South Africa has fallen out with the court over war crimes charges for Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir
South Africa has told the United Nations it wants to withdraw from the International Criminal Court amid perceptions The Hague-based tribunal focuses too much on African prosecutions.
Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, the South African foreign minister, signed an Instrument of Withdrawal delivered to the UN secretariat in New York on Thursday, saying it found its own obligations to international human rights ?incompatible? with the ICC?s interpretation.
If South Africa?s parliament does not seek to block the move, the country will become the second in the continent to withdraw, after civil war-hit Burundi which signaled the same intention earlier this month.
The sudden move, by one of the Africa?s most influential players economically and politically, could now trigger the withdrawal of other countries which have lambasted the court in the past, including Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda.
South Africa first raised the prospect of withdrawal from the ICC in June last year after it was reprimanded by the court for allowing Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president it is seeking on war crimes charges, to attend an African Union summit in Johannesburg.
The ICC, which opened in July 2002 and has 124 member states, is the first legal body with permanent international jurisdiction to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Human Rights Watch said the pull-out showed "a startling disregard for justice from a country long seen as a global leader on accountability".
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016...-criminal-cou/
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