Key points
- ICC is tribunal of last resort for crimes against humanity
- 31 high-profile fugitives still at large
- Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest rekindles hope for justice
ISLAMABAD: The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a court of last resort designed to hold the most powerful to account when domestic courts are unable or unwilling to do so.
However, after serving arrest warrants on Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the court is facing growing attacks, especially from the US.
US President Donald Trump has imposed economic and travel sanctions on ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan. Trump fears that the war crimes tribunal will prosecute its allies and citizens.
Former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest now sends a strong signal that even powerful individuals may be held accountable for their actions if the 128 member states on which the court depends fulfil international commitments.
The ICC currently has a list of 31 suspects who remain at large from the court in The Hague.
Let us have a look at the most high-profile names among them.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered and oversaw the most brutal war on Gaza, which killed over 47,000 Palestinians – figures the UN believes are credible – has an ICC arrest warrant issued under his name.
ICC judges issued the arrest warrant in November 2024, AFP reported. According to the court, he is accused of being criminally responsible for acts including murder, persecution and starvation as a weapon of war as part of a “widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza”.
Israel has rejected the jurisdiction of the Hague-based court and denies war crimes in Gaza.
Russian President Vladimir Putin
The arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin was issued in March 2023.
Putin stands accused of war crimes for “illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine”.
Kremlin denies the charges and says its forces have not committed atrocities during the invasion of Ukraine, according to Reuters.
Putin was the third serving president to be served with an ICC arrest warrant, after Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
Sudanese former president Omar Bashir
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir in 2009, accusing him of masterminding genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Sudan’s Darfur region, where an estimated 300,000 people were killed and more than 2 million displaced.
Sudan slammed the ICC at the time as a neo-colonialist court.
Bashir and some of his allies were jailed in Sudan after a popular uprising in 2019, but were never sent to The Hague. The army said the former dictator was moved from prison to a military hospital in April 2023.
Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony
Kony, the founder and leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, is the ICC’s longest-standing fugitive. An arrest warrant was issued for him in 2005.
ICC judges in 2024 took the unprecedented decision to allow prosecutors to bring a hearing on charges against him in absentia, which is expected to start in September 2025.
The prosecution wants to charge Kony with 36 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, using child soldiers, sexual slavery, forced marriage and forced pregnancy.
Pending warrant requests
In the past few months the prosecution has asked judges to issue arrest warrants for the Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, accusing him of the persecution of Afghan women, and Myanmar’s military leader Min Aung Hlaing for crimes against humanity in the alleged persecution of the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim minority. These requests are still being reviewed by a panel of judges.
According to Reuters, the Myanmar authorities have not responded to the prosecutor’s announcement. The Taliban called the requests for a warrant “devoid of a fair legal foundation, characterised by double standards, and politically motivated”.
