Caracas begins ICC disengagement after years of asymmetries and procedural bias. Photo: AP Photo.
The Venezuelan government’s announcement to United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres of its firm and irrevocable decision to withdraw from the Rome Statute and begin its definitive withdrawal from the International Criminal Court (ICC) marks a historic milestone.
The action, supported by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez and formalized under Article 127 of the founding treaty, responds to the exhaustion of all avenues with an organization that has ultimately subordinated the administration of justice to geopolitical agendas in the West.
This measure is the result of a long process of accumulating asymmetries, external pressures, and a persistent political bias. In this article, we review the chronology and background elements of this case that help us understand why Caracas claims the ICC is a tool of lawfare and manipulation that operates to the detriment of the Global South.
The current trigger
On July 24, 2026, the Venezuelan State officially notified its definitive withdrawal from the ICC. The acting president stated: “We do not believe in these types of institutions. We believe in a new world, a world of true peace for the peoples of the world who are currently victims of wars and aggression.”
At the normative level, according to Article 127 of the Rome Statute, the withdrawal will take effect one year after receipt of the formal notification. During this transition period, Venezuela will maintain its formal status but will cease its participation in the court’s proceedings.
Venezuela’s formal announcement was catalyzed in the parliamentary arena. On December 2, 2025, prior to the abduction of democratically elected president Nicolás Maduro by US special forces, the National Assembly of Venezuela approved, in its first reading, a bill to repeal its adherence to the Rome Statute.
At that time, the president of parliament, Jorge Rodríguez, stated that the ICC “serves to persecute independent countries that do not submit to the designs of the hegemon,” repudiating the court’s transformation into a punitive arm against those states that do not align themselves with the directives of the NATO powers.
The escalation of tensions
At the end of 2025, the institutional breakdown was complete after two critical events.
- The closure of the office in Caracas: The Venezuelan Foreign Ministry condemned the ICC prosecutor’s office for never assigning operational personnel to occupy its headquarters in the capital and for using their technical presence only as a media facade before ordering its unilateral closure.
- Interventionist statements in Buenos Aires: During a visit to Argentina in November 2025, the statements made by Deputy Prosecutor Mame Mandiaye Niang were condemned by Venezuela as an example of “legal colonialism,” and the Prosecutor’s Office was accused of neglecting genuine cooperation while prioritizing political persecution.
Procedural bias between “Venezuela I” and “Venezuela II”
The loss of legitimacy of the ICC for Venezuela is based on the disproportionate and asymmetrical treatment of two key cases.
On the one hand, there is the Venezuela I case, initiated at the time by the now-defunct Lima Group and sectors of the extremist opposition following violent protests and other acts of political violence within Venezuela.
Despite the Venezuelan state demonstrating that more than 50% of the fatalities alleged in 2017 were not actually participants in the protests and, in many cases, were individuals who were killed by the violent groups themselves, and despite its request to suspend the case to allow for the national justice system to act, Prosecutor Karim Khan forced the continuation of the investigation.
On the other hand, the Venezuela II Case—introduced in 2020—was presented by the Venezuelan state to investigate crimes against humanity stemming from the unilateral coercive measures (euphemistically referred to as “sanctions”) imposed by the United States.
The evidence presented regarding the devastating impact on the health and economy of the Venezuelan people is compelling; however, this case is progressing at a glacial pace, stalled in preliminary stages without any substantive advancement.
The global context
Caracas’s decision is framed within a generalized crisis of multilateralism, where the ICC operates with differentiated criteria depending on the geopolitical alignment of the accused. Throughout its history, the court has remained paralyzed in the face of war crimes committed by US and NATO forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.
In 2002, the United States enacted the American Service Members’ Protection Act (“Hague Invasion Act”), which authorizes the use of military force if any US citizen or ally is detained by the ICC. Furthermore, Washington imposed direct sanctions on former prosecutors like Fatou Bensouda when they attempted to investigate US crimes in Afghanistan.
The swiftness with which leaders of non-aligned nations are prosecuted—such as the arrest warrant issued against Russian President Vladimir Putin—contrasts sharply with the extreme caution and historical inaction regarding the aggression against the Palestinian people and the actions of the Israeli regime.
Venezuela’s formal withdrawal from the International Criminal Court represents a sovereign rejection of a mechanism that has mutated into an instrument of lawfare at the service of unipolarity.
By repudiating the Rome Statute, the Venezuelan state reaffirms the primacy of its own Constitutional order, the capacity of its domestic judicial bodies, and its refusal to validate international institutions that apply a colonial filter to human rights.
Caracas’s withdrawal confirms that the purported “universal jurisdiction” has only served to prosecute the most vulnerable while absolving Western centers of power of all responsibility.
ICC: Why AES Countries Ditched the West’s ‘Instrument of Neo-Colonial Repression’
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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Cameron Baillie is an award-winning journalist, editor, and researcher. He won and was shortlisted for awards across Britain and Ireland. He is Editor-in-Chief of New Sociological Perspectives graduate journal and Commissioning Editor at The Student Intifada newsletter. He spent the first half of 2025 living, working, and writing in Ecuador. He does news translation and proofreading work with The Orinoco Tribune.
