The International Criminal Court (ICC) was born from the ashes of history’s worst atrocities. After the Nuremberg Trials judged Nazi war criminals, and following the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals of the 1990s, the world came to the conclusion it to be more efficient to install a permanent court to punish genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.

Not a bad idea, is it?

Let’s have a look, who was convicted by the ICC fo far:

Thomas Lubanga Dyilo (DR Congo) – Charges: War crimes for conscripting and using child soldiers under age 15 in the Ituri conflict (2002-2003). Sentence: 14 years (released March 2020)

Germain Katanga (DR Congo) – Charges: War crimes and crimes against humanity for the 2003 Bogoro massacre (murder, attacks on civilians) as FRPI militia. Sentence: 12 years (released in January 2016)

Bosco Ntaganda (DR Congo) – Charges: 18 counts of war crimes/crimes against humanity (murder, rape, sexual slavery, child soldiers) across multiple rebellions. Sentence: 30 years (serving in Belgium)

Fidèle Babala, Aimé Kilolo, Jean-Jacques Mangenda and Narcisse Arido (DR Congo) – Charges: Witness tampering as part of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s defense team. (Jean-Pierre Bemba himself, rebel leader from Congo was aquitted.) Sentences: Between 6 – 11 months (mostly released October 2014)

Dominic Ongwen (Uganda) – Charges: 70 counts of war crimes/crimes against humanity (murder, sexual slavery, child soldiers) as an LRA commander. Sentence: 25 years (serving in Norway)

Ahmad al-Mahdi (Mali) – Charges: War crimes for intentionally destroying Timbuktu’s UNESCO heritage sites in 2012 as an Islamist militant. Sentence: 9 years (released September 2022)

Al-Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz (Mali) – Charges: War crimes/crimes against humanity (torture, rape, persecution, destroying religious buildings) as Timbuktu’s Islamic police chief who implemented a reign of terror through executions and forced marriages. Sentence: Serving sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment.

Notice anything?

Yup, 100% from Africa.

There were more Africans tried but aquitted, or they passed away during trial. (Some of the worst kind, still got their own special court, like Charles Taylor from Liberia)

Let’s have a look:

1. Laurent Gbagbo (Ivory Coast) – Charged, acquitted after years in detention.
2. Jean-Pierre Bemba (DRC) – Convicted, later acquitted on appeal.
3. Omar al-Bashir (Sudan) – Wanted since 2009, yet freely traveled to Nigeria and South Africa without arrest. Currently at imprisened in a Military Hospital in Sudan.
4. Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya) – Charges dropped due to “lack of evidence” amid political pressure.
5. William Ruto (Kenya) – Case collapsed after witness interference.

So, okay, Africa can be a rough place, but surely something has happened in the rest of the world? The Iraq War? Palestine? Russia’s war crimes? Treatment of Uyghurs in China?

Yup, but rest-of-the-world cases were either not investigated or could not be enforced.

How come?

So there are some limits to the ICC’s jurisdiction. It is important that a country recognizes the court, which means that they have ratified the Rome Statute. Here is a map:

Green: accepts ICC.

Grey and orange: doesn’t accept the ICC. (Orange: has signed but not ratified the Rome Statute, which is worth nothing…)

The ICC only has jurisdiction over:

• Crimes committed on the territory of a member state (123 countries).
• Crimes committed by nationals of a member state.
• Cases referred by the UN Security Council (even if the country isn’t a member).

Then there is the Complementarity Principle, meaning the ICC is a “court of last resort”—it only steps in if national courts are unable or unwilling to prosecute.

So how did it prevent sentences for pale folks?

The ICC prosecutors have rejected calls by exiled Uighurs to investigate China for alleged genocide and crimes against humanity. Uighurs are put into “re-education camps”, women are being sterilized, and even thou they are muslim they are forced to eat pork.

But the office of prosecutor said that it was unable to act because the alleged acts happened on the territory of China, which is not a signatory to The Hague-based ICC.

The ICC investigated war crimes allegedly committed by the UK in Iraq but the investigation was dropped in 2006 because the gravity threshold had not been met due to the perceived low number of victims compared to other situations under analysis by the Prosecutor.

On 5 March 2020, the investigation in Afghanistan was authorized to officially begin. Guess who was found guilty? Two Taliban members.

Why wasn’t Syria’s butcher Assad tried? Syria had not ratified the Rome Statute.

Israel? Now that is an interesting one, because Israel has not ratified the Rome Statute either, but as the crimes were committed in Palestine, they took up investigations. And? They issued an arrest warrant in November 2024 for Bibi Netanyahu! So what happened?

Germany, the self-proclaimed champion of international law—always quick to lecture others on pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be kept)—has openly declared it would refuse to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu if he set foot on German soil. Their justification? The usual appeal to historical guilt, as if Netanyahu’s “alleged” war crimes in Gaza could be absolved by Germany’s Nazi past. What, precisely, does the Holocaust have to do with shielding a modern-day leader from accountability? Nothing. One might expect a nation so haunted by its own history would understand the dangers of selective justice. But no—evidently, not.

Russia? The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin. Putin traveled to Mongolia, where he was NOT arrested. (C’mon, they need Russian gas…)

So indeed: International law is only enforced against African leaders who have fallen out of power.