Chad’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday saying that it had notified the UN Secretary General of its intention to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the international accord underpinning the International Criminal Court (ICC). Chad is the fourth francophone African country whose government is very closely linked to its miltary to take such a step in less than a year — following the coordinated exit by the juntas running Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger last September. The ICC prosecutes individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity; it began operating in 2002.
Chad’s government says it’s withdrawing from the ICCMark Hallam1 hour ago1 hour agoChad’s Foreign Ministry has announced plans to leave the International Criminal Court. It said that its effectiveness was “limited and uneven.” Chad’s leader is a military officer accused of repressing the opposition.
President Mahamat Idriss Déby Itno walks during the Africa Forward Summit at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre in Nairobi, Kenya, Tuesday, May 12, 2026. Mahamat Idriss Deby and his late father, both military officers, have ruled Chad since 1990Image: Brian Inganga/AP Photo/picture allianceAdvertisementChad’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday saying that it had notified the UN Secretary General of its intention to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the international accord underpinning the International Criminal Court (ICC). Chad is the fourth francophone African country whose government is very closely linked to its miltary to take such a step in less than a year — following the coordinated exit by the juntas running Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger last September. The ICC prosecutes individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity; it began operating in 2002. AdvertisementWhat did Chad’s government say about the ICC pullout? The Foreign Ministry said that its decision followed “an in-depth review of the functioning of the International Criminal Court since it began operating in 2002 and of its record, whose effectiveness remains limited and uneven across different regions.” It said the court’s own record of prosecutions revealed an “undeniable and egregious selectivity in principle, whether or not this selectivity is desired or subjected.” The statement then listed the ICC investigations launched since the court’s founding, saying that nine of 13 cases concerned African states, while only four applied to other regions of the world and were “without any concrete progress” as yet. It said that of seven individuals detained as a result of ICC investigations, only one hailed from a situation beyond the African continent. The Foreign Ministry alleged that this demonstrated a lasting concentration of ICC cases focused on “the Global South in general and the African continent in particular.” Chad also appealed to other African Union members to follow in its footsteps. “This irrevocable decision by Chad in no way constitues a renunication of the moral imperative to provide justice to victims; rather, it reflects the conbviction that national judicial systems and African judicial mechanisms are fully capable of carrying out this mission with dignity,” the statement, signed by Foreign Ministry spokespersom Ibrahim Adam Mahamat, concluded.
