The International Criminal Court prosecutor’s demand for the arrest of the Sudan’s sitting president on July 14, 2008 had necessitated a serious debate on the absoluteness of state sovereignty in the international system; immunity of the head of state; and powers of International Court of Justice. The president of Sudan’s indictment set alarm bells ringing in many developing states, because it would lay down a precedent that could be exploited against numerous sitting heads of states, especially in Islamic and the Arab world.
The Sudanese President, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir was blamed for masterminding and implementing a plan to destroy the three main ethnic groups in Darfur region of western Sudan — the Fur, Masalit and Zaghawa. On July 14, 2008, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, formally requested an arrest warrant for the Sudanese president on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. At a news conference at the court in The Hague, the prosecutor accused the president of using government soldiers and Arab militia — Janjaweed — to kill 35,000 people and turning 2.5 million Darfuris homeless. They have been living in miserable conditions in the relief camps since the past five years.
In support of his case the International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis filed ten charges of war crimes against President Al-Bashir, three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder. Earlier United States Secretary of State Colin Powell on September 9, 2004 in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee referred to the Darfur conflict as genocide. The United Nations, however, did not recognise it as genocide. According to the United Nations report released on January 31, 2005, “genocidal intent appears to be missing.”
The Darfur’s geo-economic situation makes it very attractive. It is strategically located and rich in mineral resources. The present deplorable situation in Darfur is due to many interwoven causes, i.e. the ethnic and tribal clashes, which resulted in African ethnic minority violent rebellion against the Arab-dominated Khartoum regime; the decades’ drought and desertification also contributed in the conflict, because the Baggara nomads searching for water, have to take their livestock further south, to land mainly occupied by coloured African farming communities; and the external actors’ interest in the regions precious minerals, such as uranium, etc.
The conflict in Darfur region attracted the Western nations’ attention. The Western human rights organisations and activists’ in connivance with their governments have been alleging President Al-Bashir. They have been demanding his trial in the International Criminal Court at The Hague. Ironically, these forces deliberately ignore the indisputable Muslims genocide in Indian held Kashmir and Palestine. This discriminatory attitude generates skepticism about the accusation against Khartoum regime. Why are they furious with Khartoum and silent over the heinous acts of Tel Aviv and New Delhi? The discriminating approaches only intensify disharmony in global politics and deepened mistrust over the international institutions operability.
The government of Sudan immediately rejected the accusations and announced that it would fight the charges through legal means. Rabie Atti, a spokesperson for the ruling National Congress Party, while denouncing the charges claimed “Everybody in Sudan—the government, the people, even the opposition parties—is against this.” President Bashir stated: “From the beginning we said we are not a member of the court ... the court has no jurisdiction over Sudan. Whoever has visited Darfur ... will know that all of these things are lies.” Many Arab and African nations expressed their displeasure on the campaign against the sitting President of Sudan.
Excellency Ali Usman, ambassador of Sudan in Pakistan, in his presentation at the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad on July 24, 2008 very rightly drew the attention of the audience towards the immunity of the head of the state or head of the government. Though it sounds very Machiavellian; yet it is a functional phenomenon in the modern system of governance. The writ of the state is a prerequisite to transform polity from anarchical society into an organised system of governance. The government’s inability to preserve the rule of law entails political instability and economic degradation.
Importantly, we are living in a Westphalian state model, according to which the government is supposed to establish its writ within the state. This responsibility confers on government legitimate monopoly over the means of coercion in the territory under its control. Through which the government maintains rule of law and generate an environment in which unequal are treated equally; distinct from the state of nature, in which justice prevails between/among equals— and might is right. Precisely, in national societies, the use of force is generally portrayed as a matter falling entirely within the remit of the country’s legal system. The legal system, in the final analysis, is itself seen as a coercive order in which, an individual’s obligation to obey the law derives in large part from the fact that the state can compel him to obey. 
The ruling elite in Islamabad should be very careful and watchful about the shift in the global politics and the Western-funded humanitarian organisations behaviour towards the Muslim states’ political system and ruling elites. There is a possibility that with the changing trends in the international politics, the human rights activists could approach the International Court of Justice for the sake of our leadership trial using military operations in Fata and in downtown of Islamabad in July 2007 as a pretext. Admittedly, the threat of such prosecution remains hypothetical in the prevalent international environment. True, it is not as imminent and maybe a mere pessimistic or illogical assertion. Notwithstanding, Islamabad should remain vigilant about such developments in the global politics. Hence, it is pertinent that the government of Pakistan should support the norms of state sovereignty and oppose all such attempts, which undermine state sovereignty under the pretext of humanitarian intervention.
To conclude, the traditional legal rule of state sovereignty and its corollary—the nonintervention norm prohibits external interference in the internal affairs of states. The advocacy and respect of this norm is a prerequisite for the independent survival of small states in the global politics. Therefore, international community ought to maintain and promote rules in the global politics, which are reasonable, effective and widely acceptable.