Bonita Ayuko  

Few provisions in African international law have attracted as much critical attention, or as blunt a nickname, as Article 46A bis of the Malabo Protocol. This post takes that nickname seriously. It asks whether the label “impunity clause” is legally earned, politically inevitable, or simply unavoidable given the way African states have approached the ICC. Drawing on the contrast with Article 27 of the Rome Statute and the 2019 Al-Bashir Appeals Chamber judgment, it argues that Africa’s recent trajectory, from Malabo’s immunity clause to the Sahel’s exit from the ICC, is less about rejecting accountability than about a deeply contested struggle over who gets to define it.