ICC affirms jurisdiction over Rody case

The International Criminal Court has cleared a key hurdle in the ongoing proceedings against detained former president Rodrigo Duterte, with the Pre-Trial Chamber I saying the ICC retains jurisdiction over the crimes against humanity case.

- By JANVIC MATEO

In a 32-page decision released on Thursday, the Chamber unanimously decided that the international tribunal has jurisdiction over the alleged crimes committed in the Philippines from Nov. 1, 2011 to March 17, 2019.

It rejected the challenge to jurisdiction filed by Duterte’s lawyers, who claimed that the “preconditions for the exercise of jurisdiction” were not met when the chamber authorized the opening of the investigation in 2021.

At the time, the Philippines had already withdrawn from the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.

"The Republic of the Philippines was no longer a State Party to the Rome Statute at that critical point in time," the defense said in its challenge to jurisdiction filed in May.

But in their decision, Judges Iulia Antoanella Motoc, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini-Gansou and Maria del Socorro Flores Liera ruled that the case was already "under consideration" by the ICC prosecutor even before the country's withdrawal took effect in 2019.

In February 2018, then ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that her office would initiate a preliminary examination into the situation in the Philippines, particularly on killings related to the Duterte administration's war against illegal drugs.

This prompted then president Duterte to announce the country's withdrawal from the ICC, which took effect a year later.