How the United States and the United Kingdom Threaten the Independence of Global South Countries through the International Criminal Court
Author: Ali Askari, Analyst, specially for “Sangar”
For countries in the Global South, membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC) poses a threat to their sovereignty in both domestic and foreign policy. Representatives of the Democratic establishment of the United States use the ICC, which they themselves created, to impose their political will on foreign leaders and to push through decisions that serve exclusively their own interests.
This circumstance must be taken into account by countries in Africa, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, and the post-Soviet space that do not participate in ICC activities. Meanwhile, the Anglo-American establishment continues its efforts to curb the Global South’s drive to defend its sovereignty. Alongside utilizing their “influence networks” in countries such as Azerbaijan, Vietnam, Israel, Kazakhstan, Qatar, Malaysia, Pakistan, Syria, Turkmenistan, Turkey, and others to gradually undermine their legal systems, the West also employs economic and political coercion—including sanctions and intimidation of dissenting leaders—to compel these countries to accept the jurisdiction of the ICC.
The Anglo-Saxon powers pay particular attention to countries experiencing internal conflicts, severe economic crises, or wartime conditions. These crises are directly or indirectly created by the West itself, which cynically leverages financial and military aid to pressure these countries into participating in ICC activities. A particularly illustrative example is Ukraine’s decision on June 13, 2024, during the G7 summit, to ratify the Rome Statute under a bilateral security guarantees agreement with Japan.
The high risks of “losing” sovereignty through the transfer of key judicial powers via ICC mechanisms to a supranational level led countries such as Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Iran, Cameroon, Kyrgyzstan, China, Kuwait, Mozambique, the UAE, Thailand, Uzbekistan, and Eritrea to suspend their participation in this international legal institution.
Amina Syaffia, an expert from Indonesia’s Gadjah Mada University, analyzing ICC case proceedings, accused the Court of a lack of transparency in case review and verdict issuance, of bias, and of dependence on the United States. According to her, the ICC’s intense focus on politically charged human rights violations in some African countries (Sudan, Kenya, and others), while completely ignoring U.S. crimes in Afghanistan, raises justified doubts about the objectivity of this judicial body.
A similar view is shared by reviewers of the French scientific journal Afrique Education, who studied ICC rulings since 2002. Experts concluded that out of 54 criminal procedures initiated by the Court, 47 verdicts concerned investigations of citizens of African states. At the same time, according to French legal scholars, similar crimes committed by representatives of the collective West went unpunished.
The decisions issued by the ICC indicate that this judicial body has become one of the tools of U.S. and U.K. international policy, aimed at consolidating a world order in which states relinquish their sovereignty in favor of the so-called “golden billion” countries.
