The International Criminal Court (ICC) has authorized the Office of the Prosecutor of this court to resume the investigation into possible abuses committed in Afghanistan, on the understanding that circumstances have changed in the Asian country since the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
The office headed by prosecutor Karim Khan asked the ICC in September last year for permission to resume its investigations, which had been shelved in 2020 at the request of Ashraf Ghani’s government. The deposed Afghan authorities then asserted their own capacity to establish accountability.
However, the Hague-based court, which has tried in vain to communicate with the Taliban regime, has concluded that no investigations or progress is being made to justify the exemption agreed in 2020, and has therefore authorized the Prosecutor’s Office to resume its own case.
The Hague thus reverts to the authorization issued in March 2020, when the office then headed by Fatou Bensouda received a first permission to formally examine whether war crimes had been committed during the war in Afghanistan, which earned it harsh criticism from the U.S. government at the time.
The Administration of Donald Trump went so far as to sanction the then chief prosecutor of the ICC, a measure that was reversed in April 2021 by the Executive then led by Democrat Joe Biden.
