US Pressure and Leadership Crisis Push More Nations to Quit ICC

The International Criminal Court is facing a widening exodus of member states, with Venezuela and Chad becoming the latest to announce their withdrawal, bringing the number of countries to quit the tribunal in the past year to five.

They join Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, which declared their departures last year. The withdrawals come as the court confronts sustained hostility from Washington and an internal leadership crisis following the removal of its own chief prosecutor.

A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said five countries have so far announced plans to withdraw from the Rome Statute, adding that Washington would welcome further announcements.

The Rome Statute established the ICC in 2002 as a court of last resort to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression. Based in The Hague, it acts when national authorities are unable or unwilling to pursue cases on their own territory.

"The ICC regrets any decision to depart from the collective effort to end impunity for the most serious international crimes," the court's spokesperson, Oriane Maillet, said.

In July, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced what he described as a sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat the court poses to U.S. sovereignty. He said Washington would press the court's 125 member states to withdraw, sanction organisations that work with the tribunal and bar its staff from travelling to the United States.

The Trump administration has already sanctioned a dozen ICC staff members in retaliation for arrest warrants issued for senior Israeli officials over the war in Gaza and for investigations into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan.

Chad explicitly cited the United States in its decision. Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul said that in a phone call with a U.S. official on July 23, the American side raised concerns about how the institution functions and asked Chad to reconsider its membership. Four days later, Chad announced it would leave.

Iva Vukušić, a researcher at Utrecht University, said the U.S. campaign would reveal how committed countries are to the court. "Are they willing to defend it if it costs them something real?" she said.

The State Department said it would call on nations that enjoy the benefits of the U.S. security umbrella to reject the ICC.

Pressure from Washington is not the only factor. The military juntas in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger accused the court of selective justice, describing it as an instrument of neocolonial repression in the hands of imperialism when they announced their departures. Niger's democratically elected government was ousted in a 2023 coup, after which the junta abandoned longtime partners and formed new alliances, including with Russia, whose president, Vladimir Putin, faces an ICC arrest warrant over the war in Ukraine. Mali and Burkina Faso have undergone similar transitions.

"These countries are ruled by authoritarian leaders who want to avoid accountability for the harms they are inflicting on their own people," said Mel O'Brien, an associate professor of international law at the University of Western Australia.

Burundi became the first country to leave the ICC in 2017, accusing it of focusing too much on African conflicts after the court opened an investigation into the East African nation. Most of the court's early investigations concerned African countries, though most were requested by the states themselves. South Africa and Gambia also announced withdrawals in 2017 but later reversed course.

A change of government can bring a country back. Hungary announced it would quit in 2025, but after a new government was elected, its parliament voted to remain.

The Philippines left in 2019, becoming the second country to do so, while an investigation was active. Because withdrawal is not retroactive, that investigation continued. Former president Rodrigo Duterte is now in ICC detention in the Netherlands awaiting trial on charges of crimes against humanity over deadly anti-drug crackdowns. Opening statements are set for November.

An investigation into possible crimes by Venezuelan security forces under former president Nicolás Maduro will also continue despite last month's withdrawal announcement. Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia said the court had been instrumentalised to deepen inequalities among peoples and disregard their right to self-determination and sovereignty. Venezuela is currently engaged in U.S.-backed talks between the ruling party and the opposition following Maduro's capture in January by U.S. forces.

Ukraine, meanwhile, is the court's most recent addition, joining in 2025 after previously signing an agreement granting the court jurisdiction over crimes on its territory following the outbreak of hostilities with Russia in 2014. The country's ambassador to the Netherlands, Andriy Kostin, said joining was Ukraine's way of saying that accountability for the gravest crimes cannot be optional and that it intends to help build that system of justice.