Entre contestação e engajamento: a política da África do Sul perante o Tribunal Penal Internacional

Abstract

This study analyzes the ambivalent trajectory of South Africa in relation to the International Criminal Court (ICC), focusing on the movement from the announcement of withdrawal from the Rome Statute in 2016 to its repositioning as a leading supporter of the Court in 2024/2025. The central problem lies in the tensions between international commitments, domestic dynamics, and strategic foreign policy positioning vis-à-vis the ICC, particularly in the context of African criticisms regarding the Court’s functioning and the asymmetries in the application of international criminal justice. The main objective is to investigate the political, legal, and institutional factors, both internal and external, that explain this shift in South Africa’s position, analyzing how the interaction among these elements conditioned both the withdrawal initiative and its subsequent revocation and discursive shift. To this end, the study adopts a qualitative and exploratory approach, which is mobilized through the case study of South Africa and the analysis of specialized literature, institutional documents, and international media coverage. The findings indicate that South Africa’s trajectory cannot be explained by a single isolated factor, but rather results from the interaction between domestic, strategic, and normative variables. It is concluded that the apparent ambivalence, between contestation and engagement, constitutes, in fact, a foreign policy strategy that mobilizes multilateral international institutions, particularly the ICC, both as a tool to criticize systemic asymmetries and as a resource for projecting legitimacy and leadership in the international arena.