France, July 3 -- In a statement published on Wednesday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) confirmed that Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger had initiated the one-year process of withdrawing from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.

The West African countries, which are all led by military juntas following a series of coups between 2020 and 2023, first announced their withdrawal from the ICC last September, calling it "a tool of neocolonial repression".

The three nations, now linked in an alliance named the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), accused the court, based in The Hague, of lacking impartiality and politicising human rights issues.

Niger officially left the ICC on 18 June and Burkina Faso and Mali followed on 24 ...