Abstract:
This article deals with the failure of states to comply with their obligation
to execute the warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for the
arrest of President Omar Hassan Ahmed Al Bashir of Sudan. President Al
Bashir is to stand trial on serious charges, including acts of genocide,
based on action taken on instructions of President Al Bashir to eliminate
nationals of Sudan who are not of Arab extraction. President Al Bashir
may be depicted as the Adolph Hitler of Africa by virtue of his efforts to
create a Sudanese Herrenvolk and, in the process, causing the death of
between 200 000 and 400 000 members of African tribes in the
Sudanese province of Darfur and the displacement of approximately 2,5
million people. A special focus of the article is the hosting of President Al
Bashir by the South African government in June 2015 at a summit of the
African Union in Johannesburg, in blatant defiance of the rule of law, and
escorting him out of the country in contempt of an order of the High
Court, Gauteng Division. South Africa claimed that its obligations as a
member state of the African Union prevented it from executing the
warrant of arrest. However, South Africa was compelled to execute the
warrant of arrest (a) as a state party to the ICC Statute; (b) because the
Security Council had instructed all member states of the United Nations to
do so, and (c) because South Africa’s own Rome Statute Implementation
Act, 2002 requires it of South African authorities. Claiming that President
Al Bashir as a head of state enjoyed sovereign immunity is also based on a false premise, since sovereign immunity does not apply to prosecutions in
international tribunals. Maintaining that President Al Bashir is immune
from prosecution in the ICC is criticised in the article.
