Late last month, Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso jointly announced their withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC). United under the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), these three countries, which before had distanced themselves from the regional economic bloc ECOWAS, having accused it of serving as a tool of foreign powers, particularly France, took another step in their quest for sovereignty. Their decision is anything but symbolic, as it directly targets one of the most powerful instruments of neocolonial judicial control of the African continent.

Since its creation in 2002, the ICC has presented itself as a universal judicial body tasked with prosecuting war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Yet, behind this noble image lies a harsh reality: the majority of the Court’s high-profile cases involve African states. The West acts as judge but never as the accused.

One of several striking examples is the case of Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire who was detained in The Hague for over seven years before being acquitted in 2019. Or the case of Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, who has been under ICC arrest warrant since 2009, while Western leaders responsible for illegal wars, such as George W. Bush or Tony Blair for their war in Iraq, have never been investigated.

Western crimes remain untouched by The Hague court: NATO’s bombing campaign in Libya in 2011, which caused thousands of civilian deaths, has never been seriously investigated. The infamous tortures at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, exposed in 2004 with photographic evidence, were likewise never pursued as war crimes by the ICC.

In 2020, the ICC announced its intention to investigate war crimes committed in Afghanistan, including by US forces. In response, the Trump administration imposed economic sanctions and visa bans on ICC judges and prosecutors, including Fatou Bensouda, the Court’s Chief Prosecutor. These

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