Three West African countries to withdraw from ICC

Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have announced they will immediately withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), labelling it an ‘instrument of neo-colonialist repression’. According to BBC News, leaders of the three military-led countries issued a joint statement, saying they would not recognise the authority of the UN’s top court, based in The Hague. ‘The ICC has proven itself incapable of handling and prosecuting proven war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of genocide, and crimes of aggression,’ the three leaders said. The court has not yet responded to the decision by the three countries, which have close ties to Russia whose leader Vladimir Putin has been subjected to an ICC arrest warrant. The three states said they wanted to set up ‘indigenous mechanisms for the consolidation of peace and justice’. They accused the ICC of targeting less privileged countries, echoing criticism from Rwanda's President Paul Kagame who has previously accused the ICC of holding an anti-African bias. The ICC was set up in 2002 to legally pursue cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression. Out of 33 cases launched since its inception, all but one involved an African country. A country's withdrawal from the ICC officially takes effect one year after the UN is notified.

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A UN expert on Friday called for Mali to remain in the ICC, reports the Jurist. Eduardo González, the independent expert on the situation of human rights in Mali, stated that a withdrawal from the ICC ‘would be a betrayal of victims of gross human rights violations’ in Mali, and a sign that authorities are unwilling to fight ‘impunity and ensure justice’. González noted that a withdrawal from the ICC would risk the reparations process critical to the victims of serious crimes in Mali. To date, the ICC has convicted two Malian individuals of war crimes, Ahmad Al Faqi Al Mahdi and Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz. The ICC has already provided reparations to victims of the Al Mahdi case, which involved the destruction of religious and historic sites in Timbuktu. But reparations to victims of the Al Hassan case would be halted if Mali’s withdrawal goes through. Since 2012, Mali has experienced political instability marked by extreme violence and armed conflict. Since then, widespread human rights violations and occupation of main cities has occurred, causing deaths of civilians, sexual violence and destruction of cultural heritage.