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Kenya Follows South African ICC Withdrawal. Is This All About Business For SA?

Kenya Follows South African ICC Withdrawal. Is This All About Business For SA?

Kenya is the latest Africa country to pull out of the International Criminal Court following the withdrawal announcement Friday by South Africa, considered a bastion of respect for human rights since the end of apartheid.

The 124-member International Criminal Court or ICC is the first legal entity with permanent global jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. In 14 years, the Hague, Netherlands-based body has produced just five verdicts of substance — all of them against Africans, leading to criticism that it unfairly targets Africa, Reuters reported.

South Africa’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court has encouraged other African countries to do the same, Independent Online reported.

South Africa announced its decision to withdraw from the ICC on Friday. Burundi did so on Saturday. Kenya is the latest to pull out of the institution.

The ICC has to take the blame for South Africa’s departure, according to a Bloomberg opinion piece, Mail & Guardian reported:

It was an inexcusable mistake for the court not to pursue other cases. It wouldn’t have been tokenism, because there are, unfortunately, plenty of non-African war criminals. Yet even if it were, the tokenism would have been justified to show that the court is more than the imperialist agent of regime change that many Africans consider it.

South Africa’s unexpected – and devastating – decision last week to withdraw from the court is not based on any immediate fear that South African leaders would be prosecuted.

The South African government is consolidating its position of regional and continental leadership by taking a stance that is sure to please other African heads of state. It’s precisely those heads of state who are most vulnerable to ICC prosecution.

South Africa is facing a backlash at home for the decision.

On Monday, the opposition Democratic Alliance party and the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution filed an urgent application in the Constitutional Court to reverse the withdrawal decision.

The decision is unconstitutional, said Lawson Naidoo, executive secretary of the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution. Only Parliament, not the cabinet, can take South Africa out of an international treaty that it has ratified, he said.

The move will “undermine South Africa’s reputation in the world, its commitment to international law as well as its respect for human rights at home.”

“It’s a blow to the international protection of human rights and turns South Africa into a safe haven for those who the Constitutional Court once described as the enemies of all humankind,” Naidoo said.

This marks a dramatic shift in South Africa’s commitment to international justice and to its standing in the international community, said James Selfe with the Democratic Alliance.

The ICC attempted to prosecute Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, his deputy William Ruto and four other leaders for 2007 post-election violence. The case collapsed in 2015 and the Kenyan leaders were acquitted.

South Africa announced its intention in 2105 to leave after the ICC after the government was criticized for disregarding an order to arrest Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, accused of genocide and war crimes, when he visited the country for an African Union meeting. Bashir denies the accusations, Reuters reported.

Burundi’s motivation for an ICC withdrawal was the prospect of an ICC investigation into political violence that has plagued the country since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he’d run for a third term, Bloomberg reported in Mail & Guardian.

Sudan’s al-Bashir and Uganda’s pPresident of 30 years, Yoweri Museveni, have lobbied other African countries to withdraw from the ICC too, according to Independent Online.

Diplomatic immunity is South Africa’s argument for not arresting Al-Bashir. The country’s international diplomatic system shouldn’t be held to ransom, said Justice Minister Michael Masutha.

Leaders who come to South Africa are protected and ICC provisions of the Rome Statute shouldn’t subject the country to different interpretations on implementing diplomatic immunity.

South Africa will be the first country to quit the ICC in 2107, after formally declaring its departure, saying ICC membership conflicts with its diplomatic immunity laws, Reuters reported.

“The statement that South Africa wants to respect the diplomatic immunity of other heads of state is a way of saying that South Africa wants to do business with African leaders,” Bloomberg reported.