SA once again finds itself in the cross-hairs of the International Criminal Court (ICC) with International Relations & Co-operation Minister Naledi Pandor yesterday confirming that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been invited to attend the 15th Brics summit in SA in August.

As previously reported, the ICC last week issued an arrest warrant against Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

As a signatory to the Rome Statute, SA is legally bound to detain him and bring him to trial.

SA was embroiled in a similar spat in 2015 when it refused to execute a warrant of arrest for former Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir who attended an AU summit in Sandton and was permitted to leave the country.

‘President Putin is one of the heads of Brics (Brazil, Russia, India, China and SA) and is invited to the summit and I think the ICC warrant is a matter of concern,’ Pandor said.

‘SA is a member state of the ICC and so we will have to have a discussion in the context of Cabinet to decide how we respond.’

While Pandor has confirmed the invitation, it remains to be seen whether Putin will attend after the warrant was issued. 

Business Day reports that Pandor said the matter must be discussed as soon as possible, because the summit is coming up and SA will need to clarify the situation.

Asked whether the ICC’s decision was fair, Pandor said: ‘I have mentioned the issue of double standards of global affairs. There are many other countries that have been involved in wars, invasion of territory and killing people, arresting activists and none of them have been called up by the ICC.’

It seems, she said, ‘if you are powerful and enjoy a particular status in the global community, you escape and this does worry us because it dims the objective character of the ICC as an arbiter that is fair on all abuses of human rights and all infringements of humanitarian law.’

Full Business Day report