Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger file formal notices to leave the International Criminal Court

The military governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have formally notified the United Nations that they are leaving the International Criminal Court, converting last September's political declaration into a binding legal process and delivering the most significant coordinated departure in the court's history.

Niger deposited its written notification with the UN Secretary-General on 18 June, followed by Burkina Faso and Mali on 24 June, according to Human Rights Watch and the presidency of the court's Assembly of States Parties. Under Article 127 of the Rome Statute, the ICC's founding treaty, a withdrawal takes effect one year after notice is received — 18 June 2027 for Niger and 24 June 2027 for the other two, Human Rights Watch said.

Until those dates the three states remain full parties to the treaty. The statute also provides that withdrawal does not release a state from obligations it incurred while a member, and does not affect matters already before the court — a point stressed by the court's governing body and by rights groups this week.

A coordinated exit, announced from Bamako

The three countries, all run by juntas installed in coups between 2020 and 2023, announced their intention to leave on 22 September 2025 in a joint statement signed in Bamako by Mali's transitional leader, General Assimi Goïta, who chairs their Alliance of Sahel States (AES) confederation. The statement, reported by France 24 and other outlets, denounced the ICC as "an instrument of neo-colonial repression in the hands of imperialism" and an example of "selective justice", and said the bloc would build its own justice mechanisms instead.

The June notifications repeat the charge in more diplomatic language. Niger accused the court of being "misused and exploited", while Burkina Faso said it was "becoming a selective and politicized tool", according to Human Rights Watch. The move follows the trio's exit from the West African bloc ECOWAS and fits a pattern of withdrawal from Western-aligned institutions since the AES was founded in September 2023. Legal scholars note the September declaration's claim of "immediate effect" had no basis in the treaty; the one-year clock only began with last month's notifications.

What the court loses — and what it keeps

The most direct consequences fall on Mali, whose situation the ICC has been investigating since January 2013 at the request of an earlier Malian government. That investigation has produced two convictions:

• Ahmad al-Faqi al-Mahdi, sentenced to nine years in September 2016 for directing the destruction of religious and historic monuments in Timbuktu, with reparations for victims now in their final phase;
• Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz, convicted in June 2024 of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Timbuktu and sentenced to ten years, with a reparations decision pending, according to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

A third case remains open: an arrest warrant against Iyad Ag Ghaly, the founder of Ansar Dine who now leads the al-Qaeda-linked JNIM insurgency, was unsealed in June 2024 and he remains at large. Because the alleged crimes occurred while Mali was a member, the court retains jurisdiction even after withdrawal takes effect. Burkina Faso and Niger are not under any publicly announced ICC investigation, though Amnesty International says it has documented crimes under international law in all three countries over the past decade, and Human Rights Watch has reported mass killings of civilians by government forces during counterinsurgency operations.

The Russian dimension

The withdrawal lands amid the three states' deepening alignment with Moscow. Since the coups they have expelled French and other Western forces and turned to Russian security support — first through the Wagner Group, whose role in Mali was taken over in 2025 by the Africa Corps, a force controlled by Russia's defence ministry. Human Rights Watch has documented abuses against civilians by Malian forces operating alongside Wagner fighters.

Russia is not an ICC member, and President Vladimir Putin has been the subject of an ICC arrest warrant since March 2023. Researchers writing for the Fondation Hirondelle's Justice Info have linked the Sahel withdrawal to the bloc's rapprochement with Russia, while noting that leaving the court would not shield Russian personnel from ICC jurisdiction over crimes committed while the treaty applied. Analysts at the Institute for Security Studies describe the joint exit as a demonstration of AES unity as much as a legal manoeuvre.

'A headlong retreat'

The presidency of the Assembly of States Parties, the ICC's governing body, said it "regrets" the developments, warning that disengagement "risks undermining the collective pursuit of justice", and called on the three governments to remain committed states parties, offering "a meaningful exchange" on their concerns.

"Withdrawing from the ICC amounts to a headlong retreat by these governments from their international law and justice obligations," said Marceau Sivieude, Amnesty International's regional director for West and Central Africa.

Liz Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch, warned when the plan was announced that it would "undermine accountability and deprive people in the Sahel of a critical layer of human rights protection when national courts are unable to check impunity for the worst crimes." FIDH secretary general Drissa Traoré said the decision "weakens the position of victims, for whom the Court often represents the last hope to obtain justice."

The notices are not irreversible: Gambia revoked its own withdrawal notification in 2017 before it took effect, and Human Rights Watch is urging the African Union and ICC member states to press the three governments to do the same. Barring such a reversal, by late June 2027 the Rome Statute system will have lost three members at once — a first in its 28-year existence, and a measure of how contested the post-war architecture of international justice has become.