Background The Rome Statute, adopted in 1998 by 120 countries, established the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC, which came into being in July 2002, is "a permanent institution and shall have the power to exercise its jurisdiction over persons for the most serious crimes of international concern," which include "genocide; crimes against humanity; war crimes; and the crime of aggression." These countries that ratified the Rome statute believed that global justice would benefit from and be greatly enhanced by the creation of an "international criminal justice regime empowered to prosecute individuals guilty of gross atrocities and human rights violations." The Rome gave the mandate for the ICC with the mission to investigate, prosecute and try individuals' accused of the crime of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes There are research findings that claim Africa was involved in and supported the creation of the ICC. For instance, one research article made a bold claim that African states contributed extensively to the preparations leading up to, during and after the diplomatic conference in Rome at which the Rome Statute of the ICC was finalized. After the statute was adopted on 03 February 1999, Senegal became the first State Party to ratify the Rome Statute. The ICC was not created specifically for the least developed and developing countries in Africa and Asia. From this reasoning it appears logical to claim that ICC was not an institution imposed on African Union (AU), rather is one that received support from, and has been shaped by, AU. After the ICC started its operations, which was asymmetrically focused on African continent, the views of AU officials and member states towards ICC changed. Since it came into existence in 2002, the ICC has dealt with nine "situations" involving international crimes, all from Africa but of these five have been referred to the Court by African states themselves: namely the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic (two situations) and Mali. The other cases include the Sudan and Kenya; the heads of state in office are amongst the invitees, in which case the AU asserts that trials against seating heads of states would put countries at risk of instability. Since the Security Council referred the situation in Darfur, Sudan, to the ICC in March 2005, the Prosecutor has issued various arrest warrants arising from his investigations. This thesis focuses on arrest warrant against incumbent Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Bashir. The Bashir warrant has proven to be highly controversial within legal and political circles in Africa. This is because if ICC prosecutes the head of states in Africa, to which the ICC has a legal mandate, it will however run contrary to AU goal of securing peace and security throughout the continent primarily through negotiations and agreements, this is through the political avenue than through the legal avenue. An immediate decision adopted by the AU