# To Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, on Your Withdrawal From the ICC

> Gentlemen leaders of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, between June 18 and June 24, 2026, you formally initiated the process of withdrawing

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Open letter
- Published: 2026-07-06
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/au-mali-au-burkina-faso-et-au-niger-sur-votre-retrait-de-la-cpi

## Introduction: An Open Letter to Three **Juntas** Turning Their Backs on Justice

### What You Have Decided, and What It Actually Means

Gentlemen leaders of **Mali**, **Burkina Faso** and **Niger**, between **June 18 and June 24, 2026**, you formally initiated the process of **withdrawing** your three countries from the **International Criminal Court**, as confirmed by the **ICC** itself and reported by **Reuters** on **July 2, 2026**. This **withdrawal**, which becomes effective one year after your respective letters are filed, is not a mere symbolic diplomatic gesture: it is a political choice with heavy consequences for the **victims** of documented crimes on your territories.

**Human Rights Watch** described this **withdrawal**, in a statement published on **July 2, 2026**, as a "betrayal of **victims**," a harsh phrase that, in this columnist's view, deserves to be taken seriously rather than dismissed as mere activist posturing.

### Why This Columnist Chooses the Open-Letter Format

This text speaks **directly** to you, leaders of the military **juntas** of these three Sahelian countries, because this file deserves a frontal address rather than a distanced analysis: your decisions carry concrete human consequences for populations that have already paid an immense price in conflicts lasting more than a decade.

This **columnist** commits, in this letter, to never advance a fact that isn't corroborated by reliable sources, and to **clearly** distinguish established fact from political interpretation, including his own.

*I deliberately choose the direct tone of the open letter, because the **victims** of these conflicts don't need a distant, muted analysis — they need someone to clearly name the political **responsibility** behind this **withdrawal**.*

## What International Law Actually Says About Your **Withdrawal**

### A One-Year Delay, and **Obligations** That Persist Regardless

Under the **Rome Statute**, the founding text of the **International Criminal Court**, your withdrawal only becomes effective one year after the formal filing of your respective letters, which **concretely** means **Mali** remains legally bound to the **ICC** until **June 24, 2027** — a legal reality your official communications have sometimes tended to downplay before your respective publics.

More importantly, Article 127 of the **Rome Statute** explicitly states that this withdrawal does not release any state from obligations arising from investigations or proceedings already underway before the withdrawal's effective date, meaning existing **arrest warrants** remain fully valid, regardless of your political decision to leave this institution.

### The Warrant Against Iyad Ag Ghali: A Concrete Test of Your Good Faith

The arrest warrant against **Iyad Ag Ghali**, leader of the jihadist group **Ansar Dine**, initially issued under seal in **2017** and unsealed in **2024**, for **war crimes** and **crimes against humanity** committed in northern **Mali** in **2012** and **2013**, **notably** in **Timbuktu**, remains legally valid despite your withdrawal decision — a concrete test of whether your government genuinely intends to cooperate with **international justice** or simply intends to shed it at the most convenient moment.

This columnist poses a direct question here: if your government truly believes, as you publicly claim, that justice must be delivered to the **victims** of these abuses, why this hasty withdrawal from the very institution that issued the arrest warrant against one of the most well-documented perpetrators of these crimes.

*I ask you directly: how can one claim to want justice for the **victims** of northern Mali while leaving the very institution prosecuting the perpetrators of these crimes? This contradiction deserves a clear answer from you.*

## Your Official Arguments, and Why They Fail to Convince

### The Accusation of "Judicial Neocolonialism"

Since your initial announcement of intent to withdraw in **September 2025**, your respective **governments** have justified this decision by calling the **ICC** an "instrument of neocolonial repression," according to terms reported by several outlets, including **Le Monde** — an argument that deserves serious examination rather than outright dismissal as mere Western reflex.

This columnist acknowledges that the **ICC** has **indeed** concentrated a disproportionate share of its investigations on the African continent since its creation, a legitimate criticism that serious African voices, well beyond the current military juntas alone, have raised for years.

### A Legitimate Criticism Diverted for a Less Admirable Purpose

But this legitimate criticism of the geographic asymmetry in **ICC** investigations in no way justifies a total withdrawal that strips your own citizens — **victims** of documented crimes committed by armed jihadist groups but also, according to several human-rights reports, by certain government security forces — of any recourse to independent **international justice** when national **jurisdictions** prove unable or unwilling to act.

This columnist notes that this withdrawal comes at a moment when several investigations potentially touching Sahelian government forces, documented by organizations like **Human Rights Watch** and **Amnesty International**, could theoretically advance before the **ICC** — a temporal coincidence worth highlighting without turning it into an absolute certainty.

*I don't reject the criticism of judicial neocolonialism on principle, but I refuse to let it serve as a convenient shield to escape judicial scrutiny that could, potentially, concern your own security forces just as much as the jihadist groups you're fighting.*

## What Human Rights Watch Precisely Documents About This Withdrawal

### A Betrayal Named Without Detour

**Human Rights Watch**, in its statement published on **July 2, 2026** and unambiguously titled "Sahel countries' withdrawal from ICC betrays victims," notes that this withdrawal potentially strips tens of thousands of victims of violence documented over more than a decade of an international judicial remedy, even as the national judicial systems of your three countries struggle, according to the same reports, to handle these cases with the necessary independence.

This organization, whose methodological rigor no longer needs proving after decades of careful documentation of African conflicts, explicitly calls on your three **governments** to reconsider this decision before the **one-year window** set by the **Rome Statute** expires.

### Amnesty International Joins This Call for **Reconsideration**

**Amnesty International** has **also** called this withdrawal a "hasty retreat," according to remarks reported in early July, warning that this decision denies victims truth, justice and reparations — a triad that forms the very foundation of any lasting reconciliation after years of **armed conflict** and documented violence against **civilian populations**.

This columnist notes that the convergence of these two international human-rights organizations, recognized for their rigorous work across many continents, doesn't reflect anti-Sahelian bias but a coherent methodological concern about victims' access to justice for armed conflicts, wherever they occur in the world.

*When Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International converge on the same finding, it's not ideological coincidence — it's the signal that this withdrawal poses a real, documented problem for victims' access to justice.*

## The Broader Context of Your Break With International Institutions

### A Withdrawal That Fits an Already-Started Trajectory

This withdrawal from the **ICC** doesn't happen in isolation: your three countries had already left the **Economic Community of West African States** in **January 2025**, a break that fits into a broader trajectory of disengagement from multilateral institutions historically associated with a Western or regional influence your **governments** deem excessive.

This trajectory of institutional rupture, consistent with your avowed sovereigntist rhetoric, deserves to be analyzed for what it is: a deliberate political choice with concrete consequences for the legal protection afforded to your civilian populations, regardless of the legitimacy one otherwise grants your broader anticolonial discourse.

### A Strategic Rapprochement That Isn't Unrelated

This withdrawal also coincides with a documented strategic rapprochement between your three **governments** and other powers that openly contest the international order led by Western democracies, **notably** **Russia**, whose military and security presence in the Sahel region has grown considerably in recent years.

This columnist, without giving in to a simplistic conspiratorial reading, observes that this rapprochement with partners largely indifferent to **human rights** concerns is probably not unrelated to your desire to escape an international accountability mechanism like the **ICC**.

*I note, without needing to invent a conspiracy theory, that this withdrawal comes alongside a rapprochement with partners who themselves answer to no one before the ICC. This convergence of interests deserves to be named clearly.*

## What Your Citizens Concretely Lose With This Withdrawal

### A Path to Recourse Closing for the Most Vulnerable Victims

For the families of victims of documented abuses in northern **Mali**, in the border zones of **Burkina Faso** and **Niger**, this withdrawal concretely means the progressive closure of an international judicial remedy that, despite its widely documented delays and imperfections, remained one of the few realistic options against national judicial systems often overwhelmed, underfunded or politically constrained.

This columnist refuses to present the **ICC** as a perfect institution: it has its delays, its budget limits and its own documented geographic biases. But its very existence constitutes, for millions of people around the world, a last symbolic and sometimes concrete recourse against total **impunity**.

### A Signal Sent to Perpetrators of Current and Future Crimes

This withdrawal also sends a worrying signal to armed groups currently active in the Sahel region, whether jihadist groups affiliated with **al-Qaeda** or the **Islamic State**, but also, according to several independent reports, to certain units of government security forces themselves: that of a tangible reduction in the risk of international accountability for future abuses, a signal whose consequences could be felt well beyond the current legal dispute alone.

This columnist believes this signal, however unintentional it may be on your governments' part, constitutes the strongest **argument** for a **reconsideration** of this decision before it becomes permanently irreversible.

*A withdrawal from the ICC doesn't just send a message to international lawyers — it sends a very concrete message to anyone considering committing abuses in the region: the odds of ever being held accountable have just dropped considerably.*

## What the West Must Demand, Without Hypocrisy or Double Standards

### A Western Consistency That Remains Imperfect

This columnist cannot ignore, for the sake of intellectual honesty, that the **United States** itself rejects the **ICC**'s **jurisdiction** over its own nationals, according to official positions recently reiterated and documented by the **Anadolu** news agency — an inconsistency that weakens the credibility of any Western demand for universal **cooperation** with this institution.

This Western inconsistency does not, however, absolve your governments of your own **responsibilities** toward your citizens: the fact that a major power also rejects the **ICC**'s jurisdiction does nothing to erase the concrete harm your withdrawal causes to Sahelian victims who have no other international judicial recourse available.

### A Call for Reconsideration Before the Deadline Expires

This columnist therefore joins the call made by **Human Rights Watch** and **Amnesty International**: your three governments still have, before the **one-year window** set by the **Rome Statute** expires, a window to reconsider this decision, without having to abandon your legitimate criticisms of the ICC's historic geographic asymmetry in investigations.

This reconsideration would not be an admission of sovereigntist weakness, but rather a signal of institutional maturity: that of a government capable of criticizing an international institution while recognizing its residual value for the victims it continues, despite its imperfections, to partially protect.

*I'm not demanding blind submission to an imperfect institution — I'm simply asking you to weigh the real human cost of this withdrawal before it becomes irreversible in a year.*

## What This File Reveals About the Future of **International Justice** in Africa

### A **Precedent** That Could Inspire Other Withdrawals

Your joint withdrawal decision, the first of this scale involving three **ICC** member states simultaneously, could set a dangerous **precedent** likely to inspire other African governments facing similar investigations or criticisms from this institution, a contagion risk that legitimately worries defenders of **international justice** across the continent.

This columnist believes that if this precedent is not contained or reconsidered, it could progressively hollow out the mechanism of international criminal justice on the African continent — a continent that, ironically, was among the most active in the initial ratification of the **Rome Statute** in the late 1990s.

### A Needed **Reform** Rather Than Complete Abandonment

This columnist advocates for a middle path your governments have not, to date, publicly explored: demand serious **reform** of the **ICC** to correct its documented geographic asymmetry, while maintaining your membership in this institution and your **cooperation** with the **arrest warrants** already issued against documented criminals like **Iyad Ag Ghali**.

This middle path, politically more demanding than a straightforward withdrawal, would have the merit of reconciling your legitimate criticism of the institution with your responsibility toward the victims of crimes committed on your own territories — a responsibility that should never be sacrificed on the altar of rhetorical sovereigntism.

*I believe there's a braver path than outright withdrawal: staying in the institution while demanding its reform. This path requires more diplomatic work, but it honors the victims you claim to defend far more.*

## What This Columnist Concretely Expects From You

### Transparency on the Fate of Ongoing Investigations

This columnist asks you directly, leaders of **Mali**, **Burkina Faso** and **Niger**: what concrete guarantees do you intend to offer the victims of documented crimes on your territories to compensate for the progressive closure of this international remedy, and what alternative national judicial mechanisms do you intend to put in place to meet their legitimate expectations of truth and reparation.

This question is not rhetorical: it calls for a concrete, verifiable answer, documented through precise **commitments** rather than general statements about national **sovereignty** that, however legitimate in principle, do nothing to address the immediate needs of families grieving years of armed conflict.

### A Commitment to Cooperation on Existing Warrants

This columnist also asks you for a clear, public commitment to your continued cooperation with the arrest warrants already issued by the **ICC**, notably the one against **Iyad Ag Ghali**, a commitment that would concretely demonstrate your withdrawal is not intended to protect, directly or indirectly, documented war criminals operating on your respective territories.

Without this clear commitment, this columnist, like many international observers, will legitimately continue to question the real motivations behind this withdrawal, beyond the sovereigntist rhetoric your governments favor in their official communications.

*I ask this question directly because the victims deserve a direct answer, not sovereigntist slogans. Your silence on these concrete commitments will, in the end, say far more than your official statements.*

## What the **International Community** Can Still Do

### Diplomatic Pressure That Must Remain Constructive

The international community, including the historic Western partners of your three countries, still has diplomatic levers to encourage a reconsideration of this decision, without sinking into a paternalistic neocolonial posture that would precisely feed the resentment your official discourse politically exploits.

This constructive diplomatic pressure could notably take the form of increased support for Sahelian national judicial systems, a way to concretely respond to your legitimate criticism of excessive dependence on an international justice perceived as distant and sometimes disconnected from local realities.

### The Irreplaceable Role of Human Rights Organizations

Organizations like **Human Rights Watch** and **Amnesty International** will continue, whatever the outcome of this withdrawal process, to document violations committed on your respective territories, an independent civil monitoring that remains, with or without the **ICC**, one of the last bulwarks against total **impunity** for the perpetrators of crimes against Sahelian populations.

This columnist commends this continuous documentation work, while acknowledging its limits: without an international judicial mechanism to turn this documentation into actual prosecutions, truth alone, however precious, does not always suffice to deliver justice to victims.

*Documenting crimes without being able to prosecute them remains a necessary but frustrating exercise. That is precisely why the withdrawal from the ICC, however politically justifiable it may seem to you, strips victims of an essential link in the chain of justice.*

## What History Will Judge of Your Decision

### A Choice That Will Outlive You Politically

Gentlemen leaders, history will judge your withdrawal decision not by your present-day sovereigntist rhetoric, but by the actual fate reserved for the victims of these conflicts in the years and decades to come, a judgment that will far outlast your current political mandate and could weigh lastingly on the collective memory of your respective nations.

This columnist, without claiming any superior moral authority, simply invites you to weigh this historical risk before the one-year window elapses and this withdrawal becomes permanently irreversible for your three countries.

### One Last Window Before the Irreversible

At the time this text is published, you still have several months before this withdrawal becomes fully effective, a delay that constitutes a real, if narrow, political window to reconsider a decision whose human consequences will far outweigh the short-term political calculation that seems to have motivated it.

This columnist, on behalf of the victims this withdrawal risks permanently denying justice, urges you to use this delay to engage in genuine dialogue, with the **ICC** itself and with your own populations, rather than letting this decision become irreversible through mere administrative inertia.

*I would close this letter by recalling a truth too often forgotten: political decisions made today bind victims who, themselves, had no voice in this hasty withdrawal process.*

## What the Reaction of the Victims Themselves on the Ground Reveals

### Malian **Victims' Associations** Voicing Their Concern

Several Malian victims' associations, active for years in tracking judicial cases tied to the conflict in the north, have publicly voiced their concern over this withdrawal, believing their only credible avenue for recourse risks disappearing before it has even borne concrete fruit for grieving families.

This columnist notes that these local voices, often less heard than those of governments or major international organizations, deserve a central place in this debate, precisely because they are the ones directly bearing the consequences of this political choice.

### A Governmental Silence More Worrying Than Official Explanations

Your respective governments have, to date, proposed no clear, credible alternative national judicial mechanism to compensate for the closure of this international remedy, a silence that legitimately fuels the fears of victims' associations about the future of their pending cases.

This columnist believes this silence, more than the withdrawal itself, constitutes the most troubling signal sent to civilian populations who have already paid an immense price in these prolonged conflicts.

*The silence of your governments on alternative justice mechanisms worries as much, if not more, than the withdrawal itself. The victims are not asking for sovereigntist speeches — they are asking for a concrete path toward the truth.*

## What Other African Countries Have Chosen to Do Facing Similar Criticisms

### Different Trajectories in the Face of the Same ICC Criticisms

Other African states, facing the same legitimate criticisms about the geographic asymmetry of **International Criminal Court** investigations, have chosen to remain members while raising their grievances before the Assembly of States Parties, a slower diplomatic path but one that preserves their citizens' access to this international jurisdiction.

This columnist notes that this alternative path demonstrates it is possible to firmly criticize an institution while remaining within it, a nuance your three governments seem to have dismissed without truly exploring its long-term consequences for your populations.

### Gambia and South Africa: Two Instructive Precedents

**Gambia** and **South Africa** had both, in the past, begun withdrawal proceedings from the **ICC** before ultimately reversing course, a precedent demonstrating that a change of direction remains politically possible when leaders honestly reassess the real cost of this rupture for their citizens.

This columnist invites your governments to draw inspiration from these precedents rather than treating your current decision as irrevocable from today, while the legal one-year window still leaves you real room to maneuver.

*Gambia and South Africa proved that an announced withdrawal is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. Nothing stops you, before the deadline expires, from following this example rather than locking yourselves into a posture that has become irreversible.*

## What the Silence of Regional Powers Also Reveals

### A Cautious, Almost Too Silent **African Union**

The **African Union**, often quick to comment on international judicial decisions affecting its member states, has remained relatively quiet in the face of this joint withdrawal, a silence that could reflect either calculated diplomatic caution or a genuine internal division on the question of the **International Criminal Court**.

This columnist believes this institutional silence, whatever its exact reasons, deprives the continental debate of a political arbitration that could have weighed on the final decision of your three governments before it became irreversible.

### The Ambiguous Role of Closer Regional Partners

Certain regional partners closer to your governments, notably within the **Alliance of Sahel States**, have on the contrary welcomed this withdrawal as an act of restored **sovereignty**, a position that clearly illustrates the growing fracture between two visions of the role of international justice on the African continent.

This columnist observes that this regional fracture, should it deepen further, could durably weaken the continental cohesion needed to effectively reform an institution like the **ICC** rather than simply fleeing it.

*The African Union's cautious silence and the enthusiasm of certain regional partners for this withdrawal sketch a continental fracture this columnist considers, in the long run, more troubling than the decision itself made by your three governments.*

*This Sahelian case is not an isolated one: it raises once again the question of whether international justice can survive when the most powerful and the most fragile states alike agree, for opposite reasons, to free themselves from it.*

## Conclusion: A Demand for Justice That Does Not Die With a Withdrawal

### What This Columnist Takes Away From This File

The joint withdrawal of **Mali**, **Burkina Faso** and **Niger** from the **International Criminal Court** sets a worrying precedent that potentially strips tens of thousands of documented victims of an international judicial remedy, despite the legal persistence of existing arrest warrants, notably the one against **Iyad Ag Ghali**, which remains valid regardless of this withdrawal.

This decision, however understandable its grounding in a legitimate criticism of the **ICC**'s historic geographic asymmetry, does nothing to address the concrete needs of Sahelian victims, who deserve better than a political choice dictated by short-term sovereigntist considerations.

### A Final Appeal for Reconsideration

This columnist, alongside **Human Rights Watch** and **Amnesty International**, will continue urging your three governments to reconsider this decision before the one-year window expires, not in the name of any neocolonial nostalgia, but in the name of a demand for justice that transcends national borders and short-term political calculations.

Until then, this file will continue to be followed with the rigor it deserves, in the measured but sincere hope that the voice of the victims will eventually weigh more heavily than the sovereigntist considerations that seem, to date, to guide your decision.

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- Human Rights Watch — International justice, International Criminal Court, 2026

- Le Monde — Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso withdraw from the International Criminal Court, July 2, 2026

- Human Rights Watch — Sahel countries' withdrawal from ICC betrays victims, July 2, 2026

### Secondary sources

- The Straits Times — ICC confirms Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger move to leave court, 2026

- Anadolu Agency — US rejects International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Americans, 2026

- Reuters — ICC confirms Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger move to leave court, July 2, 2026

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/au-mali-au-burkina-faso-et-au-niger-sur-votre-retrait-de-la-cpi