CIVICUS discusses the withdrawal of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger from the International Criminal Court (ICC) with Ottilia Anna Maunganidze, Head of Special Projects at the Institute for Security Studies, an African organisation that builds knowledge and skills to enable sustainable peace, development and prosperity in Africa.

Military juntas in power in the three West African countries jointly announced their withdrawal from the ICC on 22 September, denouncing the court as a neocolonial tool biased against Africa. All three countries experienced coups between 2020 and 2023 and now plan to establish their own justice system under their newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES). Human rights organisations warn this will jeopardise accountability for atrocity crimes and deprive people of critical legal protection.

What prompted this coordinated withdrawal from the ICC?

This was mainly political. The military in power justify it by accusing the ICC of western bias and claiming that international institutions are instruments of neocolonialism. But the real reason lies in their fear of accountability. Their regimes have been accused of serious human rights violations, including attacks on civilians, enforced disappearances and summary executions. Leaving the ICC means removing one of the few mechanisms capable of investigating such crimes.

The timing is not accidental. This comes just months after the three countries jointly withdrew from the Economic Community of West African States and its Court of Justice, eliminating another layer of external oversight. Through this coordinated withdrawal, the juntas are sending a clear message: they intend to operate outside regional and global systems of accountability. What they call sovereignty is in fact the consolidation of impunity.

Is there any truth to their claim the ICC is biased against Africa?

This accusation is not new. Since the late 2000s, several African leaders have claimed the ICC targets Africa unfairly. It’s true that for many years, most of the ICC’s cases involved African states, but that fact is often misrepresented. Most of those cases were self-referrals: African governments asked the court to investigate crimes committed on their territories.

The perception of bias grew only when the ICC started investigating sitting heads of state, such as Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir. That led some to claim the court was being used as a political tool by western powers. But this ignores an essential point: the victims of these crimes were also African. The ICC’s mandate is to prosecute the most serious crimes when national courts are unwilling or unable to do so, and that has often been the case in Africa.

While there’s room to debate the ICC’s effectiveness and even its double standards in global politics, the claim of anti-African bias is more political rhetoric than reality. The real issue is not bias; it’s the lack of political will by national leaders to uphold justice at home.

Can the three countries credibly create a separate regional justice system?

In theory, regional justice mechanisms can strengthen accountability. But in this case, there are serious doubts. The AES has not presented any legal framework, timeline or guarantees of independence for its proposed Sahel Criminal and Human Rights Court. Given all three governments are led by military regimes accused of abuses, it’s hard to believe they will create a court enabled to investigate them.

The juntas say this new system will be endogenous and free from western influence, but independence is more about who controls the process than about geography. Without separation from military and political power, any court risks becoming merely symbolic, used to prosecute opponents rather than those responsible for atrocities. Civil society organisations across Africa have already expressed concern that this plan could be a way to legitimise impunity under the language of sovereignty.

What does the ICC withdrawal mean for victims, and how can accountability be achieved?

This is devastating, because it closes one of the few avenues to justice available to survivors of extrajudicial killings, torture and war crimes, who cannot realistically expect domestic justice in countries where the judiciary is under military control. Crimes committed by national forces or armed groups will have fewer chances of being investigated.

Beyond the immediate impact on victims, ICC withdrawal also creates a chilling effect. For civil society groups documenting atrocities, it makes their work more dangerous. It sends a signal that accountability is no longer a priority and truth-telling is unwelcome.

However, civil society both inside and outside the region should continue documenting crimes, collecting testimonies and preserving evidence. Strategic litigation outside the AES remains possible, particularly through African or European courts that recognise universal human rights obligations. International partners must continue to support local human rights defenders who risk their safety to keep the truth alive. These records can later be used in other jurisdictions or in universal jurisdiction cases.

At the same time, there must be sustained regional and international pressure on the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger to ensure any future justice mechanisms meet basic standards of independence, fairness and victim participation. Justice doesn’t have to come only from The Hague, but it must come from somewhere.