Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger first announced plans to leave the International Criminal Court in September 2025. The three members of the Alliance of Sahel States have now formally withdrawn from the Rome Statute in a coordinated decision.
President Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso has made the court’s alleged Western bias central to the case for leaving. He questioned the ICC’s impartiality, saying it disproportionately targets African leaders while ignoring Western actors’ alleged crimes.
Traoré described the court as 'an instrument of imperialism' and said: 'The ICC, in truth, is made solely for Africans. Ever since its inception'. Burkina Faso and its allies also regard the court as an 'instrument of neocolonial repression'.
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on 18 June criticising restrictions on civic space, media and political freedoms in Burkina Faso. It also urged the authorities to reverse their decision to leave the ICC.
Burkina Faso then severed diplomatic relations with France on 26 June. France called the decision 'hostile and unfounded'.
Traoré has said Burkina Faso could also cut ties with the European Union if Brussels continued actions his government regarded as interference.
The withdrawal from the Rome Statute forms part of a wider break by Burkina Faso and its allies with regional and international organisations they see as aligned with Western interests.
Separately, Burkina Faso’s government approved a draft penal code in December 2025 that would restore the death penalty for offences including high treason, terrorism and espionage. Capital punishment had been abolished in Burkina Faso in 2018. Traoré’s government also approved the death penalty for foreign spies caught operating under diplomatic cover.
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