The investigators urged the UN Security Council to "act urgently to ensure accountability" for violations, including murder and torture, committed by both sides in an uprising and civil war that has killed about 70,000 people since March 2011.

"Now really it's time ... We have a permanent court, the International Criminal Court, who would be ready to take this case," Carla del Ponte, a former ICC chief prosecutor who joined the U.N. team in September, told a news briefing in Geneva.

But because Syria is not party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC, the only way the court can investigate the situation is if it receives a referral from the Security Council. Russia, Assad's long-standing ally and a permanent veto-wielding member of the council, has opposed such a move.

Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov told a news conference that this was "not the path we should follow ... at this stage it would be untimely and unconstructive."

"We cannot decide. But we pressure the international community to decide because it's time to act," del Ponte said.

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