REVISITING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT AND AFRICA

Abstract

It is a notorious fact that the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the international community was in response to the need to ensure that the perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity and violators of humanitarian laws are brought to justice.This became necessary in the absence of effective national or regional human rights enforcement mechanisms to hold sitting Heads of State and their agents accountable. It is on record that African countries were supportive of the initiative of establishing the ICC and indeed mostly members. However, in carrying out its role, there have been accusations of bias and lack of fairness by African countries against the ICC. In reaction, the African Union (AU) came up with a joint position that African States should pull out of the ICC for lacking in objectivity and fairness by targeting Africans, unless it meets three conditions including immunity from prosecution for sitting Heads of State. The article analyses the AU position against the background that the AU till today has not been able to operationalize any regional alternative. The article argued that in the absence of a regional alternative, pulling out of ICC is not a viable option, in that, to do so will invariably promote leadership impunity and leave African citizens more vulnerable to human rights violations without accountability. It concluded with the recommendation that that the AU should rather pursue the promotion of democratic governance in member States and the speedy operationalization of a regional alternative to the ICC.