A draft motion pushing for the mass withdrawal of African countries from the International Criminal Court was blocked during the recent Africa Union summit in Kigali where it was to be endorsed.

While we could not immediately establish the behind-the-scenes negotiations leading to the motion’s withdrawal, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Senegal, Tunisia and Algeria — a non-ICC member — had previously rejected calls for withdrawal.

“The best defence is not to abuse, but to stick to the law. We would never allow our president to get away with murder. We are not being prescriptive, we are just asking that we up the game,” Botswana’s Vice President Mokgweetsi Masisi said in an interview with Bloomberg on the sidelines of the summit.

While the draft motion was crafted during the 26th Summit in January and anchored in the AU resolution for the ICC to terminate the case facing Kenya’s Deputy President William Ruto, Nairobi was not keen on pushing the agenda in Kigali because all the cases facing its leaders had been dropped due to “insufficient evidence”...


http://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/news/Africa-s-push-to-withdraw-from-ICC-blocked--countries-divided/2558-3307472-15hdbkmz/index.html