Omar al-Bashir and international law

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for genocide and war crimes, fled from an African Union summit meeting last Monday before the conference ended. The South African High Court was going to order him arrested and handed over to the ICC, but the South African government let him fly out of a military airport near Pretoria.

There is outrage in South Africa at this breach of the law, but there is also a belief in the rest of the continent (especially among national leaders) that the ICC is prejudiced against African countries. Is the ICC out of control, or is it just trying to do its job?

President Jacob Zuma's government had a serious public relations problem. In the past month South Africa has seen a great deal of xenophobic violence against illegal immigrants and their property. It's embarrassing for Zuma, and clearly contrary to the spirit of African solidarity, so he felt that he couldn't let an African head of state be arrested while attending an AU summit in his country. 

The resentment of poor South Africans at the presence of so many illegal immigrants from other African countries (probably between 5 and 10 percent of the population) is understandable but inexcusable. The right solution is for South Africa to take control of its borders, but Zuma meanwhile has to placate his African Union partners.

Zuma had to sneak al-Bashir out of the country because South Africa's High Court is still independent, and it was about to rule that al-Bashir must be handed over to the ICC for trial. Indeed, Judge Dunstan Mlambo did rule exactly that - "The government's failure to arrest Bashir is inconsistent with the Constitution" - only hours after al-Bashir fled.

Well...