Dictators in Latin America are responsible for mass atrocities and crimes against humanity, considered some of the most serious violations under international law. Regimes such as those ruling Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela enjoy absolute impunity as they co-opt their countries’ judiciaries and crush dissent, facing few repercussions for adopting the brutal policies that allow them to consolidate and maintain their positions.
The result of this overwhelming sense of impunity goes beyond a lack of accountability, reparations, or justice for the victims and their families. Impunity has contributed directly to the consolidation of authoritarian rule through illegal practices that are forbidden under international law, but nevertheless transpire without any meaningful consequences. This not only enables existing autocrats to tighten their grip on power, but also empowers aspiring dictators who are slowly undermining democracy.
In a sign of this deepening impunity crisis, the Venezuelan regime has moved to shut down one of the last avenues available to pursue justice — a fact that should raise the alarm for all advocates of international criminal justice. On July 24, the regime announced that it was formally withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the global tribunal that is investigating members of the regime and its security forces for crimes against humanity committed against the Venezuelan people since 2014. The Court will still have jurisdiction over all crimes committed before Venezuela’s withdrawal takes effect, but the move marks an end date to that jurisdiction.
The ICC still has an important role to play in Latin America, and in holding perpetrators accountable around the world. But Venezuela’s recent actions underscore the urgency of strengthening the Court’s credibility and its support from democratic nations, without which it will struggle both to fulfill its mandate and to contribute to the fight against authoritarian impunity.
The Ups and Downs of the Venezuelan Case at the ICC
Venezuela has been under investigation by the ICC since 2018, beginning with a preliminary investigation after a group of countries referred the situation to the Court following atrocities the regime committed during the 2017 protests. In 2021, the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor launched a formal investigation after concluding that there were serious grounds to believe that the government had committed crimes against humanity.
The Court’s decision carried deep meaning. With the judiciary in Venezuela completely co-opted by the regime, international and foreign courts stand as the last resort for victims to seek justice and accountability. However, the ICC investigation has fallen dramatically short of expectations. After almost five years, there have been no meaningful updates, no arrest warrants, and no formal charges against anyone; the prosecutor was even forced to recuse himself due to a conflict of interest.
Despite these shortcomings, the investigation keeps hope alive for the victims and their families and represents a major threat for the regime, which faces the risk of further isolation. The Court has made a couple of meaningful decisions on the matter, such as rejecting the regime’s request to defer the investigation to Venezuelan courts after the ICC deemed that those enquiries would not be genuine, and dropping the regime’s complaint against the United States in a separate case.
Regardless of the real (though still very uncertain) prospects of a transition toward democracy in Venezuela, the move to leave the ICC means that all crimes committed after the withdrawal takes effect next year would be outside the jurisdiction of any court with the ability to conduct meaningful trials. This would make it even more challenging to put significant pressure on a regime that has not given any signal that it intends to ease its grip on power.
In the broader regional context, the investigation into Venezuelan officials offers a meaningful contrast with the worsening situations in Cuba and Nicaragua, two countries also ruled by brutal dictatorships that were never members of the ICC, and thus remain outside of its jurisdiction. In those countries, victims and their advocates must rely on universal jurisdiction initiatives that, although they serve a crucial purpose, lack effective enforcement, such as the current trial against Nicaraguan officials in Argentina.
Impunity Created a Breeding Ground for Authoritarianism
Nicaragua has been the subject of international investigations, most notably by the United Nations’ Group of Human Rights Experts, which has concluded repeatedly that the Ortega-Murillo regime’s crimes since 2018 amount to crimes against humanity. The investigations have established direct liability links all the way to the co-presidential couple, and have reported on the regime’s extensive use of transnational repression. Yet almost a decade later, the regime has faced no major hurdles in its efforts to consolidate totalitarian rule, shutting down civic space entirely and crushing all internal dissent, even announcing in July that there would be no more elections. In so doing, it has abandoned even the facade of democracy.
Cuba has been under one of the world’s most repressive regimes for decades, and has managed to survive tough sanctions through the support of other authoritarian regimes, including some that have been consolidated thanks to its influence and resources in the region. Following the brutal crackdown in the aftermath of the 11J protests in 2021, the regime was accused of crimes against humanity as it repressed and arbitrarily imprisoned thousands of people. This adds to the accusations around Cuba’s infamous medical missions, a major tool of influence projection for the regime that have been described as an example of modern slavery.
It is in a region that allowed the Cuban regime’s crimes and authoritarianism to survive for decades that Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Hugo Chavez (followed by Nicolás Maduro) in Venezuela were able to build their power apparatus, following Castro’s playbook. And as the region continues to struggle to defend democracy and promote accountability, authoritarianism continues to find ways to take hold.
More recently, Nayib Bukele has seriously undermined democratic governance and institutions in El Salvador. Although he comes from the political right wing, unlike other Latin American dictators, he did so by adopting several of Maduro and Ortega’s policies and strategies. Following his successful (but still deeply controversial) crackdown on gang violence, Bukele followed the populist dictator playbook and abused his popularity to concentrate power and entrench himself in office.
The International Commission of Jurists has found that the violations committed during El Salvador’s prolonged state of emergency — along with the regime’s undermining of democratic institutions and the rule of law — amount to crimes against humanity as the country sees its first political prisoners and a shrinking civic space, with nongovernmental organizations, activists, and journalists forced into exile.
El Salvador is still a party to the ICC. But with Bukele stacking the judiciary with loyalists and erasing the separation of powers, it is increasingly important to preserve the Court’s jurisdiction there — despite calls from the United States for states to withdraw from the Rome Statute — and maintain its ability to carry out its investigative and prosecutorial work. Otherwise, El Salvador will become yet another example of impunity-fueled autocratization.
A New Way Forward for the Americas and the ICC
The result of the prolonged absence of justice and proportionate consequences for human rights violations is a growing sense of impunity for those who commit some of the most serious crimes under international law. The ICC was created precisely to deal with these kinds of cases, where domestic tribunals have neither the ability nor the will to bring the perpetrators to justice.
For the ICC to continue its mission, both the Court and democracies in the region must see this moment as a wake-up call. The Court’s credibility is at its lowest level since its chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was forced to recuse himself, and ultimately dismissed, after he was accused of sexual misconduct. This piles onto the years of silence and inaction over the situation in Venezuela as it continued to worsen, especially during the brutal crackdown that followed the fraudulent presidential election in 2024.
It is largely up to the Court itself to regain the trust of the international community and of the victims it is mandated to stand up for. The ICC’s handling of the Venezuelan investigation has greatly contributed to its loss of legitimacy, and its officials should give clear assurances that following the scandals, it will conduct the investigation seriously and expeditiously, with concrete decisions made as soon as possible. Considering how quickly prosecutors have acted in other investigations (such as the arrest warrants against Russian officials for violations in Ukraine), the ICC’s silence on Venezuela seems increasingly untenable.
The Court’s internal reform will, of course, be complicated by the continuing pressure it faces from US sanctions. This pressure further impedes the institution’s normal functioning and undermines the broader development of the international criminal law system. Although the ICC does not necessarily need the endorsement of the current US government to do meaningful work, the United States should, perhaps, consider that the ICC process can aid its ongoing efforts to promote a democratic transition in Venezuela.
Weakening an already struggling international justice system hands dictators in the region, and around the world, a major victory. Impunity is what allowed them to get to where they are in the first place, and it is impunity what will allow them to remain, relying on a never-ending cycle of oppression and violations to keep dissent in check.
The international community also needs to seize the opportunity to strengthen its commitment to the ICC’s work and continue fostering an international system able to deal with the most serious international crimes when no one else is able or willing to do so. Democracies in the region need to provide all the assistance victims need to give their testimony and information to the Court, but those countries must also come out publicly in support of the ICC’s work, urge all countries of the region to remain parties to the Rome Statute, put an end to all sanctions and undue barriers to the Court’s work, and call on the Office of the Prosecutor to start taking concrete measures and decisive action.
The world has made significant progress to reach the conclusion that human rights violations must not go unpunished. But without concerted reform from within and commitment from its member states, the ICC cannot hope to enforce this conclusion.
