Russian newspaper leaks text of UN resolution on MH17 tribunal

The Russian newspaper Kommersant has acquired and published the text (in Russian and English) of a UN Security Council draft resolution on establishing a criminal tribunal to determine responsibility for the crash of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. The Security Council is expected to discuss the resolution at 3 p.m., New York time, later today, on July 29.

“The establishment of an international tribunal would be an effective guarantee for an independent and impartial accountability process in accordance with international standards,” the draft resolution reads. The document stresses the need for all nations to to cooperate with the tribunal.

According to the draft resolution, the purpose of the tribunal would be to “bringing the perpetrators to justice, and providing an update in relation to the status of that investigation, as well as the recovery and repatriation mission and the international technical investigation into the cause of the crash.”

The tribunal, the draft resolution proposes, "shall consist of the following organs: the Chambers, comprising a pretrial judge, a trial chamber and an appeals chamber; the Prosecutor; the Registry."

“No two judges of the same nationality shall be appointed. The judges shall be appointed for a five-year period and may be eligible for reappointment for a further period to be determined by the Secretary-General.”

Kommersant

• Russia has repeatedly expressed its opposition to forming an international tribunal in response to the MH17 tragedy. Vladimir Putin has called the idea “counterproductive.”
• Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crashed on July 17, 2014, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. All 298 people onboard were killed. The results of the Dutch investigation into the crash are expected to be disclosed in October 2015.
• Malaysia authored the draft resolution to establish an international tribunal for handling the MH17 crash. The Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, and Ukraine have backed the idea.