MANILA – The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague has thrown out the challenge of ex-Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte’s claim that it had no jurisdiction to try him for thousands of deaths under his brutal drug war.
The court’s Pre-Trial Chamber I has in effect rejected a claim by Duterte’s camp that he was “kidnapped” by the police and flown overseas at the behest of his successor, President Ferdinand Marcos.
The Marcos and Duterte families are two of the most powerful political clans here. The Duterte family was instrumental in backing Marcos to win the presidential elections in 2022, with Duterte’s popular daughter, Sara Duterte, stepping aside to take the vice presidency.
The alliance has since crumbled, with Sara Duterte impeached by Congress in February for corruption, violating the constitution and allegedly plotting to assassinate Marcos and his wife.
In a decision issued on Thursday (October 23), but released only a day later, the ICC’s Pre-Trial Chamber 1 ruled that it has jurisdiction over the crimes for which Duterte is under arrest, even as the Philippines, under his presidency, withdrew from a statute that created the ICC.
The ruling, in part, said that “the Chamber finds that the court can exercise its jurisdiction in the present case over the crimes alleged against Mr. Duterte that were committed on the territory of the Philippines while it was a State Party.”
In 2019, Duterte withdrew the Philippines from the Rome Statute, the international treaty that created the ICC, in the hope that his government would no longer be scrutinized for the killings under his failed war on drugs. He has also repeatedly ridiculed the ICC prosecutors, and at one time appeared in Congress taunting the court to immediately arrest him.
The ICC has said that it still has jurisdiction for crimes allegedly committed before the Philippines withdrew from the statute, which took effect in 2019. Rights advocates and families of those who died say they took the case to the ICC because they believed they will not get justice here, an argument that the court appears to have upheld when it issued a warrant for Duterte’s arrest.
In its ruling, the ICC noted that Duterte’s withdrawal from the statute was “designed to prevent” compliance. It noted that Duterte’s government, in its notice of withdrawal, said that it was insisting on its “principled stand against those who politicize and weaponize human rights” even while government institutions continued to function.
The judges noted that there was no time limit on the ICC’s ability to exercise jurisdiction over crimes committed when a country was a party to the statute. It stressed that the Rome Statute has provisions that gives it the ability to exercise jurisdiction if a country planned to withdraw from it.
They noted that the court “appropriately balances the right of a state to withdraw from the statute and the risk of a state using its rights to withdraw to shield persons from the jurisdiction of the court.”
House of Representatives member Leila de Lima, a former rights commissioner and a senator who was jailed at Duterte’s behest for criticizing the drug war, hailed the ICC chamber’s decision on Friday. She said it was “most welcome as it is just.”
“We are closer to justice and accountability with this decision of the PTC (pre-trial chamber),” de Lima said in a statement, stressing that Duterte would likely appeal the ruling “but it is already a lost cause for him.”
De Lima noted that the ICC had also earlier rejected Duterte’s plea for interim release, and could also throw out his lawyer’s claims of mental incapacity.
“The sooner the trial, the better for all concerned, including Duterte himself who will be able to finally present his defense as he himself repeatedly said he will squarely face the accusations against him,” she said.
Neri Colmenares, one of the Filipino lawyers representing the drug war victims, said the ruling on jurisdiction “practically destroyed” the defense’s claims that the ex-president was abducted to face trial in the Hague.
The next step, he said, was for the warrants of arrest to be issued for Duterte’s co-perpetrators as well as the confirmation of charges hearing against the former leader.”We ask President Duterte to stop employing delaying tactics and instead allow the confirmation of charges and trial to push through,’ Colmenares told Asia Times.
“The families of the victims have long yearned for the justice which they were deprived of by President Duterte,” he said. “It is about time that the victims are allowed to submit their evidence and the stories of how their loved ones were mercilessly and brutally killed in the war on drugs.”
Jason Gutierrez was head of Philippine news at BenarNews, an online news service affiliated with Radio Free Asia (RFA), a Washington-based news organization that covered many under-reported countries in the region. A veteran foreign correspondent, he has also worked with The New York Times and Agence France-Presse (AFP).
