Unpacking Africa’s fraught relationship with the ICC

On 1 February, the AU issued a resolution encouraging member states to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC). In an analysis on the allAfrica site, Adam Branch notes that whatever comes of it, the reported plan is the culmination of a highly publicised pushback by African states which have accused the court of political bias, interference in African affairs and even racism. ‘Today's African opposition represents a crisis for the 15-year-old court. But it's also a symptom of a deeper dilemma faced by the ICC: how to enforce international criminal law impartially in a world of vast inequalities of power? As I argue in a recent article, the ICC sought to escape this dilemma by focusing exclusively on Africa. At first, African states went along with it because cooperation entailed significant benefits. When the ICC shifted gears, however, and began to prosecute African heads of state instead of siding with them, the relationship went sour.’ Branch believes Africa's pushback is therefore a result of the ICC's own strategy for the continent. ‘But it also needs to be seen in the context of Africa's long experience of damaging foreign intervention within a highly inequitable international order. Without Africa to turn to, the ICC may not have survived in the post-9/11 world. The Middle East was ablaze with US wars, and the US actively threatened the court's survival. The ICC was without enforcement power and depended on state cooperation to conduct investigations and arrest suspects. So it had to avoid US opposition, while finding support for its prosecutions.’