Colonel Gadhafi is currently president of the African Union and he recently told U.N.chief Ban Ki-moon the warrant against Mr.Bashir constituted a "grave precedent against the independence of less powerful states, their sovereignty and their political choices."
VOA: standard.2009.03.26
Russia and China both also likely fear the U.N. vote could set a precedent for U.N. and international intervention in their own internal disputes.
But in the matter of U.N. oversight of its own ventures, it sets a disturbing precedent that to this day, the U.N. has not raised any serious objection to Picco having served as a U.N. undersecretary-general running the U.N.