Venezuela will leave the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced by the Foreign Minister on social media.
This decision is not really a surprise, since Caracas had already warned of its intention to withdraw from this jurisdiction.
« Under the instructions of Interim President Delcy Rodríguez, Venezuela has informed United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of its firm and irrevocable decision to denounce the Rome Statute and to initiate its definitive withdrawal from the ICC », announced on X by Felix Plasencia, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister.
To justify this decision, Caracas denounces « an evident geographic bias that has concentrated its activity disproportionately on African and Latin American countries, to the detriment of the Global South ». « This pattern reveals an international justice that, far from being applied equitably, has been instrumentalized to deepen inequalities between peoples and to deny their right to self-determination and sovereignty », the minister continues.
The Court had provoked the anger of the chavista regime when it opened, in 2018, an investigation into possible crimes against humanity committed under the presidency of Nicolas Maduro. It was a year after the repression of the 2017 protests, which left around a hundred dead. In 2025, the ICC prosecutor had closed his liaison office in Caracas, stating that Venezuela did not cooperate sufficiently with the Court.
By leaving the ICC, Venezuela at least follows in the footsteps of its new ally, the United States, which continues to undermine the institution’s legitimacy. A few days ago, the American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the United States planned to dismantle the International Criminal Court, « brick by brick if necessary ».
