African Nations’ ICC Exit Cements Perception About Fecklessness of World’s War Crimes Court

Gunmen stormed the main airport in Niger’s capital, Niamey, on June 18, killing 11 soldiers and two civilians, with 22 attackers also killed in the hours-long firefight that followed, in the second such assault on the facility this year. The airport is a strategic hub that houses the ruling junta’s air force base, most of its drones, and the command center of a regional military alliance.That same day, Niger’s junta delivered a different kind of blow: a formal letter to the United Nations severing the country’s ties to the International Criminal Court.In its letter, the junta wrote that while the court had raised great hopes among people who cherish peace and justice, it has been misused and exploited. The ICC responded that it regretted any decision to depart from the collective effort to end impunity for the world’s most serious crimes.Niger is not alone. Burkina Faso and Mali sent their own withdrawal notices on June 24, meaning all three members of the Alliance of Sahel States have now triggered the same one-year countdown, with their exits set to become final on June 24, 2027.The counsel for Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program, Tamara Aburamadan, told The New York Sun that the moves come “almost nine months since it jointly announced, along with Burkina Faso and Mali, its intention to withdraw from the Court,” and track a junta that “has cracked down on political opposition, media, and dissent, targeting human rights defenders, journalists and opposition figures” since taking power.The departures are no surprise. The three juntas jointly announced their intention to quit the ICC back in September 2025, so this month’s paperwork was the formality, not the decision. The real question is what it signals for the rest of the continent: are Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso the first three countries in a longer line of exits from international courts, or a one-off case unique to the Sahel?Three Wars the Juntas Are Struggling To WinNiger, Mali, and Burkina Faso have spent more than a decade battling Islamist insurgencies linked to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State that have only worsened since each country’s military seized power.The juntas responded to that violence the same way: all three expelled French and American troops who had spent years training their militaries and running counterterrorism operations, then leaned on Russia — the same country whose president, Vladimir Putin, is himself wanted by the International Criminal Court over Ukraine. The three nations brought in Russian paramilitaries — first known as Wagner, now rebranded Africa Corps — to fill the gap. The trade was supposed to buy these governments a freer hand and a tougher fighting force. Instead, since the new arrangement the militants have been gaining ground.In Niger’s western Tillabéri region alone, 2025 was the deadliest year on record for the central Sahel, with roughly 1,200 people killed in fighting driven first by the Islamic State’s regional affiliate, then by Niger’s own military, then by an Al Qaeda-linked faction. Mali has fared no better: in April, the Al Qaeda-linked group JNIM and an allied Tuareg separatist force launched coordinated attacks nationwide, killing Mali’s defense minister and seizing the northern city of Kidal before blockading roads into the country’s capital and largest city, Bamako.Is The Bias Claim Real?Quitting the ICC, which the three juntas jointly announced, fits that same break from the West that the governments chose by aligning with Russia. The resentment is part of a widely shared sense on the continent, though it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, says a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and a former British diplomat, Edmund Fitton-Brown.Mr. Brown rejects the charge of an outright Africa bias at the criminal court or even at the United Nations. He tells the Sun widespread grievances across the continent don’t hold up to scrutiny, least of all in Niger’s case.“There is no merit whatsoever to the allegation of bias,” he said. “But some African countries nurse grievances of this kind against the international community. There is a strong feeling on the continent that they should have a permanent seat on the Security Council rather than just its current temporary seats.”The chief executive of the geopolitical firm Lightning Associates, Natalya Goldschmidt, grants some footing to criticism by African nations. “There are certainly legitimate debates about the ICC’s selectivity and credibility,” she told the Sun.The grievance has history. Ms. Aburamadan tells the Sun that almost a decade ago, African leaders pushed for a mass walkout from the court. At the time, Kenya’s president and deputy president faced ICC charges. The walkout ultimately failed because of pushback by “other African governments — including Nigeria, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Tunisia — and civil society.”Where Mr. Fitton-Brown and Ms. Goldschmidt land in the same place is on Niger specifically. Human Rights Watch has documented Nigerien military strikes that killed civilians in Tillabéri, including one the junta admitted to but for which it failed to provide a death count. Both experts say that kind of record undercuts the junta’s claim to be a victim of the court.Mr. Fitton-Brown points to the junta’s own reliance on Russia’s Africa Corps, which he said operates “without asking difficult questions about due process, rule of law, and human rights.”Ms. Goldschmidt puts it more directly.“When a military government accused of civilian harm uses that critique to remove external accountability, the argument begins to look like a shield for impunity,” she said.None of that means the court’s record is clean. Two decades in, the ICC has issued 61 arrest warrants but only 22 suspects have reached a courtroom; 30 remain at large, often because the states holding them refuse to hand them over. The court has issued just 11 convictions.The court has no police force of its own, so it depends entirely on member states to make arrests — which is how Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir evaded a 2009 warrant for years, and why Burundi and the Philippines had already quit the court before Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso followed. By that measure, the junta’s complaint that the court is slow and toothless isn’t wrong, experts note, it is, however, a separate question than whether the court is biased against Africa.Proponents of the system argue that the ICC’s track record misses the point of having the court at all. Even an imperfect ICC gives victims somewhere to go when their own governments won’t investigate. In other cases, the mere threat of a future prosecution has pushed state militaries — Australia’s, for one — to open their own inquiries rather than risk The Hague doing it for them.What Victims LoseAs for Niger, leaving the International Criminal Court doesn’t erase the past. The country stays bound by the court until June 2027 for anything that happened before then. Going forward, however, options for the aggrieved at home shrink.The senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, Hans-Jakob Schindler, tells the Sun the fallback to the criminal court is universal jurisdiction — domestic courts in foreign countries trying internationally recognized suspects when they travel there. But “since only a small number of countries around the globe have exercised this right, it is easy for potential perpetrators to avoid prosecution by simply not traveling to countries that do so.”Ms. Goldschmidt underscores that domestic courts aren’t a real substitute either under a junta. “Justice becomes domestic by default, and under a military government that means victims must seek accountability through the same power structure many of them may fear,” she said.If the ICC is no longer an option beyond 2027, a Nigerien who wants justice for a military abuse will have to ask the same army accused of the abuse to investigate itself, or hope a suspect happens to travel to one of the handful of countries willing to prosecute foreign war crimes.The regional safety net is already gone, too — Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso quit the Economic Community of West African States, and its regional court, back in January 2025.For now, the exits aren’t final. Ms. Aburamadan stresses that there’s still time to change course, provided ICC member states take action.“We are calling on the African Union and all International Criminal Court member countries to engage with these three countries to reverse their withdrawals before they come into effect,” she said.

African Nations’ ICC Exit Cements Perception About Fecklessness of World’s War Crimes Court

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