Africans push UN to call off ‘racist’ court – Features – Al Jazeera English. “We do believe that the ICC, if used appropriately, can check impunity. But if it is used in a very selective manner, and without taking into due consideration what the African leadership is saying, then, of course, it can cause us problems. “If you hijack this institution, then keep it. We don’t need it.” On the face of it, the AU would seem to have a good argument. All of the court’s current 20 cases in eight countries are against Africans – two of them sitting heads of state – and, though four of the countries involved referred the cases to the ICC themselves, some of the continent’s leaders accuse the Hague-based court of picking on them. Victims await justice Stoking their anger is the fact that global powers such as the United States, China and Russia have not signed up to the court. Neither have Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and several other nations. Why, many Africans ask, are Britain and the US not investigated by international institutions for the alleged crimes of their troops – and political leaders – in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan? The answer for some, as once articulated by Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, is that the ICC is “hunting” them. Worse still, they say the hunt is racist and neo-colonial.
