In a judgment given last month, on 6 July, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) confronted the vexed legal question of immunities for heads of state who are alleged to have committed international crimes. It did so in a case involving South Africa’s failure to arrest President Bashir of Sudan when he…

Max du Plessis, Visiting Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict.  He is an Associate Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban; Senior Research Associate, International Crime in Africa Programme, Institute for Security Studies; and a Barrister, South Africa. At their latest African Union (AU) Assembly meeting, held in July, African…