A person leaves the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands on Jan. 16, 2019.
The decision, which prosecutor Fatou Bensouda may appeal, angered human-rights groups and means the Taliban, the Afghan government and the United States will not face any investigation at the International Criminal Court for their alleged crimes, which dated mostly from 2003-04.
U.S. President Donald Trump called the decision “a major international victory” and denounced the international court for its “broad, unaccountable, prosecutorial powers,” as well as for what he considers its threat to U.S. sovereignty.
“Any attempt to target American, Israeli or allied personnel for prosecution will be met with a swift and vigorous response,” Mr. Trump said.
White House National Security Adviser John Bolton, a sharp critic of the ICC, called the ruling a “vindication” of the United States’ tough policy against the court he has engineered and a “stinging defeat” for the prosecutors.
He told reporters that even the cases of ousted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom Washington wants to step down, should fall under the jurisdiction of their home countries and not the ICC.
“Fundamentally, political maturation and responsibility requires that people be held responsible by their own societies,” Mr. Bolton said.
In an unusual ruling, the ICC judges said Ms. Bensouda’s case seemed to have met the court’s criteria for jurisdiction and admissibility, but given an array of practical considerations that made chances of success remote, it did not make sense to pursue it further.
They cited a failure to gather evidence at an early stage, a lack of co-operation from governments involved and the likely costs as prohibitive.
Ms. Bensouda said her office would “consider all available legal remedies” against the decision.
“If these are the criteria, they are never going to open an investigation,” he said.
In 2006, Ms. Bensouda’s predecessor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, opened an examination into alleged war crimes by all parties in the conflict in Afghanistan, including the possible role of U.S. personnel in relation to the detention of suspects.
Ms. Bensouda took over the dossier in 2010, but did not request a formal investigation until November, 2017.
The United States revoked Ms. Bensouda’s entry visa earlier this month, after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in March that Washington would withdraw or deny visas to any ICC staff investigating possible war crimes by U.S. forces or allies in Afghanistan.
“We, the Afghan people, have suffered so much and the court was a last hope for all of us in a country which is completely lacking justice,” said Hadi Marifat, of the human-rights group AHRDO.
There have been repeated negotiations in recent months between the Taliban and U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to try to broker a deal to end the Afghan conflict. So far, the Taliban has refused to meet directly with the Afghan government, which it dismisses as a U.S. puppet regime.