AES: Confederal Justice Between Sovereignty and Exception

By announcing withdrawal from the International Criminal Court and the idea of a Sahelian penal framework, the AES is not merely making a diplomatic gesture. It is trying to move the place where political, military and security violence in the Sahel is judged.

The project must be handled with caution. A declaration is not yet an institution. A political will is not yet a court. Before publication, official AES texts, the timetable of withdrawal from the ICC and the precise competences of any Sahelian jurisdiction must be checked. But the strategic question is already visible: will regional justice strengthen sovereignty, or will it build a new architecture of exception?

Sovereignty does not replace guarantees

The critique of international justice is not without substance. Many African states and intellectuals have long denounced selective prosecutions, geopolitical asymmetry and the way powerful states avoid accountability while weaker states are placed under scrutiny. The ICC has never escaped the charge of unequal universality.

But a justified critique of unequal international justice does not automatically produce a just regional alternative. Sovereignty is not a procedure. It is not a guarantee of independence. It does not by itself protect the accused, victims or witnesses. It can protect a people against external domination; it can also protect a government against accountability.

That is the central ambiguity of the AES project. If a Sahelian framework is built with independent judges, clear jurisdiction, defense rights, victim protection, public procedures and genuine control over security forces, it could mark a serious regional move. If it is built mainly to judge enemies while shielding allies, it will not be sovereignty. It will be exception.

The Sahel cannot judge only its adversaries

The Sahelian crisis is marked by armed groups, military operations, foreign interventions, abuses, massacres, displacement and information war. A credible court cannot select only one category of violence. It cannot judge insurgents while ignoring state forces. It cannot denounce foreign interference while remaining silent on allied actors. It cannot invoke dignity while denying victims the right to speak.

This is the test. The court that judges only the enemy is not justice. It is an extension of war by legal means.

For Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, the stakes are immense. These states claim to rebuild sovereignty after years of external dependence, security failure and regional reconfiguration. Their populations have paid a heavy price for war, sanctions, coups, displacement and economic fragility. They have a right to institutions that do more than repeat the vocabulary of emancipation.

A Sahelian justice worthy of the name would have to confront the entire field of violence: armed groups, state actors, militias, foreign contractors, regional networks and command responsibility. That is a heavy institutional burden. It cannot be met by communiqués.

A break with the ICC, not with law

Leaving the ICC framework can be presented as a sovereign act. But leaving a court does not mean leaving the law. The prohibition of massacres, torture, enforced disappearances, attacks on civilians and other grave crimes does not vanish because a state changes forum.

The danger is to confuse international justice with law itself. The ICC is one institution, historically contested and politically limited. The norms it is supposed to enforce are broader. If the AES wants to reject dependency without rejecting accountability, it must show that its alternative is not a shelter for impunity.

That means texts, not slogans. Jurisdiction, not declarations. Guarantees, not symbolism. Independence, not command. Access for victims, not only state narratives. Defense rights, not only conviction rates.

The Sahel is not short of political speech. It is short of institutions trusted enough to survive the next turn of power. A regional court could be an important step if it is built against arbitrariness. It would be a failure if it merely nationalizes arbitrariness under confederal language.

The AES is right to say that justice must not be monopolized by distant powers. But it must also accept that sovereignty becomes credible only when it binds itself. A court that cannot judge the powerful at home will not liberate the Sahel from external tutelage. It will only move impunity closer to the flag.