UNDER Nelson Mandela’s government, South Africa championed the creation of a court to try the world’s worst criminals. Out of apartheid and the Rwandan genocide came a boon for international justice. “Our own continent has suffered enough horrors emanating from the inhumanity of human beings towards human beings,” Mr Mandela said ahead of the Rome statute adopted in 1998, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). So strongly felt was this mission that South Africa incorporated the ICC’s founding treaty into its own domestic laws.
But under President Jacob Zuma the country has taken a radically different turn. On October 21st South Africa’s government filed notice of its intention to quit the ICC (the process will take a year). This puts South Africa in the company of Burundi, which said it was leaving after the ICC began investigating the wave of killings that followed President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to cling to a third term. Other African countries may follow suit. The Gambia, another human-rights abuser, says it will do so. Kenya, Uganda and Namibia have made similar threats.
South Africa’s explanation...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/2eeV4TN
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