The Widening Exodus From the ICC

What to make of five countries quitting the International Criminal Court? It has the making of a good start, with some 120 more member nations to go. The latest country to decamp from the global tribunal is Chad, which decries the court’s “activity focused on the Global South in general and the African continent in particular.” Chad asserts that African nations “have become the willing victims of the ICC’s political instrumentalisation.” Chad finds the ICC’s prosecutions reflect “undeniable and egregious selectivity.” That resonates after the court’s attempt to prosecute for war crimes Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with Hamas leaders, since deceased. Hamas’s targeting of civilians offers grounds for prosecution. Israel’s leaders, by contrast, are leading a war of self-defense after the atrocities by Hamas on October 7. Chad’s departure follows announcements that three other African nations, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, will leave the court, calling it “a tool of neocolonial repression.” Venezuela is leaving too. These four nations may not have been exemplary democracies. Their exits from the ICC, though, come amid Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent call for the ICC’s “dismantling.” He asserts that the Hague-based court has over-run a relatively narrow mission.Since then, Mr. Rubio avers, the ICC has undergone a case of mission creep. Today, he reckons, “the ICC and its allies seek a standing world tribunal with near-unlimited reach.” The state secretary cautions that the ICC sees itself as being “empowered to override the courts and constitutions of the U.S. and other sovereign states,” and “to prosecute and arrest” American citizens. Mr. Rubio points out that “Americans never agreed to any of this.”In that regard, America, by refusing to ratify the ICC’s enabling treaty, the Rome Statute of 2002, is in the company of fellow democracies, like Israel and India, that have eschewed membership in the court. Authoritarian regimes, like Russia and Communist China, are also abstainers. Yet it appears that other nations are increasingly grasping the logic of Mr. Rubio’s argument and looking to extract themselves from the ICC’s jurisdiction. Complaints over the ICC’s politicization are hardly new. The court has long faced “particular criticism from some African governments,” the Council on Foreign Relations reports, because the ICC’s “prosecutions have disproportionately targeted the continent.” South Africa was one of the court’s most enthusiastic backers, but twice threatened to quit. Yet South African officials balked at executing ICC warrants issued against Pretoria’s allies.In 2015 South Africa refused to arrest the Sudanese president, Omar al-Bashir, when he visited the country. The ICC had indicted him for alleged war crimes. The contretemps prompted South Africa to attempt to depart the high court, accused by Pretoria of aspiring to “regime change.” Yet South Africa’s High Court barred the exit. In 2023, President Cyril Ramaphosa mooted leaving the ICC over its indictment of Vladimir Putin.The indictment of the Russian leader, along with probes of alleged “war crimes” by American troops in Afghanistan, was seen by ICC critics as a response to complaints that the court was overly focused on prosecuting Africans. The recent dismissal of the ICC’s top prosecutor, Karim Khan, amid accusations of sexual abuse, is casting a further cloud over the tribunal’s legitimacy. Mr. Rubio’s campaign could make it harder to find a replacement, per Reuters.The exodus from the ICC speaks to the defects that seem inherent to multilateral global bodies like, say, the United Nations. Like the UN, the ICC looks like a victim of ideological capture by the left. Plus, too, prosecuting crimes is one of the hallmarks of national sovereignty and best left in the hands of accountable officials in the countries where the alleged misdeeds take place. It would serve the cause of global justice if other nations follow Chad out of the ICC.

The Widening Exodus From the ICC

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