After several months of speculation about the outcome of the meeting of African leaders on the bid by some of the countries to pull out of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the majority of countries present at the 28th summit of the African Union have agreed to withdraw from the Hague court. The reason for this, according to the leaders, is the perceived selective victimisation of African leaders, as well as the Hague court being a tool for western imperialism.
The bid to withdraw from the ICC was first discussed at the African Union summit in 2015 when Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, who himself is facing the Hague court, submitted a proposal for the withdrawal. At the end of the summit, the then President of the AU, Idriss Deby had remarked, “Elsewhere in the world, many things happen, many flagrant violations of human rights, but nobody cares,” apparently in support of the motion. In October 2016, South Africa, facing a backlash from the court for shielding wanted Sudanese president, Omar Al-Bashir who was in the country for African Union summit in 2014, announced its withdrawal from the court.
In a move spearheaded by the trio of South Africa, Kenya, and Burundi which have long expressed their desires to withdraw from the ICC, a large number of African countries agreed to a non-binding resolution that allows for mass exodus. The call for mass exodus started gaining ground after the Hague court instituted cases against two sitting African presidents: Sudan’s Omar Al-Bashir and Kenya’s Uhuru Kenyatta. Al-Bashir is accused of war crimes and crime against humanity, while Uhuru Kenyatta is accused of instigating a post-election violence that killed some 1,000 Kenyans in 2008.
With nine of the ten present ICC investigations instituted against present and past African leaders, some of the heads of states have condemned what they have described as excessive fixation of the court on Africa, while leaving westerners guilty of same offences untouched.
The decision to leave has been described as a hypocritical move by the African leaders to shield themselves from justice in the absence of a standard criminal court in Africa, and the presence of faltering judicial system in many African states.
While the African leaders have a valid reason in perceived western imperialism ─ as all but one of the ten accused persons on trial at the ICC are ex-African leaders, while a number of leaders of western countries are guilty of same offences – their decision is nothing short of hypocritical and a means to escape punishment for their perpetrated impunities.
With the judiciary incapacitated most of the time in many African countries, the victims of war crimes are now left with no means of ensuring justice. By the way, with the ICC having no power to institute charges against officials from non-member states, there is absolutely nothing they can do to bring the likes of USA, Israel, China, and Russia, which are non-member states, to book.
To a large extent, the withdrawal of these countries in a way gives strength to the impunity tendencies of the leaders. The USA and other world powers have rejected the ICC due to their fear of its excessive powers undermining their national apex courts. However, this cannot be said of Africa, where law courts have little or no power, and African leaders who have little or no respect for court rulings. In the absence of strong national judicial systems as well as flagrant abuse of the largely ineffective regional ones, withdrawal from the ICC, the last hope for the masses in recent years, means African leaders now have a better chance of getting away with impunity.
If the leaders are really taking the step to get away from the claws of Western imperialism, one expects that a regional court to take over the trials of accused persons would be established before such move to exit the Hague court is taken. However, with the talk of a regional court, which if created might have no power to institute charges against presidents, still far-fetched, it appears the African leaders’ decision is more diversionary than anti-imperialist. A pointer to this is the fact that the countries spearheading this move, South Africa, Sudan, Burundi and Kenya, currently have cases or have heard against their leaders in recent time at the ICC. In the absence of a regional court that will hold leaders to account for their actions and inactions, we might just be witnessing the beginning of a lengthy rule of impunity on the continent.
Nigeria, Cape Verde, Senegal have, however, expressed their desire to remain in the ICC, condemning the move for a mass exodus.
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