South Africa Should’ve Arrested Sudan’s President, International Court Rules
But Mr. Zuma’s government argued that Mr. Bashir was entitled to attend the 2015 African
Union talks in South Africa because he had immunity during the summit meeting.
In a noteworthy move, however, one of the judges, Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, argued
that South Africa and Sudan were under an obligation to arrest Mr. Bashir because they both signed the United Nations genocide convention, which took effect in 1951.
There should have been no doubt about Mr. Bashir’s claim of immunity, a panel of three judges said, because on the eve of his arrival, South African diplomats had consulted with the court and were explicitly told
that as a member of the court, South Africa was obliged to arrest and surrender him.
By highlighting the significance of the genocide treaty —
and not merely the International Criminal Court itself — the ruling could open new avenues for litigation by rights activists, and it could raise the political cost for some countries to receive a fugitive from war crimes and genocide charges.
A local court ruled that South Africa was required to arrest Mr. Bashir,
but by then the government had already allowed him to surreptitiously leave the country.
On Thursday, judges at the International Criminal Court strongly criticized South Africa for failing to arrest
the president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, when he visited Johannesburg for an African Union meeting in 2015.