Algiers, Sept. 19, 2025 — Algeria has strongly rejected Mali’s move to bring a case against it before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), dismissing the action as a “shameless maneuver” aimed at finding a scapegoat for Mali’s internal crises.
In a statement issued Friday, Algeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Mali officially lodged an application at the ICJ on September 16, following contradictory declarations earlier in the month.
“Mali announced on September 4 that it had filed a case against Algeria,” the ministry said. “Yet on September 13, during a press conference, Algeria’s Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, National Community Abroad and African Affairs denied this allegation. Confronted with its own false statement, Mali was compelled to file its request on September 16, as confirmed today by the ICJ.”
Algeria described Mali’s démarche as paradoxical, pointing to “the ruling junta’s” lack of legitimacy at home. “It is striking to see the Malian junta, which trampled legality and constitutional order in its own country, now pretending to uphold the very law it scorns internally, while falsely claiming to respect it on the international stage,” the ministry said.
The statement went further, saying Mali’s authorities had plunged their country into “political, economic, and security disaster” and were “the instigators of a moral bankruptcy.” Algeria maintained that the junta’s ICJ filing was nothing more than an attempt to “instrumentalize this august judicial body of the United Nations” in a “desperate effort to find a scapegoat” for the crisis facing Mali.
Calling the move “too crude to be credible,” Algeria vowed not to be complicit. “Algeria holds international law in the highest regard and has the deepest respect for the International Court of Justice,” the ministry said. “We have the duty not to allow them to become the object of a diversion that is both obvious and futile.”
Algiers confirmed it will formally notify the ICJ of its refusal to engage in this “manipulative procedure.”
