South Africa rules out virtual format of upcoming Brics summit

South Africa rules out virtual format of upcoming Brics summit

Pretoria, July 9 (Prensa Latina) South African President Cyril Ramaphosa today assured that the Brics Group Summit scheduled for August in Johannesburg will be held in person.

We will hold a physical Brics summit, “it will not be virtual”. “We are all committed to having a meeting where we can look each other in the eye,” said the South African President.

Preparations for the summit of the Presidents of the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are ongoing and we are finalizing our discussions on the appropriate format, he added.

In his comment, the President failed to mention the foreseeable presence of Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who has an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which Moscow says is spurious, unfounded and politically motivated.

As a signatory to the Rome Statute, South Africa is obliged to comply with the mandates given by the ICC.

In this context, the South African government announced at the end of April that it was considering a legislative amendment that would amend the Rome Statute, in particular the provisions of Article 98, which provides for a waiver of immunities for third-country indictees by the ICC. where there is no UN Security Council referral.

To this end, as I said, South Africa will use the way in which the UK has adapted the Statute to incorporate the provisions of Article 98 as a lead example.

The upcoming 15th Brics Summit will be held August 22-24 at the Sandton Convention Center in Johannesburg.

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