Will a U.N. tribunal indict Hezbollah?

A source close to the special U.N. tribunal (STL) investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri has reportedly said that the investigation phase has ended, and some observers expect indictments soon (h/t UN Dispatch). Lebanese observers say they are worried that Hezbollah will lash out after the indictments with actions that would ...

By , a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies.

A source close to the special U.N. tribunal (STL) investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri has reportedly said that the investigation phase has ended, and some observers expect indictments soon (h/t UN Dispatch).

A source close to the special U.N. tribunal (STL) investigating the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri has reportedly said that the investigation phase has ended, and some observers expect indictments soon (h/t UN Dispatch).

Lebanese observers say they are worried that Hezbollah will lash out after the indictments with actions that would erase several years of relative political stability. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman, however, downplayed the pending crisis.

The STL source stressed that the "only thing that is certain is that the general prosecutor has finished the investigative phase that has lasted nearly six years."

This BBC report depicts a society on the edge, and it’s at least possible that the announcement of an indictment could trigger violence. Iranian government officials, meanwhile, are preemptively attacking the tribunal’s legitimacy, describing it as an attempt to weaken the Lebanese resistance movement.

The peace and security implications of the tribunal’s next steps are potentially huge, which begs the question of whether the Security Council will get formal advance notice of pending indictments. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court gives the Security Council the right to delay proceedings for up to twelve months, but my quick read of the Lebanon tribunal’s statute didn’t reveal any similar mechanism.  

David Bosco is a professor at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies. He is the author of The Poseidon Project: The Struggle to Govern the World’s Oceans. Twitter: @multilateralist

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