South Africa Backtracks On ICC Withdrawal, Blames Communications Error

Facts

• South Africa's presidential office late on Tuesday cited a communication error from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to explain a backtrack on comments made earlier by Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa, who suggested the country was planning to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC).¹
• The governing party has reportedly decided only to pursue a pullout as a last resort if there is a lack of legal avenues to end what it deems an inequitable, unfair treatment of certain nations.²
• Discussions within the ANC over membership of the court have ramped up since the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russia's Vladimir Putin in March, over his alleged role in the abduction of Ukrainian children.³
• This warrant would theoretically oblige South Africa, as a member of the ICC, to arrest Putin if he entered its territory, disturbing Pretoria's plans to host a summit of the leaders of the so-called BRICS nations in August.⁴
• While the withdrawal process would not be completed prior to the meeting, other diplomatic solutions could yet be found, such as Putin attending online or sending a minister. Alternatively, Pretoria could argue over the legal basis of the ICC warrant or try to ignore it.⁵
• Earlier this week, the South African parliament voted to abandon a seven-year-long legislative process to pull the country out of the ICC's Rome Statute after deciding that it would be better to try to effect changes from within.⁶

Sources: ¹Al Jazeera, ²New York Times, ³Guardian, ⁴Africa News, ⁵FT, and ⁶CNBC Africa.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Arab News. It took only one year of war in Ukraine for the ICC to issue an arrest warrant against Russia's Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes, yet no one has been held accountable for the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq after two decades. This is selective justice and abuse of power at its worst, as the international body created to implement international law has been politicized to serve Western interests.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by BusinessLIVE. Ramaphosa's government is embarrassing South Africa by engaging in diplomatic efforts to solve a self-made problem, only to protect a war criminal like Putin from being held accountable for his wrongdoing. While it is true that several other leaders have not been brought to justice due to widespread hypocrisy in the international community, this does not make the Russian strongman less guilty.

Predictions