sanctions against Libya, its Foreign Minister on Friday said the
sanctions were moot in the wake of a recent decision by the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the Lockerbie affair, which
triggered the sanctions in the first place.


Last month, the ICJ decided -- over objections by the United States
and the United Kingdom -- that it has jurisdiction over cases brought
against those countries by Libya. Tripoli contends that the United
Kingdom and the United States do not have the right to compel it to
surrender two Libyan nationals suspected of having caused the
destruction of Pan Am flight 103, which crashed over Lockerbie,
Scotland on 21 December 1988.


The incident prompted the Security Council to impose a wide range of
aerial, arms and diplomatic sanctions on Libya pending its
renunciation of terrorism and its action to ensure the appearance of
those charged with the Lockerbie bombings before the appropriate
courts in the United Kingdom or the United States. Libya argues that
it is authorized to try the suspects under the 1971 Montreal
Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of
Civil Aviation. It has also offered to have the suspects tried in a
third country or at The Hague.


Libya's Foreign Minister, Omar Mustafa Muntasser, told the Council
that the sanctions were collective punishment against his entire
country as a result of nothing more than a mere suspicion of two of
its citizens. He added that Council sanctions had become irrelevant
and moot, since the Court had accepted jurisdiction in the matter. He
said they should be lifted.


United States Ambassador Bill Richardson said that the rulings by the
International Court of Justice in no way questioned the legality of
the Security Council's actions affecting Libya or the merits of the
criminal cases against the two accused suspects in the Lockerbie case.
The Court had simply said that the parties must now argue the legal
merits of the case. While the case was proceeding, Libya must comply
with its obligation pursuant to Security Council decisions and turn
over the two accused suspects for a fair trial, he said.


Ambassador John Weston of the United Kingdom stated that Libya was
misrepresenting the facts on the ICJ ruling. He said the Court's
decision was not a decision that Libya's claim was valid nor was it in
any way a decision on the merits of the case against the two accused.
Most importantly, it was not a decision that Council resolutions were
invalid. Those resolutions were unaffected by the Court's ruling and
therefore remained in force, he stressed.


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