What drove Venezuela’s decision to leave the ICC?
The International Criminal Court (ICC) says its investigation into alleged crimes against humanity will continue despite the withdrawal. Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia announced on
The International Criminal Court (ICC) says its investigation into alleged crimes against humanity will continue despite the withdrawal. Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Felix Plasencia announced on Friday that the country had formally notified the United Nations of its withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC). The instructions came from Interim President Delcy Rodriguez, said Plasencia on X, calling the decision “firm and irrevocable”. He said the ICC had shown a “demonstrated geographical bias” by disproportionately targeting countries in Africa and Latin America. The United States quickly welcomed the decision, praising Rodriguez for joining “American-led efforts to dismantle the corrupt and worthless ICC”. The US Department of State said in a statement that the court had spent years “investigating” former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “with no result” and called on all ICC member states to withdraw from the Rome Statute. While Venezuela’s decision to leave the ICC is unlikely to stop a long-running investigation into alleged crimes against humanity, analysts say it’s the latest sign of the country’s rapidly changing foreign policy under Rodriguez, bringing Caracas closer to Washington while dealing another blow to a court already fighting for its future. The ICC has long faced criticism for disproportionately targeting countries in the Global South. However, Mark Kersten, a professor of human rights and international criminal law at the University of the Fraser Valley, said that argument is less convincing today. “There certainly was a time where that was more persuasive,” he told Al Jazeera on Monday, referring to the time when most of the leaders being pursued by the ICC were African. “But now you have [Russia’s] Vladimir Putin. You have [Israel’s] Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. You have investigations into contexts that aren’t Global South contexts.” What the withdrawal changes — and what it doesn’t The ICC told Al Jazeera it had not yet received formal notification through the UN treaty office.
It said that, under the Rome Statute, any withdrawal takes effect one year after notification and does not affect investigations already under way or matters already before the court. That means the ICC can continue investigating alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela despite the country’s decision to leave, according to Kersten and other experts who spoke to Al Jazeera. Still, the withdrawal adds to a growing sense of hopelessness among Venezuelans who have been looking to the court for accountability, and who have already been frustrated by how slowly the case has progressed, said Laura Dib, Venezuela programme director at the Washington Office on Latin America. “Thousands of victims have sent their testimonies. They have put their lives in danger to provide this information to the court,” she said, warning that repeated attacks on the court, including US sanctions on its judges and prosecutors, make it harder for the ICC to move cases forward by creating fears of retaliation. The ICC opened its investigation into Venezuela in 2021 after prosecutors found a reasonable basis to believe security forces and pro-government groups had committed crimes against humanity during a crackdown on anti-government protests beginning in 2017. Relations with Caracas were already strained in January last year, when the court closed its office in the country, saying authorities had not taken meaningful steps to investigate the alleged crimes. Then in December, Venezuela’s Assembly voted to begin withdrawing from the Rome Statute. And while the move does not affect the court’s investigation, “the court’s practical capacity to act has always depended on state cooperation”, said Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and founder of Oil for Venezuela, adding that the withdrawal signals a commitment not to cooperate. “That matters because many of the officials covered by the investigation are still in office, and several have been,” he said.
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