Chad's Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Monday saying that it had notified the UN Secretary General of its intention to withdraw from the Rome Statute, the international accord underpinning the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Chad is the fourth francophone African country whose government is very closely linked to its miltary to take such a step in less than a year — following the coordinated exit by the juntas running Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger last September.
The ICC prosecutes individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity; it began operating in 2002. What did Chad's government say about the ICC pullout?
The Foreign Ministry said that its decision followed "an in-depth review of the functioning of the International Criminal Court since it began operating in 2002 and of its record, whose effectiveness remains limited and uneven across different regions."
It said the court's own record of prosecutions revealed an "undeniable and egregious selectivity in principle, whether or not this selectivity is desired or subjected."
