The calls go up for the Philippines to join the International Criminal Court (ICC), following the arrest and extradition of former president Rodrigo Duterte earlier this week.
The 79-year-old former president was arrested on Tuesday by the Philippine Police in Manila and has been in a hurry to the Hague, the Netherlands, where he was transferred yesterday to the CPI Guard. Philippine police acted on an arrest warrant issued by the court on March 7, as part of the violent “war against drugs” that Duterte waged in his six years as president. The campaign involved thousands of extrajudicial murders, which, according to the CPI, constitute possible crimes against humanity.
The will of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to act on the CPI arrest warrant aroused praise in the Philippines and around the world, marking a blow for international justice at a time when the ICC is attacked by powerful governments, including the United States.
He also caused a appellate choir, Philippin legislators and human rights groups, for the Philippines to join the status of Rome which created the ICC. Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2018, following criticism from legal leaders concerning his drug war massacres. The withdrawal entered into force in March 2019. The ICC officially opened an investigation into the anti-narcotic campaign in 2021.
Yesterday, in a statement, the United States Defense Group Human Rights Watch applauded Duterte’s arrest, describing it as a “long-awaited victory against impunity that could bring the victims and their families closer to justice”. He also said that Marcos should “join the ICC, a step that a growing number of Philippins supports”.
The Amnesty International Rights group also called the Marcos administration “to join Rome’s status and to cooperate fully with the ICC investigation, including if other arrest terms are issued against other and current officials of the Philippine Government.”
These calls were also prohibited by the members of the Philippine Congress, who cited reputation damage that had followed the withdrawal of the CPI Philippines, and the Court’s ability to help the Philippines hold the leaders responsible for the worst crimes.
“We have unilaterally left the ICC. I think it is time to return to the ICC and show the world that this country respects national and international laws, “said Legislative Geraldine Roman, an ally of the Marcos administration yesterday, according to a report to bring. The head of the deputy majority of the Raul Angelo Chamber “Jil” Bongalon concluded, declaring that the court would help protect the people from serious crimes.
“For me, it is our duty to protect our people,” he said. “One way to do so is to join Rome’s status.”
Indeed, there are undoubtedly few reasons why Marcos not to re-sign the status of Rome and to join the ICC, given that he has already crossed the measure of honoring a mandate of arrest of the ICC and to hand over a Philippin citizen to the Court. Such an expression of support for international law would also be a question of enlightened personal interest, given the dependence of the Philippines to international law (the United Nations Convention on the Law) to challenge the extensive claims of China in the Southern China Sea.
That he joins the ICC will be a test for the distance from Marcos support for international criminal justice and inner responsibility, actually extends. When he came to power in 2022, Marcos initially declared that he had “no intention” to join the ICC and clearly indicated that he would not cooperate the court investigation into the “war against drugs”. In September 2022, the Marcos administration officially asked the ICC to end the investigation, claiming that the court “did not have jurisdiction over the situation in the Philippines”.
At the time, of course, Duterte was part of her ally – part of a “Unitam” which stormed the presidential election in 2022 and passed Sara Duterte to the vice -president. Since then, Duterte has quickly transmuted in a rival and then a threat, cooperation with the political expedient of the ICC. By putting Duterte to the ICC, Marcos simultaneously took a perhaps decisive blow in his rancing political quarrel with the Duterte family and obtained international applause.
None of this is much important for the victims of the drug war, who ultimately saw what once seemed elusive: Duterte in the quay. But if Marcos has a real commitment to the principles of responsibility that animate the ICC, the least he can make the ICC.