A fortnight ago Gambia declared its intention to withdraw from the International Criminal Court [ICC] amid growing fears of a mass African exodus from the world body designed to prosecute those who commit the gravest atrocities. Gambia’s move came a few days after South Africa began the formal process of withdrawal from the Rome Statute, ICC’s founding treaty. Burundi also announced its intention to withdraw in due course.
Gambia described ICC as a racist organisation which is “involved in the persecution and humiliation of people of colour, especially Africans.” Gambia’s Information Minister Sheriff Bojang said ICC had been used “for the persecution of Africans and especially their leaders” while ignoring crimes committed by Westerners. He singled out the case of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who the court decided not to indict over the 2003 Iraq war. “There are many Western countries, at least 30, that have committed heinous war crimes against independent sovereign states and their citizens since the creation of ICC but not a single Western war criminal has been indicted,” he said, adding that ICC “is in fact an International Caucasian Court.”
The feeling that ICC is only there to punish African leaders has gained traction across the continent. Recently, Namibia, Uganda and Kenya also raised the possibility of pulling out.
All six cases that are ongoing or about to begin at ICC involve people from African states. That said, all but one of those cases were brought by African nations themselves or the UN Security Council. ICC, set up in 2002, has also struggled with lack of cooperation from powers such as USA, which has signed the court’s treaty but never ratified it. South Africa’s government announced its decision to withdraw after a row over its decision to grant free passage to Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, who is wanted by the court.
ICC has appealed to African countries to reconsider their stand. In a statement on ICC’s website, president of the assembly of member states Sidiki Kaba said he fears the path Africa appears to be taking. Without doubt, African states pulling out of the world body will be a major blow as they constitute the largest regional bloc in ICC membership. The action could be a setback to the project of ‘ending impunity’ for atrocity crimes, which is ICC’s primary goal as stated in the preamble of the Rome Statute.
Aside from allegations of anti-African bias and neo-colonialism, local or regional politics stood behind recent decisions to pull out. The Nigerian government has said it has no intention of pulling out from ICC. That notwithstanding, we urge all African Union member states to adopt a common position on this matter. There should either be a wholesale African withdrawal or we should at least push for a review of the Rome Statute at AU’s next summit meeting in January.
ICC was established for the purpose of trying serious crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and acts of aggression. With the 1994 Rwandan genocide in mind, Africa was instrumental to ICC’s establishment. We thought we needed an independent criminal court free from politics. In reality, the reverse is the case. ICC has failed to initiate investigations in some superpower states and has appeared to be a hegemonic tool of the Western powers.
Still, we Africans have been humiliated by ICC because of the failure of our leaderships and systems. The inability of our national courts to address grave crimes committed on our shores led African governments to refer their cases to ICC. There is the need to strengthen our weak judicial systems. Each African state must develop the capacity to effectively investigate and prosecute international crimes committed within its borders. If that is done, we would have no further need for ICC.
Source: dailytrust
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