23 March 1998
"A WORLD OF NEWS FROM THE WORLD ORGANIZATION" Daily Highlights Friday, 20 March 1998 This daily news round-up is prepared by the Central News Section of the Office of Communications and of Public Information at the United Nations. -- -- -- 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. -- -- --