Gates to the Peace Palace in the Hague. Klev.Victor/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.
A year has now passed since Russia and China vetoed a resolution at the UN Security Council, proposed by 65 countries, which would have referred the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. Back then, 160,000 Syrians had already died in three years of brutal war launched by Bashar al-Assad against his own citizens. Now, 60,000 more Syrians have been killed, and more than a million more have been forced to leave the country.
Russia’s UN Ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, dismissed the UN vote at the time as a "publicity stunt" that threatened peace negotiations. Despite the lack of progress on those negotiations, it seems unlikely that Vladimir Putin is about to allow his Syrian ally to be sent to the ICC anytime soon.
