Former president Rodrigo Duterte was arrested on March 11 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) upon his return to Manila from Hong Kong on charges of crimes against humanity.
Photo: Presidential Communications Office/Website
The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) confirmed that the Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) Manila received the arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC).
In the early morning of March 13 (Manila time), he arrived at the ICC Detention Center in Scheveningen, The Hague, Netherlands. He was officially turned over by accompanying Filipino authorities to the officials of the Judicial Cooperation Unit of the Office of Registry of the ICC.
In the coming days, the 79-year-old former president will appear before a judge, where the allegations against him will be formally presented in court. He has been under investigation by the ICC for crimes against humanity in connection with his administration’s war on drugs, which saw thousands of reported extrajudicial killings (EJKs).
What is the International Criminal Court (ICC)?
The ICC is the first and only permanent international criminal court with jurisdiction that investigates and prosecutes individuals who are charged with “the gravest crimes of concern to the international community: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of aggression.”
According to their website, the Court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, grants the ICC jurisdiction over these four principal crimes.
The various forms of crimes against humanity listed in the Rome Statute include murder, rape, imprisonment, enforced disappearances, enslavement—particularly of women and children—sexual slavery, torture, apartheid, and deportation.
Is the Philippines a part of the ICC?
In 2011, the ICC officially welcomed the Philippines as a new State Party to the Rome Statute, making the country the 117th member of the independent body and the second country within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
In March 2018, Duterte announced an immediate withdrawal of the country from the ICC. He denounced it as “baseless, unprecedented, and outrageous.”
However, the withdrawal was announced a month after the ICC opened the Preliminary Examination, which would investigate the allegations that the former president committed crimes against humanity in his war on drugs.
According to an article published by The Guardian, the infamous war on drugs has claimed the lives of 30,000 people, mostly urban poor individuals who were gunned down on the streets since the Duterte administration began in 2016.
The former president’s withdrawal from the ICC took full effect in 2019. With this move, the Philippines became the second country to leave the ICC, following Burundi’s withdrawal in 2017.
Does the ICC arrest apply to former President Rodrigo Duterte?
Despite former President Rodrigo Duterte’s withdrawal from the ICC, why does the ICC arrest remain valid?
According to the Coalition for the ICC, when a country leaves the Rome Statute, it will take one year for it to take full effect. However, the ICC can still investigate crimes that happened before the country officially left.
For crimes committed after March 17, 2019, the ICC no longer has jurisdiction over them.
The Supreme Court of the Philippines has stated that a country withdrawing from the Rome Statute must still comply with its obligations. Even after submitting its withdrawal, it is not exempt from any criminal proceedings. Any process that was already initiated before the ICC requires the state to cooperate.
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