Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur for Afghanistan, said the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for two senior Taliban leaders send a strong signal to governments considering normalizing relations with the Taliban.
Bennett welcomed the ICC’s decision to charge Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the chief justice of the Taliban, with crimes against humanity.
In a post on X, he called the move “a huge step forward for justice, especially for women and girls.”
“It sends an important message that impunity won’t last,” Bennett wrote. “Also a clear message to States: do not normalize a regime which denies the fundamental rights and dignity of half of Afghanistan’s population.”
The ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber II announced on Tuesday that it had issued arrest warrants for Akhundzada and Haqqani, citing “reasonable grounds to believe” that the two have committed crimes against humanity, including gender-based persecution, imprisonment, torture, and enforced disappearance. The alleged crimes occurred between August 15, 2021 — the date of the Taliban’s return to power — and January 20, 2025.
This marks the first time that Taliban leaders have been formally targeted by an international court.
According to the court, the Taliban leadership enforced systemic policies depriving women, girls, and other vulnerable groups of their basic rights and freedoms, amounting to widespread and institutionalized oppression. These measures include bans on education and employment for women, restrictions on freedom of movement and expression, and suppression of dissent.
In response, Taliban rejected the charges and the legitimacy of the ICC, saying they do not recognize the court’s authority. “Such rulings are baseless and carry no weight,” the Taliban said in a statement issued Wednesday, dismissing the warrants as politically motivated.
The warrants come amid growing international scrutiny of the Taliban’s treatment of women and concerns over efforts by some countries to reengage diplomatically with the regime despite its human rights record.
