Sudan's ruling party has rejected a UN resolution on sending Darfur war crime suspects to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and signalled that it would not cooperate in bringing them to trial abroad.
The leadership of Sudan's National Congress Party said the position of the UN Security Council contravened the rights of the country: "The leadership council ... emphasises its rejection of the prosecution of any Sudanese national outside of the country," it said in a statement.
The UN Security Council voted 11-0 last night with four abstentions to refer a sealed list of 51 people accused of crimes against humanity in Darfur to the ICC. The resolution is the first referral to the ICC by the Council.
The Bush administration, which argues that Americans could be targets of politically motivated prosecutions, had threatened to veto the measure. But council members made last-minute concessions in the text, including guarantees that would bar the ICC or courts from any other country from prosecuting a US citizen or one from any other nation in Sudan that was not a party to the court.
France, which had drafted the original measure, had misgivings about that language, so Britain took over sponsorship of the resolution.
The United States was faced with either swallowing its fierce opposition to the ICC or vetoing a resolution that would try people for the pillage, slaughter and rape in Darfur that Washington has itself called genocide.