South Africa may change the venue of the BRICS summit, the reason being the ICC’s warrant issued to Putin

South Africa is considering changing the venue of the upcoming BRICS leaders’ summit to another country. It is a move that will resolve the dilemma of how to execute an international arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. The people said the government is considering hosting the meeting of heads of state from China or alternatively neighboring Mozambique. This is private and no decision has been taken yet. As it stands, the summit will be held in Gauteng province, where the commercial hub of Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria are located, said Lunga Ngengelele, spokesman for Department of International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor.

As far as information is concerned, the venue of the summit has been announced as Gauteng, South Africa. South Africa has invited Putin to the August 22-24 summit, along with the leaders of Brazil, India and China. Since South Africa is a member of the International Criminal Court. It will therefore be bound to execute the arrest warrant for Putin, which was issued by the tribunal earlier this year.

Neither China nor Mozambique are parties to the Rome Statute that established the ICC. One of the people said Mozambique was unlikely to be a suitable venue as the country did not have the capacity to host an event on the scale of the BRICS summit. The South African government previously drew international criticism in 2015, when it refused to execute an ICC arrest warrant for then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.