Trump campaign against international court could jeopardize Darfur probe

The Trump administration’s campaign to dismantle the International Criminal Court could weaken any hopes of justice for the victims of mass atrocities in Darfur, analysts say.

The ICC recently reported a breakthrough in its investigation into massacres and other alleged war crimes in the besieged Darfur region of western Sudan, but its probe will face new obstacles if neighbouring Chad goes ahead with its planned withdrawal from the court.

Chad, which shelters 1.3 million Sudanese refugees, including many survivors of the atrocities in Darfur, had been co-operating with the ICC as recently as early July, when the court’s deputy prosecutor visited the country. But last week, its government unexpectedly announced its pullout from the court.

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The announcement was made just days after it disclosed that a senior U.S. diplomat had asked it to reconsider its membership in the international court.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking at a televised cabinet meeting on Friday, said five countries have responded to the U.S. campaign by notifying the court of their intention to withdraw. The five are Chad, Venezuela, Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, all of which sent letters to the ICC to announce their pullout last month.

Mr. Rubio said the ICC is “illegitimate” and “arrogant,” and the Trump administration is seeking “to bring that court to heel.”

U.S. President Donald Trump, interrupting Mr. Rubio’s comments, said the U.S. campaign is aimed at protecting people such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is the subject of an ICC arrest warrant for alleged war crimes in Gaza. He said his Secretary of State is “trying to defend Bibi and various other people.”

The ICC, based in The Hague, lacks the power to prosecute war crimes within the territory of non-member states such as the United States or Israel, but it has asserted the right to investigate allegations against citizens of those countries if their alleged crimes took place in the territory of member states.

The announced withdrawals will not take effect for a year, but ICC investigations can take several years, and Chad is particularly important as a host country for Darfur refugees, including many potential witnesses in any court case.

“We are indeed concerned about the practical challenges this will pose to ICC investigators,” said Yonah Diamond, senior legal counsel at the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

“The court’s ability to effectively fulfill its mandate ultimately depends on the co-operation of state governments,” he told The Globe and Mail.

Human-rights advocates, including the Wallenberg Centre, have alleged that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces has committed genocide in Darfur during the war that began three years ago. In one of the most horrific assaults, the RSF killed thousands of civilians in the Darfur city of El Fasher last October. At least 60,000 people were massacred, according to rights groups and researchers who studied satellite imagery.

Mark Kersten, a criminology professor at the University of the Fraser Valley who has written extensively about the International Criminal Court, noted that the court’s investigators are unable to enter Darfur because of the continuing warfare in the region.

“The refugee camps in Chad have therefore become a critical place for investigators to speak with victims and witnesses from Darfur,” he told The Globe.

“If Chad shuts that off, it will make investigations and maintaining contact with witnesses more difficult.”

Mr. Kersten noted that Chad could still choose to allow ICC investigators to work in the country. The Philippines, for example, which quit the court in 2019, continued to co-operate with the body after its withdrawal. But another country that withdrew, Burundi, has completely halted its assistance to the court.

The ICC’s deputy prosecutor, Nazhat Shameem Khan, visited Chad in early July and met its Justice Minister, Ndolenodji Alixe Naïmbaye. They had “positive discussions” that reflected Chad’s support for the ICC investigation in Darfur, and they agreed to “deepen” the court’s co-operation with Chad, according to a statement by the court. Ms. Khan told journalists that the court had achieved a “breakthrough” in its Darfur investigation.

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About two weeks later, however, U.S. assistant secretary of state Frank Garcia spoke to Chad’s Foreign Minister, Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul, and urged him to reconsider Chad’s court membership. On July 27, Chad announced its withdrawal, and the U.S. State Department said it welcomed Chad’s decision to “join the growing number of nations reclaiming their sovereignty from this flawed institution.”

The court’s supporters are worried by the move. “Chad’s decision to leave the ICC is a blow to justice for victims of serious international crimes,” said Tamara Aburamadan, international justice counsel at Human Rights Watch. “The ICC is a critical court of last resort for those victims around the world.”

In its official notification to the court last week, Chad complained that most of the ICC’s investigations have targeted African suspects, creating the impression that the court “is being used for political purposes.”

The court’s defenders, however, have noted that most of the African investigations were a result of requests from African governments themselves.

A decade ago, many African governments – including South Africa – accused the ICC of bias and threatened to quit the court. But most eventually chose to stay, and South Africa later became a supporter, urging the court to take action on Gaza.