ICC overreach equals injustice

ICC overreach equals injustice | Daily Tribune

The arguments raised were grounded in black-letter law, basic humanity and hard political reality.

First, the humanitarian imperative: Duterte is 81 years old and suffers from serious medical conditions. He had endured more than 13 months of pre-trial detention without a single day in court. That is not justice; it is punishment by process.

The letter cited the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Nelson Mandela Rules, all of which the ICC claims to uphold.

The prolonged detention of an elderly man without trial violates every one of them. Humanitarian decency alone requires his release.

It also underscored that the principle of complementarity, as set out in Article 17 of the Rome Statute, is not optional.

The ICC exists as a court of last resort, not a first resort, and the Philippines maintains a functioning three-tiered judiciary fully capable of trying its own cases.

There is no “total collapse” of the national system. There is no evidence of shielding, unjustified delay engineered by the state, or lack of impartiality that would justify ICC intervention.

The letter stated the obvious: if the domestic courts are willing and able, the case is inadmissible before the ICC.

Selective enforcement exposes the tribunal’s credibility problem. The letter noted the ICC’s conspicuous failure to deliver results against sitting leaders in powerful states such as Russia or Israel, while it moves aggressively against a retired Philippine president now out of office.

When the powerful escape scrutiny and the politically vulnerable do not, the label “victor’s justice” or “political hit job” becomes hard to dismiss.

Targeting Duterte while the Marcos administration is in power looks less like impartial justice and more like choosing the softer target.

The political subtext is imprinted, with Duterte retaining overwhelming popular support. His daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, faces her own impeachment proceeding, widely viewed as an attempt to block her 2028 presidential bid.