SA’s move to leave ICC is unfortunate, but the court deserves the primary blame
Massachusetts — The new SA has been a bastion of respect for human rights, and its decision to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) is a sign that something is terribly wrong with the tribunal. And it is no secret: since 2005, when it first issued arrest warrants, the court has indicted 39 people, every one of them African. There are various explanations for this, some of them defensible. But the bottom line is that it was an inexcusable mistake for the court not to pursue other cases. It wouldn’t have been tokenism, because there are, unfortunately, plenty of nonAfrican war criminals. Yet even if it were, the tokenism would have been justified to show that the court is more than the imperialist agent of regime change that many Africans consider it. SA’s unexpected — and devastating — decision last week to withdraw from the court is not based on any immediate fear that South African leaders would be prosecuted. In that sense, the decision differs sharply from that of...
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