In the Wall Street Journal of 13 July, Marco Rubio (‘Dismantling the ICC’) announced his intention to ‘dismantle the icc’. Ten days later, the Chadian ministry of foreign affairs (mae) said that the minister, Dr Abdoulaye Sabre Fadoul, had held a telephone conversation with Frank W. Garcia Jr., Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs of the United States (Ministère des Affaires Étrangères du Tchad, Tchad–Étas-Unis).
Les deux diplomates ont également échangé sur la Cour pénale internationale (cpi). À cette occasion, la partie américaine a exprimé ses préoccupations quant au fonctionnement de cette institution et souhaité un réexamen par le Tchad de son adhésion au Statut de Rome. Le Ministre d’Etat a rappelé que le Tchad partage certaines préoccupations relatives au fonctionnement et à la sélectivité de la Cour, tout en réaffirmant son attachement aux principes de souveraineté des Étas. Il a indiqué que cette requête serait examinée par les autorités compétentes.
(The two diplomats also discussed the icc. The American side expressed concerns about the functionong if the institution and asked Chad to reëxamine its membership to the Statute of Rome. The minister noted that Chad shares certain concerns about the functioning and selectivity of the court, and reaffirmed Chad’s attachment to national sovereignty. He indicated that the competent authorities would consider the request.)
Two weeks later, in a communiqué dated 27 July 2026, the mae announced Chad’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute (Ministère des Affaires Étrangères du Tchad, Retrait du Tchad du Statut de Rome).
I propose to speculate a little on why Chad withdrew.
Various factors have been identified in the press, including—
- us pressure (Hallam, ‘Chad's government says it's withdrawing from the ICC’; AFP and Reuters, ‘Chad to join raft of withdrawals from International Criminal Court’; McMakin, ‘Chad says will withdraw from the International Criminal Court’; McMakin, ‘Chad says will withdraw from the International Criminal Court’; Maupas, ‘Des Etats africains sommés par les Etats-Unis de quitter la CPI’),
- alleged bias against African states parties in investigations (Hallam, ‘Chad's government says it's withdrawing from the ICC’; AFP and Reuters, ‘Chad to join raft of withdrawals from International Criminal Court’; Staff, ‘Why are several African countries withdrawing from the ICC?’; Schwikowski, ‘Why do most African countries stay with the ICC?’; Maupas, ‘Des Etats africains sommés par les Etats-Unis de quitter la CPI’),
- human rights violations by the ruling Déby clan (Hallam, ‘Chad's government says it's withdrawing from the ICC’), and
- alleged Chadian involvement in war crimes in the Sudanese civil war (McMakin, ‘Chad says will withdraw from the International Criminal Court’; Maupas, ‘Des Etats africains sommés par les Etats-Unis de quitter la CPI’).
The most interesting report is Maupas’s in Le Monde. She reports that the Americans wrote to multiple states and threatened them in the case of their refusal to withdraw. Only Chad, however, responded. One natural question is why the American campaign has succeeded ‘à géometrie variable’.
Maupas hits on, I think, the obvious explanation. (It is surprising that this is not the first explanation in most articles.) Chad supports the Rapid Support Forces, responsible for one of the severest massacres of the twenty-first century in El Fasher. The Americans, Maupas reports, resorted to disinformation, and claimed that proceedings were likely to be instituted against the authorities of the countries contacted. In the Chadian case, Maupas says, sources say that such proceedings are unlikely. What Maupas doesn’t mention, but is potentially relevant, is that Security Council Resolution 1593 (United Nations, ‘Resolution 1593 (2005)’), pursuant to Article 13 of the Rome Statute, referred ‘the situation in Darfur since 2002’ to the court. Thus it is easy to envisage that the competent Chadian authorities—not generally known for their sophistication—could easily have been fooled by the Americans into withdrawal. I suspect that this is the best explanation.
I promised a little speculation. The latest withdrawals from the Rome Statute are Chad, Venezuela, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. Venezuela withdrew following the same us-led campaign. However, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger withdrew before Rubio announced his campaign against the icc, and, whilst the Trump government is more kindly disposed to the revisionist order they seek to impose on West Africa than its predecessor, it is unlikely that their seemingly coördinated withdrawal had anything to do with a us campaign. (Moreover, it seems that they have nothing to show for their withdrawals from the American side.)
The tentative suggestion I wish to make is that Chad may also have had in mind its neighbours’ attitudes in withdrawing. There has been repeated speculation that Chad would seek to more closely align itself with the revisionist bloc of states under military rule comprising Malia, Burkina Faso and Niger in the so-called Association des états du Sahel (aes). The principal obstacle to such arrangements is that Chad’s most important security provider, France, would vehemently oppose such a move, and monitors developments in Chad sufficiently closely to make open signals of openness to alignment with the aes costly. Withdrawal from the icc, however, comes with a convenient excuse: all the other explanations above. Withdrawal therefore serves as a potentially useful but largely ambiguous signal to its neighbours. Whether this was the principal consideration I cannot tell, but it is one explanation that has not yet (to my knowledge) been advanced.