Announcement comes as Venezuela has hewed near Trump administration, who has pledged to’disable’ worldwide courtroom.
Revealed On 24 Jul 2026
The federal government of Venezuela has knowledgeable the United Nations that it’ll withdraw from the Worldwide Legal Courtroom (ICC), citing what it calls the physique’s “bias” towards international locations within the International South.
Overseas Minister Felix Plasencia mentioned in a social media submit on Friday that Venezuela had knowledgeable the UN of its “irrevocable” choice to withdraw from the courtroom on the orders of interim President Delcy Rodriguez, who has sought to align her authorities extra carefully with the US.
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“Venezuela considers that the Courtroom’s actions replicate a demonstrated geographical bias, which has disproportionately concentrated its work on African and Latin American international locations, to the detriment of the International South,” Plasencia mentioned. “This sample reveals a world justice system that, removed from being utilized equitably, has been instrumentalised to deepen inequalities amongst peoples and disrespect their proper to self-determination and sovereignty.”
The ICC introduced in 2021 that it could probe potential crimes against humanity by the Venezuelan authorities throughout a crackdown on antigovernment protests in 2017, and Venezuela’s Nationwide Meeting voted in December of final 12 months to cancel its commitments to the Rome Statute.
The ICC has typically been criticised for failing to use the identical requirements to Western leaders as these from the International South, and Nationwide Meeting President Jorge Rodriguez beforehand described the physique as an instrument of “American imperialism”.
However Friday’s announcement comes at a time when Venezuela has been pulled into higher alignment with the insurance policies of the US, and one week after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned the US would wage a campaign to “systematically disable” its potential to operate.
Delcy Rodriguez assumed energy after the US kidnapped former President Nicolas Maduro in a army assault in January.
The nation’s subsequent rapprochement with the US has taken place underneath the specter of additional army actions.
The US is itself a vociferous critic of the worldwide courtroom, which the Trump administration has sought to undermine via quite a lot of measures, together with sanctions towards prosecutors concerned in probes into the actions of US and Israeli forces.
Rubio accused the ICC final week of “waging a battle towards our nation, not with bullets or missiles, however with statutes, compacts, and the drive of so-called worldwide regulation”.
The transfer additionally comes as some have argued that Venezuela’s authorities has been paving the way in which to re-establish relations with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been indicted by the courtroom on expenses of committing battle crimes in Gaza.
