The International Criminal Court and Africa: The Decision to Withdraw Or Cooperate
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Abstract
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established by the Rome Statute (2002) and mandated to prosecute and judge the authors of the most serious international crimes, namely war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. African Union (AU) the Member States played a critical role in its creation and remain instrumental in its functioning. However, in recent times, AU Member States have levelled a great deal of criticism and threatened to withdraw from the ICC because they accused it of been bias and focussing on Africa despite the crimes under its jurisdiction being committed outside the African continent. One expected that Jean-Pierre Bemba’s release could help improve the relationship between ICC and African countries. However, the communiqué issued on 15 September 2018 by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) threatening withdrawal from the Rome Statute demonstrates that the relations between Africa and the ICC remain tense.
The purpose of this article is to analyse and uncover the reason why African countries who have over the years cooperated with ICC to prosecute individuals for crimes against humanity under its jurisdiction seems to have recently lost faith and trust in the ICC and not willing to cooperate with it anymore. By adopting the historical analysis and qualitative methodology, this article draws on some historical events that prove how African countries were willing to cooperate with the ICC in the past but however due to some recent development in the operations of the ICC, African countries have perhaps lost confidence in the ICC to fairly deal with cases under its purview. The article concludes that the unwillingness of African Countries to recently cooperate with the ICC is due to the fact that members of the AU are of the view that the ICC is too focused only on cases within the African continent and besides some African leaders also thinks that the ICC has allowed itself to be used as a tool by the big or powerful countries in the world to advance the interest of those powerful countries and this has prevented it from been impartial in the performance of its duties.
In this regard the article suggests that the ICC needs to restructure its operational activities in order to regain the trust and confidence of the AU because the withdrawal of the AU from the ICC will be detrimental to its establishment, and in the larger view, it will have a negative impact on the practice and application of international law as far as seeking international justices is concerned.
Keywords
Africa; African Union; Al Bashir’s Case; Democratic Republic of Congo; International Criminal Court; International Crimes; Jean-Pierre Bemba’s Case; Malabo Protocol; Rome Statute.
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