Credit: Sergey Bobylev/RIA Novosti/Anadolu via Getty Images
By Inés M. Pousadela
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Nov 27 2025 (IPS)
Three years ago, Captain Ibrahim Traoré seized power in Burkina Faso with two promises that have proved hollow: to address the country’s deepening security crisis and restore civilian rule. Now he has postponed elections until 2029, dissolved the independent electoral commission and pulled the country out of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Burkina Faso has become a military dictatorship.
The journey began in January 2022, when protests over the civilian government’s failure to address jihadist violence opened the door for Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba to seize power. Transitional authorities promised a return to democracy within two years, agreeing to a timeline with ECOWAS. But eight months later, Traoré led a second coup, accusing Damiba of failing to defeat insurgents.
When Traoré’s promised deadline of June 2024 approached, the military government convened a national dialogue that most political parties boycotted. The resulting charter extended Traoré’s presidency until 2029 and granted him permission to stand in the next election, transforming what was meant to be a transitional arrangement into consolidated personal power. The dismissal of Prime Minister Apollinaire Joachim Kyelem de Tambela and the dissolution of his government in December 2024 removed the pretence of civilian participation in governance.
As the military has entrenched its rule, civic freedoms have evaporated. The CIVICUS Monitor downgraded Burkina Faso’s civic space rating to ‘repressed’ in December 2024, reflecting the systematic silencing of dissent through arbitrary detention and a particularly sinister tactic: forced military conscription of critics. Four journalists abducted in June and July 2024 disappeared into the military, with authorities announcing they had been enlisted. In March 2025, three prominent journalists who spoke out against press freedom restrictions were forcibly disappeared for 10 days before reappearing in military uniforms, their professional independence erased at gunpoint.
Civil society activists have suffered similar fates. Five members of the Sens political movement were abducted after publishing a press release denouncing the killing of civilians. The organisation’s coordinator, human rights lawyer Guy Hervé Kam, has been repeatedly detained for criticising military authorities. In August 2024, seven judges and prosecutors investigating junta supporters were conscripted; six reported to a military base and have not been heard from since. This weaponisation of conscription transforms civic engagement into grounds for forced military service, effectively criminalising dissent while claiming to mobilise national defence.
Meanwhile the security situation that supposedly justified these coups has dramatically worsened. Deaths from militant Islamist violence have tripled under Traoré’s watch, with eight of the 10 deadliest attacks against the military occurring under his rule. Military forces now operate freely in as little as 30 per cent of the country. The military has committed mass atrocities: in the first half of 2024, military forces and allied militias killed at least 1,000 civilians. In one incident in February 2024, soldiers summarily executed at least 223 civilians, including 56 children, in apparent retaliation for an Islamist attack.
Conflict has displaced millions, with independent estimates placing the numbers of internally displaced people at between three and five million, far exceeding the government’s last official count of just over two million in March 2023. Some are fleeing across the border. Around 51,000 refugees arrived in Mali’s Koro Cercle district between April and September 2025, overwhelming host communities already struggling with fragile public services. Multiple concurrent epidemics, including hepatitis E, measles, polio and yellow fever, compound the humanitarian crisis in Burkina Faso.
To avoid accountability for these failures, the junta is withdrawing from international oversight. In January, following their joint exit from ECOWAS, which they characterised as being under foreign influence and failing to support their fight against terrorism, military-run Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger formed the Alliance of Sahel States. In September, the three juntas announced withdrawal from the ICC, mischaracterising the body that holds human rights abusers to account as a tool of neocolonial repression. These moves leave victims of extrajudicial killings, torture and war crimes with no realistic prospect of accountability.
The regime’s online propaganda machine has proved remarkably effective in justifying its intensifying repression. Traoré has cultivated an image as a young pan-African hero fighting western imperialism. To some young people across Africa and the diaspora, he represents the charismatic leadership needed to break with discredited politics and colonial relationships. This reputation is built on extensive disinformation that overstates progress, downplays human rights violations and portrays withdrawal from international institutions as bold resistance rather than an evasion of accountability.
The junta’s anti-imperialist rhetoric obscures a simple reality: it has replaced one troubling relationship with another. Having expelled French forces, Burkina Faso has turned to Russia for military support. Russian mercenaries now operate extensively alongside national forces, bringing no pressure to respect human rights while offering Vladimir Putin a shield from accountability for his war in Ukraine. The junta has recently granted a company linked to the Russian state a licence to mine gold.
Yet the democratic ideal survives. Civil society leaders continue to speak out, journalists continue to report and opposition figures continue to organise, despite the enormous personal risks. Their courage demands more than statements of concern.
In the face of the Trump administration’s sudden termination of USAID programmes, other international donors must step up and establish emergency funding mechanisms to support civil society organisations and independent media operating under severe restrictions in Burkina Faso or in exile. Regional institutions must impose targeted sanctions on officials responsible for human rights violations and maintain pressure for democratic restoration. Without sustained international solidarity with Burkina Faso’s democratic forces, the country risks becoming another cautionary tale of how military rule, once consolidated, proves extraordinarily difficult to reverse.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Head of Research and Analysis, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report. She is also a Professor of Comparative Politics at Universidad ORT Uruguay.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
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International Criminal Court. Credit: UN Photo/Rick Bajornas
By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 2025 (IPS)
The US sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC) have intensified the rigid isolation of judges and officials of the Court based in The Hague, Netherlands.
According to an interview with the French judge Nicolas Guillou, published in Le Monde, ICC judges are also being refused access to American websites and credit cards.
“The sanctions, imposed by the United States after the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli officials accused of war crimes in Gaza, have severely impacted the daily lives and professional operations of the sanctioned individuals”.
Judge Guillou has described his situation as being “economically banned across most of the planet,” forcing him into a lifestyle reminiscent of the pre-internet era.
Asked for a response, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters: “Sadly, he’s not the only person linked to the ICC who’s been placed under unilateral sanctions.”
As you know, the ICC is separate from the UN Secretariat. “That being said, we believe that the International Criminal Court is a very important element of the international justice system. It was set up by Member States. We don’t believe that its members should be targeted by unilateral sanctions, which as I think, as the article says and as we know, have a deep impact on people and their families.”
ICC Deputy Prosecutor Nazhat Shameem Khan, who addressed the Security Council on the Situation in Libya on November 25, also focused on life under US sanctions.
The progress towards justice in Libya, she pointed out, has been delivered despite what are also “unprecedented headwinds faced by the Court”.
“I must be clear that coercive measures and acts of intimidation against the ICC, civil society and other partners of justice do not serve anyone other than those who wish to benefit from impunity in Libya and in all situations that we address.”
It is the victims of murder, sexual violence, torture and the other most serious crimes addressed by our Court that stand to lose the most from these coercive actions.
“I firmly believe that is not a position that is welcomed by any member of this (Security) Council, and it is my sincere hope that we can rebuild a common ground between us for collective, effective action against atrocity crimes,” declared Khan.
Meanwhile, the International Bar Association (IBA) has condemned the imposition of additional sanctions against ICC judges and officials by the US administration as an attack against the global rule of law and the independence of judges, and calls on all ICC States Parties to take actions to protect the Court.
IBA President Jaime Carey is quoted as saying: ‘Judges and prosecutors must be able to carry out their work without fear of retribution. The IBA continues to stand for the independence of judges and lawyers, a fundamental principle of the rule of law.’
Dr. Alon Ben-Meir, a retired professor of international relations, most recently at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University (NYU), told IPS the US imposed sanctions on two ICC trial judges, Nicolas Guillou and Kimberly Prost, and against two Deputy Prosecutors, Nazhat Shameem Khan and Mame Mandiaye Niang.
They were accused of supporting “illegitimate ICC actions against Israel, including upholding the ICC’s arrest warrants targeting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Gallant, since they assumed leadership for the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor.” The sanctions ban the four from entering the US and block their US assets.
While the IBA has condemned the sanctions against ICC judges and officials as an attack on the global rule of law and judges’ independence and called on all ICC States Parties to take actions to protect the Court, several other measures can be taken to inhibit, if not stop, Trump from continuously using the power of his office to serve his ego and his misguided political agenda, he said.
First, other countries and international bodies can put collective diplomatic pressure on the US to reverse or reconsider these sanctions. This may involve negotiations or leveraging alliances to show that this kind of punitive action isn’t widely supported.
Second, the International Criminal Court itself, or other international legal bodies, might issue statements condemning the sanctions or seek support from other member states. Although the ICC doesn’t have direct enforcement power over US policies, it can still rally international opinion and try to create global pushback.
Third, on the US side, Congress could raise domestic legal and political challenges if there’s significant opposition within the US; those sanctions could be challenged or eventually reversed. With the court of public opinion on their side, sometimes, just the threat of political backlash can make the Trump administration reconsider.
Fourth, the IBA should urge other international legal organizations or human rights groups to create a broader coalition of support. By doing so, they can amplify pressure on the US government and show that the legal community worldwide stands firmly against such sanctions.
Fifth, the IBA can engage in direct advocacy with other governments to raise this issue at diplomatic forums such as the United Nations or other international gatherings. Essentially, it can continue to use its platform to advocate for broader coalitions of support, keep the issue in the spotlight, and secure direct support to overturn US policy and help generate international momentum.
In short, it’s usually a mix of international diplomatic pressure and domestic US political or legal checks that could be used to push back against this kind of measure. Obviously, none of these measures is easy to implement; nevertheless, they are the main avenues to consider.
“For the US to use the club of restrictive sanctions on a group of judges who are simply trying to honor humanity’s legal protections is a kind of vindictiveness akin to madness. This irrational action weakens global humanity’s legal protections. Everybody on earth has less safety and security if international law is flouted in such a way. The court is a vital component fostering international justice and peace”, said Jennings.
James E. Jennings, President, Conscience International, told IPS the Trump Administration in Washington is good at two things: chest thumping and distracting attention from the main issue at hand. The White House has now vindictively added fresh sanctions on judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC). And why? To defend Israeli impunity from charges of war crimes and worse in Gaza.
Federica D’Alessandra, Co-Chair of the International Bar Association’s Rule of Law Forum, said that “The measure has brought the tribunal’s day-to-day operations to a near standstill, raising existential concerns about its future.”
Trump, for years a practitioner of the use of fear for making his enemies back down, is trying to intimidate the judges by Mafia-like behavior. Although it won’t work in the long run because Trump will not be around forever, the strategy is working presently to delay, delay, delay justice.
Justice delayed, according to a well-known slogan, might very well be in this case justice denied. By slapping sanctions on the four ICC judges, Trump and his minions have thrown sand in the wheels of international accountability.
Even though the technique is contra bonos mores (opposed to decent morality) as long ago enacted in Roman Law, It might work in this case because it threatens to gum up the works of international order, he pointed out.
“International law is the only mechanism that can truly regulate the bloody tooth and claw of the natural order. Watch a few videos of apex predators at work in the jungle and you’ll understand what damage an unregulated dictatorship like Russia’s can do to civilian life and infrastructure in both Ukraine and Russia. Israel’s “mad dog” Likud military regime is even worse—because Russia at least has not attacked six nations,” declared Jennings.
Meanwhile, specific impacts, according to an AI Overview, include:
These measures effectively prohibit any American person, company, or their foreign subsidiaries from providing services to the sanctioned individuals without authorization from the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
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A message from the President of IPI: We are all heartbroken by the news we have lost a cherished member of our small IPI/IPA family in the form of Ambassador David Malone DPhil, who served as our President with great distinction from 1998 to 2004. We extend our condolences to David’s family, as well as to his diplomatic family in Canada.
Loved and respected by the UN Think-Tank community, David was ubiquitous throughout Turtle Bay when leading IPA, always in the thick of things, tugging at old approaches and suggesting new ways of analyzing multilateralism. He did so brilliantly and—true to his personality, often playfully. He was a most remarkable man and a friend to so many of us. We will miss him sorely.
The post In Memoriam: David M. Malone appeared first on International Peace Institute.
Local farmer ploughing a field in Indonesia. Credit: Unsplash
By Ana Carolina Avzaradel Szklo
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil, Nov 26 2025 (IPS)
The UN climate talks at COP30 once again brought the critical issue of climate finance to the forefront of global discussions.
However, while much of the debate revolved around traditional forms of aid directed at developing countries most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, a faster, more transformative approach lies in expanding access to carbon markets.
When emerging and developing economies (EMDEs) are equipped with the tools and knowledge needed to engage in these markets on their own terms, carbon finance can be generated and harnessed in ways that reflect their unique natural assets, governance, social contexts, and national priorities.
Achieving global climate and sustainable development goals depends on ensuring that those worst affected by climate change can fully participate in and benefit from this growing flow of finance.
EMDEs are on the frontlines of climate change — from rising sea levels threatening Pacific island nations to intensifying droughts and fires in the Amazon and Horn of Africa, and increasingly intense and frequent hurricanes in the Caribbean. These crises often hit hardest in regions that have contributed least to global emissions and in the most difficult position to react to them.
Yet, these same nations face a climate finance shortfall of $1.3 trillion per year. Carbon markets present an opportunity for these countries to bridge this gap by turning their natural advantages into climate finance assets.
Despite successful initiatives aimed at bolstering both high-integrity supply and demand for carbon credits, significant barriers to access persist, particularly for EMDEs. From fragmented policy landscapes to weak governance structures, limited institutional capacity, and low investor confidence, various obstacles prevent the vast potential of EMDEs to engage fully.
The Access Strategies Program — led by the Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative — is a direct response to these challenges. It helps governments design and implement their own pathways into high-integrity carbon markets, enabling them to build the policies, institutional capacity, and investor confidence needed to meet their climate finance needs and transform their potential into progress.
Each country’s natural capital — from Brazil’s vast rainforest and agricultural landscapes, to the Caribbean’s blue carbon ecosystems, or Kenya’s grasslands and renewable energy potential — represents a unique competitive advantage, ready to be realised.
Simultaneously, no two countries share the same development goals or governance contexts. In some, carbon markets can drive forest conservation and biodiversity protection; while in others, they deliver the most impact by strengthening rural livelihoods or financing clean energy transitions.
The Access Strategies model recognises this uniqueness, tailoring its support to help countries use carbon finance in ways that align with their own specific economic and environmental strategies and goals.
For example, the Partnership for Agricultural Carbon (PAC) — developed with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) — is building capacity across Latin American and Caribbean agriculture ministries to participate in high-integrity carbon markets. It provides training, policy guidance, and decision-making tools that help governments and farmers identify viable carbon projects aligning with national agricultural and sustainability goals.
The collaboration has given small and medium producers a clearer route to investment, while positioning agriculture as a central player in regional climate strategies. Another example of the Access Strategies work is the recently launched Amazon Best Practices Guide, which will help Amazon state governments design and implement carbon market frameworks made specifically for their unique ecological and governance realities.
Moreover, in countries such as Kenya, Peru, and Benin, the Program has provided tailored support to develop policy and regulatory frameworks, strengthen institutional capacity, and attract responsible investment for high-priority climate mitigation projects — all in line with country-led goals.
These examples show what’s possible when governments have the tools and expertise to engage in high-integrity carbon markets on their own terms. More countries should seize this opportunity to tap into the growing flow of finance from carbon markets.
While carbon markets are not a silver bullet, they are one of the few scalable and self-sustaining tools available when grounded in integrity and tailored to each country’s needs.
Programs like Access Strategies do more than transfer technical knowledge — they build the enabling conditions for locally led action, drawing on countries’ unique ecological, social, and institutional insights to shape solutions that work in practice.
The focus of global climate action should not only be on new funding pledges, but on ensuring funding that is already available is effectively redirected for EMDEs countries to harness their own natural capital and promote social inclusion, while meeting their climate goals and reshaping their development pathway.
Building this kind of capacity is how we turn global ambition into lasting, locally owned progress, and moreover how carbon finance can become a true instrument of sustainable development.
Ana Carolina Avzaradel Szklo, Technical Director, Markets and Standards, Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative (VCMI)
IPS UN Bureau
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UN Secretary-General António Guterres addresses the media at the G20 Summit in South Africa. Credit: UN Photo/Ropafadzo Chiradza
By Danny Bradlow
PRETORIA, South Africa, Nov 26 2025 (IPS)
US president Donald Trump’s efforts to derail a successful wrap-up of the G20 summit in Johannesburg failed. Trump boycotted the meeting and the US told other countries through diplomatic channels not to sign a communiqué. Nevertheless, the 19 remaining countries and regional organisations signed a 30-page declaration.
This called for, among other things, increased funding for renewable energy projects, more equitable critical mineral supply chains and debt relief for poorer countries. Senior research fellow Danny Bradlow explains what was, and wasn’t, achieved.
In what ways was South Africa’s G20 presidency a success?
The G20 has been a great diplomatic success for South Africa in at least three ways.
First, it succeeded in leading all the other G20 countries and organisations to adopt by consensus a leaders’ declaration despite a boycott and bullying tactics by Washington.
The 120 paragraph Leaders’ Declaration covered all the issues embodied in the “Solidarity, Equality and Sustainability” theme that South Africa chose for the G20. They included:
2017 during Germany’s G20 presidency
Second, South Africa succeeded in launching a number of initiatives over the course of the year.
Firstly, the G20 acknowledged South Africa’s five years of support for the establishment of an African Engagement Framework within the G20’s finance track. It is intended to support enhanced cooperation between Africa and the G20.
Secondly, leaders expressed support, in various ways, for the G20 working group initiatives on illicit financial flows, infrastructure, air quality, artificial intelligence, sustainable development and public health. The ministerial declaration on debt was also supported. This includes reforms around initiatives supporting low and middle income countries facing debt challenges.
Thirdly, the Ubuntu Legacy Initiative was launched. This is designed to fund cross-border infrastructure in Africa. It was also agreed that an Ubuntu Commission will be set up to encourage research and dialogue on dealing cooperatively with global challenges. Ubuntu can be explained with reference to the isiZulu saying ‘umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu’ which means ‘a person is a person through other people.’ It entails an ethics of care, compassion and cooperation.
Lastly, South Africa succeeded in delivering an effective, efficient and constructive G20 year. This is no small feat. It required the country to organise more than 130 meetings of G20 working groups, task forces and ministerial meetings, in addition to the leaders’ summit.
Is this only a good news story?
It is inevitable that any complex, multifaceted and voluntary process involving participants with strong and contrasting views will not be an unqualified success.
This, without doubt, is the case with South Africa’s G20 year. The environment was complicated by a number of factors:
These factors meant that getting the diverse membership of the G20 to reach agreement on a broad range of complex issues would be extremely difficult. In fact, it would only be possible to do so at a high level of abstraction.
Unfortunately, this proved to be the case. The result is that the G20 Leaders’ Declaration largely boils down to a set of general statements that are almost totally devoid of commitments for which states can be held accountable. Such general statements are not uncommon in the diplomatic statements issued at the end of high-level multilateral meetings. However, this is an extreme example.
The leaders expressed their support for a number of voluntary principles on issues such as disaster relief, artificial intelligence, critical minerals and debt. They also expressed support for the work of organisations like the multilateral development banks and the International Monetary Fund, and for some specific South African led initiatives like the review of the G20 itself.
However, there are no time frames or deliverables attached to these expressions of support.
What needs to be done to make the declaration effective?
The G20 is a voluntary association with no binding authority. The declaration’s efficacy therefore ultimately depends on all the G20’s stakeholders both taking – and advocating – for action on the issues raised in it.
These stakeholders include states and non-state actors like international organisations, businesses and civil society organisations.
The value of the declaration is how both the state and non-state actors use it to advocate for action. That can be in future G20 meetings as well as other regional and international forums.
How can the declaration be used to lead to action?
One of the biggest challenges facing African countries is debt. Over 20 are either in debt distress or at high risk of debt distress. Many African countries are being forced to choose between servicing their debts and investing in the development and climate resilience of their own populations.
The challenge that this creates for African states is exacerbated by their limited access to affordable, predictable and sustainable sources of development finance.
This means that African countries are unlikely to gain a sustainable path to reaching their development and climate goals without substantial action on debt and development finance. The Leaders’ Declaration, in paragraphs 14-22, clearly recognises the challenge. Key elements include:
Global Sovereign Debt Roundtable
But these will be just empty words unless the endorsements are turned into action.
There are three actions that stakeholders can take.
First, African leaders can form a regional borrowers’ forum to discuss the debt issue and share information on their experiences dealing with creditors and on developing common African positions on development finance and debt. This would build on the work done by:
They can also use this forum to engage in open discussions with African non-state actors.
Second, African non-state actors can develop strategies for holding the leaders accountable if they fail to follow up on the declaration. And they can hold creditors accountable for their actions in their negotiations with African debtors in distress.
Third, African non-state actors should initiate a review of how the IMF needs to reform its operational policies and practices. Africa has eloquently advocated for greater African voice and vote in IMF governance. The next step should be to explore how the substantial changes that have taken place in the scope of IMF operations can be translated into operational practices. These include the macroeconomic impacts of climate, gender and inequality.
Daniel D. Bradlow is Professor/Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria
IPS UN Bureau
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