South Africa: Government reverses its Rome Statute withdrawal
On 10 March 2023, South Africa’s National Assembly announced the withdrawal of the International Crimes Bill (the Bill). The Bill, if passed, would have withdrawn South Africa from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The Minister of Justice and Correctional Services introduced the Bill in 2017, following a diplomatic dispute relating to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir. The ICC had indicted Al-Bashir for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against the people of the Darfur region of Sudan, and issued a warrant for his arrest. This led to calls for South Africa to arrest al-Bashir while he was visiting the country in 2015 for an African Union summit. In June 2015, while al-Bashir was in South Africa, the High Court of Gauteng issued an order for the South African government to arrest him. However, South Africa allowed him to leave the country, and the African National Congress later resolved for South Africa to withdraw from the Rome Statute.
Chrispin Phiri, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice and Correctional Services, stated that “on the balance, it remains far more strategic and important for SA to spearhead fundamental reforms to multilateral institutions like the ICC from within.”
The withdrawal of the Bill has come at a time when the South African government may face similar pressure to fulfil its obligations to the ICC, following the ICC’s issuance of an arrest warrant against Russian president Vladimir Putin. As one of the heads of BRICS, Putin is invited to the BRICS Annual Summit hosted in South Africa in August 2023. As a signatory to the Rome Statute, South Africa is legally bound to detain and bring Putin to trial if he enters the country.
South Africa’s minister of foreign affairs Naledi Pandor has stated that the ICC’s warrant is a matter of concern, and indicated that the government has yet to decide how to respond.
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