African states to reconsider their membership in the ICC: official

March 30, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – African states party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will meet next June to discuss their position from the war crimes court after the latter arrest warrant issued against the Sudanese President Omer Al-Bashir.

The African Union (AU) Commissioner for Peace and Security, Ramadan Lamamra, announced that a meeting of the African members of the ICC will meet on June 8th and 9th to review their member.

Sudan appealed to the 30 African states that signed and ratified the Rome Statute to quit the world court after its decision against an African sitting president. Some African politicians have alleged that the ICC focuses on African countries and turn a blind eye to war crimes elsewhere.

The ICC is currently handling 4 cases consisting of Uganda, Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Darfur.

With the exception of Darfur all other cases have been referred voluntarily by their respective governments to the ICC for investigation.

The UNSC issued resolution 1593 under chapter VII in March 2005 referring the situation in Darfur to the ICC. At the time Tanzania and Benin voted in support of the resolution while Algeria abstained.

The AU chairperson and Libyan leader Muammar Ghaddafi in a press conference held in Addis Ababa on Sunday slammed the ICC saying the entire Third World was opposed to the court.

“It is a known fact that all Third World countries are opposing the so-called ICC” he said.

Sudan also urged the 3 Arab states party to Rome Statute to withdraw from the court. Two of the Arab states, Djibouti and Comoros are African countries, Jordan is the third country. However none of the three states signaled any intention to withdraw from the court.

Lamamra added that these countries will submit its recommendations in this regard to the next African Union summit to be held in July, pointing out that there is a decision by the latest African summit calls upon Member States to the Treaty of Rome to meet and submit recommendations for the upcoming summit.

The ICC African States parties include: Burkina Faso, Senegal, Ghana, Mali, Lesotho, Botswana, Sierra Leone, Gabon, South Africa, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Benin, Mauritius, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Uganda, Namibia, Gambia, United Republic of Tanzania, Malawi, Djibouti, Zambia, Guinea, Congo, Burundi, Liberia, Kenya, Comoros, Chad and Madagascar.

The Rome Statute says that if any of its members decides to remove itself from the ICC, the withdrawal will take effect at least one year after such a notification is made to the UN Secretary General.

(ST)