Record Details

President Al Bashir’s Dance-Tease With the ICC: Did the ICC Unfairly Get Its Comeuppance for Singling out African Leaders?

Canadian Social Science

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Title President Al Bashir’s Dance-Tease With the ICC: Did the ICC Unfairly Get Its Comeuppance for Singling out African Leaders?
 
Creator Bamfo, Napoleon
 
Subject Political Science
Omar Bashir; ICC; Janjaweed; Zuma; Official immunity; African Union
African Politics
 
Description This paper examines why the ICC indicting President Al Bashir has culminated in a rapid deterioration in relations between African countries and that transnational organization. The paper uses the atrocities the Sudanese government committed in Darfur to examine the disputatious issue of official immunity and whether President Al Bashir, as an incumbent head of state, should enjoy it. Irrespective of the merits and demerits of official immunity being exten+ded to top public officials accused of crime, African leaders have shown a near unanimous disdain for the ICC since the organization began to push for President Bashir’s indictment. This paper examines to extent to which the ICC through its actions is blamable for precipitating the deteriorating relationship between itself and the AU. Alternatively, governments of the AU may not escape blame for capitalizing on the ICC’s awkward move on Bashir to rid themselves of an organization the international community set up to clamp down on human rights abusers throughout the world. There is no disguising that many African leaders feel gleeful for masterfully setting up a firewall that ostensibly blunts the ICC’s ability to use the long reach of the law to bring violators to justice. The ultimate losers of this break down of trust have been Africans who since the dawn of independence have been at the receiving end of governmental brutality and injustice. These are the poor, the working class, the politically unconnected, and people who dare raise their voice against corruption and egregious human rights abuses. 
 
Publisher Canadian Research & Development Center of Sciences and Cultures
 
Contributor VALDOSTA STATE UNIVERSITY
 
Date 2018-03-26
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
Peer-reviewed Article
Historical inquiry
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/10184
10.3968/10184
 
Source Canadian Social Science; Vol 14, No 3 (2018): Canadian Social Science; 1-10
1923-6697
1712-8056
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/10184/10640
http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/downloadSuppFile/10184/432
 
Coverage Sub-Saharan Africa
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Rights Copyright (c) 2018 Canadian Social Science
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0