Venezuela has formally notified the United Nations of its intention to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC), with Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia declaring the decision "firm and irrevocable" under Article 127 of the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court. The announcement was made on Friday by interim President Delcy Rodríguez's government, which has been steering Venezuela toward closer alignment with the United States since the removal of former President Nicolás Maduro.
Caracas cited what it described as "geographical bias" on the part of the Hague-based court, arguing that it has disproportionately focused its work on countries in Africa and Latin America while overlooking comparable conduct by Western powers. The ICC has faced long-running criticism from parts of the Global South on those grounds, and Venezuela is not the first country to act on such objections — earlier this year, Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso also withdrew from the court, denouncing it as an instrument of neo-colonial oppression.
The move comes against a backdrop of active ICC scrutiny of Venezuela. Prosecutors opened a formal investigation in 2021 into possible crimes against humanity committed during a violent crackdown on anti-government protests in 2017, a period in which at least 125 people were killed and security forces faced widespread allegations of torture and arbitrary detention. Venezuela's National Assembly had already voted in December to renounce the Rome Statute, and appeals courts at the ICC had unanimously rejected Caracas's attempts to halt the investigation on the grounds that national authorities were handling the matter domestically.
The timing is also notable given the ICC's fraught relationship with the United States. The Trump administration has pledged to "systematically disable" the court's ability to function and has imposed sanctions on prosecutors involved in probes into American and Israeli conduct. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been indicted by the ICC on war crimes charges related to Gaza, stands to benefit from any further weakening of the institution. Venezuelan officials had previously framed the court as a tool of "American imperialism," yet Venezuela's withdrawal now aligns it, in practical terms, with Washington's effort to erode the court's reach. The announcement also coincided with a significant moment for the court internally: on the same day, ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan was removed from office by member states following allegations of sexual misconduct, a decision his legal team called politically motivated.
Venezuela's withdrawal will take effect one year after the UN receives formal notification, meaning the ICC investigation can continue in the interim. Human rights advocates warn that the departure removes another layer of accountability for alleged abuses committed under successive governments in Caracas, while supporters of the withdrawal argue that the court applies international justice selectively and undermines national sovereignty.