In addition to its inability to act on all territories, the ICC could come up against the slowness of its procedures in the case of Vladimir Putin. They are indeed very long: between 2012 and 2021, the Court handed down only five convictions, all for acts committed in Africa. In particular those of former Congolese warlords Thomas Lubanga, Germain Katanga and Bosco Ntaganda, the latter having been sentenced to the heaviest sentence (30 years in prison).
A series of acquittals or setbacks has also weakened the ICC. Since 2014, prosecutions for crimes against humanity against Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta have been hampered by the vulnerability of witnesses, many of whom recanted, and were dropped for lack of evidence. Another resounding acquittal was that of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo. The son of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, is also still beyond his reach.