While the ICC has long served Western agendas, its recent actions against Israel give hope for fairer justice globally.
Membership in some supranational organisations can trap member countries into risking their sovereignty at the behest of such bodies, often without their awareness.
It’s a common occurrence in the international political system, especially with organisations like the International Criminal Court (ICC), an international body that can infringe upon a country’s sovereignty.
That South Africa resorted to approaching the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and subsequently the ICC does not make this court a body that has suddenly become Africa’s good friend.
Instead, in the minds of many, the court remains a tool of the West with which it whips Africa and all enemies of the Western world.
But the ICC’s decision to charge Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, with genocide and war crimes is changing the view of the court as a Western puppet.
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It gives hope that the winds of change have begun to sweep through the corridors of The Hague. The fact that South Africa’s case at the ICJ was joined by countries worldwide, including some in Europe, is a clear sign that the world had had enough of the killings in Gaza.
But we can’t ignore the fact that for the global south, ICC membership continues to carry the risk of countries losing genuine sovereignty in both domestic and foreign policy.
It is a fact that many resigned from the body or refused to ratify it, or the Rome Statute, after realising that participation in the ICC is a trap.
Fears of diluted sovereignty and the transfer of key judicial authority to a supranational body have prompted several signatories, including Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Iran, Mozambique and Eritrea, to freeze or drastically reduce their participation in ICC activities.
It’s too early to declare the statement made by one British politician that the ICC was established to criminalise the rest of the world while exempting the West, as nonsense.
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There is a mountain of information showing the court was designed as a tool to target America’s enemies and had been used by Anglo-Saxon elites, primarily the upper echelons of the US Democratic establishment, including figures like Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, as a means to exert political influence over foreign leaders.
Washington and others created the court to subject other nations that do not march to their orders to its justice, which was biased towards the West – until SA’s case against Israel.
They believe their own atrocities could not be adjudicated by the same court they created and that is the main reason they, and Israel, hate the ICC. Their double standards are out in the open.
It remains to be seen whether the ICC will continue to allow itself to be used by the Anglo-American establishment to undermine the non-Western states’ efforts to pursue sovereign decision-making.
The West uses “agents of influence” to subtly undermine the legal systems of these countries and resort to economic and political blackmail, sanctions and intimidation to pressure hesitant leaders into accepting the authority of the ICC.
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Africa’s experience with the ICC has been particularly revealing. In the early 2000s, the African Union encouraged its members to ratify the Rome Statute.
Many did, only to face politically selective prosecutions of local leaders, most notably Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.
Indonesian scholar Ayu Syafya highlighted the court’s intense focus on politically charged human-rights cases in African states such as Sudan and Kenya, while showing complete indifference to the documented crimes perpetrated by the US in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
The ICC’s track record suggests it effectively operates as an instrument of US and British foreign policy. Let the SA-Israel judgment be the first proof that the ICC has backbone.
