A three-member International Criminal Court (ICC) panel authorized the ICC prosecutor’s office to continue its crimes against humanity investigation in Venezuela on Tuesday over Venezuela’s objections.

Judges Péter Kovács, Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou, and María del Socorro Flores Lier held that the domestic Venezuelan investigation into the crimes does not have a sufficiently wide scope, stating that “Venezuela is not investigating or has not investigated criminal acts which may constitute crimes referred to in article 5 of the Statute that sufficiently mirror the scope of the Prosecution’s intended investigation.”

In their decision, the judges cited issues such as failure to investigate the actual elements constituting crimes against humanity and insufficient investigation of crimes of a sexual nature. 

This decision comes after Venezuela asked ICC prosecutors to defer their investigation in favor of its own, pursuant to Article 18(2) of the Rome Statute, which states that:

Within one month of receipt of that notification, a State may inform the Court that it is investigating or has investigated its nationals or others within its jurisdiction with respect to criminal acts which may constitute crimes referred to in article 5 and which relate to the information provided in the notification to States. At the request of that State, the Prosecutor shall defer to the State’s investigation of those persons unless the Pre-Trial Chamber, on the application of the Prosecutor, decides to authorize the investigation.

ICC prosecutors previously entered into a Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) with the Venezuelan government on November 5, 2021, where both agreed to cooperate in addressing crimes against humanity.

Several nations and human rights organizations have alleged that Venezuela has been the site of several serious crimes against humanity, with reports of unlawful and extrajudicial killings, child labor and serious restrictions on basic human rights. According to Amnesty International, Venezuela has been the site of “one of the worst human rights [crises] in its history” under the government of President Nicolas Maduro, which Amnesty says consistently uses lethal force against its citizens and has caused at least 2.3 million people to leave Venezuela between 2014 and 2018.

Dissidents say that the government has effectively branded them enemies of the state, and in 2017, Venezuela’s deposed chief prosecutor accused the government of using violence and torture against its critics.