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The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) must advocate in all possible forums for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to be charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for crimes against humanity.

I will today be writing to the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, to urge her Department to support international calls for President al-Assad to appear before the ICC.

In addition, I will be asking the Minister to use South Africa’s positioning on the Syrian issue to clarify the government’s interpretation of the “responsibility to protect” as outlined in Resolution 1674 of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).

The ICC has jurisdiction over genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The definition of “crimes against humanity” outlined in Article 7(1) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court includes murder, torture and “other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health” when “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population”.

Reports indicate that more than 7 000 citizens have been killed by Syrian authorities in the suppression of civil liberty protests that started in March 2011. In February this year, a United Nations Panel concluded that the “gross human rights violations” in Syria had been ordered by the Syrian authorities “as a matter of state policy”, and as such do constitute crimes against humanity.

The UNSC has the power to refer cases to the ICC. As a serving member of the UNSC, South Africa has to actively promote the referral of the crimes of the Syrian regime to the ICC.

The response of the international community to the state-sponsored violence in Syria is an important test case for the interpretation of the UN’s “responsibility to protect” doctrine.

The “responsibility to protect” is outlined in a resolution adopted by the UNSC in 2006. UNSC resolutions are binding on all UN member states. The resolution determines that any state has “the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity”. Where states fail to provide such protection, the resolution prescribes that the international community has a responsibility to intervene “in a timely and decisive manner”.

Continued delays in coordinating decisive action in Syria can be considered a failure by the international community to fulfil its “responsibility to protect”. South Africa contributed to this failure when it did not support UN intervention in Syria when it was voted on in the UNSC in October last year.

Our support of the proposed UN resolution on Syria in February 2012 was a step in the right direction. DIRCO now has to send a clear message that South Africa will not shy away from international intervention when human rights and the lives of innocent civilians are at stake.