{"id":95486,"date":"2025-09-23T22:26:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T22:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=95486"},"modified":"2025-09-23T22:26:00","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T22:26:00","slug":"three-west-african-countries-to-quit-international-criminal-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=95486","title":{"rendered":"Three West African countries to quit International Criminal Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have announced they will immediately withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), labelling it an \u201cinstrument of neo-colonialist repression\u201d.<\/p>\n

The three military-led countries issued a joint statement, saying they would not recognise the authority of the UN-backed court, based in The Hague.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ICC has proven itself incapable of handling and prosecuting proven war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of genocide, and crimes of aggression,\u201d the three leaders said.<\/p>\n

The court has not yet responded to the decision by the three countries, all of which with close ties to Russia, whose leader, Vladimir Putin, has been subject to an ICC arrest warrant.<\/p>\n

The three states said they wanted to set up \u201cindigenous mechanisms for the consolidation of peace and justice\u201d.<\/p>\n

They accused the ICC of targeting less privileged countries, echoing criticism from Rwanda\u2019s President Paul Kagame who has previously accused the ICC of holding an anti-African bias.<\/p>\n

The ICC was set up in 2002 to legally pursue cases of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression.<\/p>\n

Out of\u00a033 cases launched since its inception, all but one involved an African country.<\/p>\n

A country\u2019s withdrawal from the ICC officially takes effect one year after the UN is notified.<\/p>\n

Military junta forces are in control of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, following coups in the Sahel countries between 2020 and 2023. They make up the only three members of the Confederation of Sahel States.<\/p>\n

Their armies have faced accusations of crimes against civilians, as violence has escalated in the region against jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.<\/p>\n

In another coordinated move earlier this year, all three countries simultaneously withdrew from the regional bloc, the\u00a0Economic Community of West African States\u00a0(ECOWAS).<\/p>\n

They had rejected Ecowas\u2019 demands for them to restore democratic rule.<\/p>\n

Russia has strengthened its ties with the three Sahel countries over recent years, which have all become increasingly isolated from the West, notably the former regional colonial power, France.<\/p>\n

In 2023, the ICC issued an\u00a0arrest warrant for Russia\u2019s President Vladimir Putin\u00a0over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"ThreeBurkina Faso, Mali and Niger have announced they will immediately withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), labelling it an “instrument of neo-colonialist repression”.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1972,2047,4162,10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-95486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-hp-news-9","category-international-criminal-court-icc","category-politics","category-popular"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}