INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT POSTION ON WAR CRIMES AND THE BIAFRAN EXAMPLE: REFLECTING ON THE IGBO POGROM AND EXAMINING THE AFRICAN LEADERS

Abstract

This study is a reflection of International Criminal Court’s position on global war crimes. It interrogates the inability of the ICC to declare the Igbo pogrom of 1966, as a genocide and war crime. Using historical analysis of secondary data, the paper argues that the failure of African Heads of States and Governments to recognize and discuss the massacre of the Igbo people in 1966, contributed to the failure to declare the pogrom genocide by International Criminal Court thus, set the ground for Nigeria-Biafra war to take place. This paper maintains that a resolution of the African leaders would have been taken at the Third Regular Assembly summit in Ethiopia in May,1967, on the massacre and submitted to the United Nations Security Council for deliberations. The deliberation could have reenergized the International Criminal Tribunal to declare the massacre genocide, if brought up for debate at UNSC summit by African leaders. Rather, they stylishly avoided a mention of the genocide upon which the ICC lacked power of summon pursuant to a resolution adopted under chapter vii of the UN charter. The position of the paper is that both the IC T now ICC and African leaders were accomplice to the Biafra war.