The Rome Statute and Omar Al Bashir’s Indictment by the International Criminal Court

Abstract

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, subsequent events in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Liberia and Sierra Leone and the coming into force of the Statute of Rome of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the status of perpetrators of human rights as hostis humanis generis (enemies of humanity) is now universally accepted. It is in light of this new dispensation that the warrant by the ICC against the President of Sudan, Omar Al Bashir, pursuant to the Rome Statute must be understood. This article examines the impact of the issuance of the warrant of arrest by the ICC against President Omar Al Bashir and emerging international criminal law jurisprudence, and seeks to determine whether domestic constitutional immunities normally granted to presidents have been eroded, and afortiori, whether the age-old veil of sovereignty has now been consigned to the annals of history.