The United Nations Security Council is suffering a failure of leadership and looks "tired, out of step and increasingly unfit for purpose," the human rights organization Amnesty International said in a report issued on Thursday.
Analyzing the international community’s reaction to popular uprisings in the Arab world, particularly in Syria, the report said the Security Council’s failure to take action to stop President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on protesters has left it looking "redundant as a guardian of global peace”
"There is a clear and compelling case for the situation in Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court for investigation of crimes against humanity," Salil Shetty, Amnesty Internationa's secretary general, said. "The determination of some UN Security Council members to shield Syria at any cost leaves accountability for these crimes elusive and is a betrayal of the Syrian people."
Russia and China, two of the UN Security Council's five permanent members, twice vetoed its resolutions on Syria over what Moscow called a pro-rebel bias.
According to UN estimates, more than 10,000 people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the uprising against Assad in March 2011. Syrian authorities say they are fighting terrorist gangs affiliated with al-Qaeda.
Amnesty also used the 2012 report to highlight the global arms trade and call for nations to agree on a global arms-trade treaty to be negotiated at a global conference in New York in July.
The group said the Security Council's five permanent members, who also include France, Britain and the United States, account for some 70 percent of the global arms trade.
Year 2011 showed how "opportunistic alliances and financial interests" can trump human rights, Shetty said.
