Afghanistan: International Arrest Warrants for Two Taliban Leaders

Translated by Beatrice Mereta

On Tuesday, July 8, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Taliban's Supreme Leader and de facto Head of State of Afghanistan Hibatullah Akhundzada and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, head of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, for crimes against humanity.

The International Criminal Court began proceedings back in January 2025, when Karim Khan, Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, requested the warrant. A government that legitimizes murder, torture, rape, forced disappearances, and the dismantling of women's rights is the key reason.

When the International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant, all countries that have signed the Rome Statute are obliged to arrest the subjects of the warrant if they are found on their territory. As always, there is often a huge gap between theory and practice: it is not certain that the signatory countries will arrest Akhundzada and Haqqani, should they leave Afghanistan. Moreover, it is very rare for the two to travel outside the country.

Let's take a step back: the situation in Afghanistan seems to have reached a point of no return.

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan with Haibatullah Akhundzada, following the withdrawal of US and NATO forces. His control of the country is systematic and widespread, and it continues to distance itself from the West and curtail human rights. On Thursday, July 3, Russia became the first country in the world to recognize the Taliban regime as legitimate.

Between August 15, 2021, and March 31, 2024, 1,033 cases of forced implementation of Taliban orders and violation of personal freedom were documented, with a discriminatory impact on women.

The latest report by UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett is tragic: between June 2023 and March 2024, 52 edicts were issued restricting the rights of women and girls. This is a veritable “architecture of oppression.” In September 2024, the Afghan government banned Bennett from visiting the country.

Furthermore, between January 2022 and June 2024, Afghan Witness documented 840 incidents of gender-based violence, including 332 murders, with the perpetrators going unpunished because the institutions designed to punish gender-based crimes have been dismantled by the Taliban.

The Rome Statute defines a crime against humanity as "any of the following acts, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

a) Murder;

b) Extermination;

c) Enslavement;

d) Deportation or forcible transfer of population;

e) Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law;

f) Torture;

g) Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;

h) Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender as defined in paragraph 3, or other grounds that are universally recognized as impermissible under international law, in connection with any act referred to in this paragraph or any crime within the jurisdiction of the Court;

i) Enforced disappearance of persons;

j) The crime of apartheid;

k) Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health.

The arrest warrant in question clearly refers to paragraph H of Article 7. The discriminatory policy in place in Afghanistan is aimed at minimizing any rights of women, girls, and children and violently persecuting all those who are defined as “allies of girls and women.”

This discriminatory policy, as already highlighted, has not been in place for long, but according to the ICC, when Akhundzada took power in August 2021, it was committed periodically and continuously at least until January 2025.

In the arrest warrant, the Criminal Court emphasized how, over the last few years, the Taliban have imposed a series of general prohibitions and restrictions on the entire population without distinction, but it is clear that women have been specifically and institutionally targeted. Women and girls have been deprived of their right to education, privacy, family life, freedom of movement, expression, thought, and religion. The Taliban have also banned women from speaking in public. Women and girls in Afghanistan have been left with nothing. In every sense.

Faced with systematic repression that has deprived millions of Afghan women and girls of their freedom, education, voice, and identity, the international community can no longer stand by and watch. The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court marks a crucial moment: for the first time, it is put in black and white that what is happening daily in Afghanistan is not just an internal matter, but a crime against humanity. It is a signal, albeit symbolic, that systematic violence against women and girls can no longer be tolerated amid global indifference.

Yet law alone is not enough. As long as perpetrators go unpunished and victims remain unheard, justice will be nothing more than an empty promise.

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