When the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002, it was welcomed as a new platform by many people, especially those who felt that local courts could not prosecute powerful leaders who had committed crimes against their people.
In Africa, the feeling was that the ICC would help alleviate some of the raging armed conflicts, like the LRA war in Northern Uganda. In fact, President Museveni is on record for having pushed for its creation. Indeed, in its early years, it indicted LRA leaders, including Joseph Kony. Vincent Otti.
Yet more than twenty years later, many African leaders, including Museveni, have changed their minds on the usefulness of the ICC. During his swearing-in ceremony in 2016, Museveni blasted the ICC for targeting African leaders for indictments while leaving leaders from the West to commit war crimes freely.
Earlier in 2013, he had blasted the ICC for indicting Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto over the 2007 post-election violence in Kenya. He told the ICC to let Africans ‘handle’ their issues.
The then Sudan president Omar el Bashir was in attendance, something that did not impress diplomats from the West because Bashir had been indicted for war crimes in Darfur.
Another issue why ICC has become irrelevant in the eyes of some Africans is the domineering role of the United States. The irony is that the US has never ratified the Rome Statute that established the ICC. America, therefore, does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court, and its leaders and soldiers can’t be tried by it.
Remember when ICC tried to investigate American soldiers for crimes committed in Afghanistan? President Bush decided to impose sanctions on ICC officials, and the investigations were dropped.
The ICC, like earlier said, has focused so much on prosecuting Africans, and one of its most famous cases is that of Bashir. It was the first time a sitting president in Africa had been indicted.
To some people, the move showed that the court was serious about holding powerful leaders accountable. But to others, it reinforced the suspicion that the ICC was out to target African leaders.
Why were African leaders appearing before the court while leaders from powerful Western countries seemed beyond its reach? Some people wondered.
As for the Uhuru and Ruto cases, they collapsed due to a lack of evidence after several witnesses disappeared. However, the move to indict the two leaders left a bitter aftertaste in the mouths of many Kenyans.
Many other African leaders started feeling like the court was poking its nose into things that should stay local. Some even said that the ICC was just a tool to punish leaders who did not dance to the tune of the West.
It has to be said that the US is not the only global power that is not a member of the ICC. China, India, and Russia also refused to ratify the Rome Statute. These governments insist their courts can handle their own affairs.
For the poor African countries, they still rely on the West for aid, and since these countries control the ICC, we are caught up in a trap.
Countries like Sudan have never ratified the Rome Statute, but Bashir was still indicted by the ICC because of pressure from the West.
But when President Bush slapped sanctions on the ICC, the same European countries kept quiet. The UK said it will support ICC, but it did not condemn the action of the US.
So if the ICC is truly independent, why can powerful countries like the U.S get away with undermining it?
It is questions like these that bring back arguments about colonialism and who really holds the power in today’s global institutions.
In the colonial days, European powers made decisions for Africa from far away, usually ignoring their views. How is this different from the ICC? The ICC appears to move in step with the interests of the West.
All this has put real strain on relations between the court and African governments. At one point, the African Union even debated whether all its members should quit the ICC together. Burundi pulled out completely after accusing the ICC of meddling in its politics.
This whole debate showed that African countries were still divided on the issue of the ICC. Some African leaders argued that we should build our justice systems to handle matters that are often referred to the ICC.
Museveni was one of them. Others were Zimbabwe’s former president, Robert Mugabe, who called for building an African court to replace the need for the ICC.
President Paul Kagame of Rwanda once criticized the ICC as a “race hunting” institution that undermines African sovereignty.
The founders of ICC may have imagined a court that would apply international law equally to everyone, regardless of political power or geographic location.
They did not envisage a situation where powerful countries would use it as a tool of suppression against African countries.
When the US and Israel reject the authority of the ICC and continue attacking countries like Iran without any fear of repercussions, some of us in Africa see this as an indication that the ICC is just a toothless court.
It has been turned into a neo-colonial tool to dominate Africa the way colonialists did. The court has not treated us fairly, and until this concern is addressed convincingly, we shall always be suspicious of its real intentions.
Was it formed to foster international justice or to perpetuate the dominance of Africa by the West?