Drug war victims may avail of legal remedies to hold former President Rodrigo Duterte accountable for alleged crimes against humanity in case the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber rules in his favor and dismisses his case for “lack of jurisdiction.”
ICC-accredited lawyer Gilbert Andres, who is also a counsel in the Office of Public Counsel for Victims (OPCV), said one possible recourse is to invoke “universal jurisdiction,” which allows national courts to prosecute individuals for serious crimes against international law regardless of where the crimes were committed.
“The ICC issue on jurisdiction only pertains to the ICC. But let’s say that [if] the ICC will rule that it has no jurisdiction, there are still remedies for the victims, and this is the universal jurisdiction,” Andres said partly in Filipino in a television interview.
“There are other countries in the world where they reiterate universal jurisdiction over crimes against humanity wherever they occur. So that can be a remedy,” he noted.
The ICC Appeals Chamber is set to rule with finality on 22 April whether the ICC has jurisdiction to prosecute the 81-year-old ex-president for crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder tied to his notorious bloody war on drugs.
The defense has repeatedly contested the ICC’s jurisdiction, citing the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the tribunal’s founding treaty, in March 2019.
Despite this, Andres believes there is “sufficient basis” for the ICC to assert its authority over Duterte’s case even as the country’s membership was no longer in effect at the time of his arrest on 11 March 2025 in Manila.
It will be recalled that in 2018, Duterte ordered the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute, after ICC prosecutors launched a preliminary probe into his bloody drug war that had drawn global condemnation.
The withdrawal only became official one year later under the ICC’s rules. A one-year window is required to prevent a state party from immediately departing the treaty once it learns that it is under investigation for possible grave crimes.
“That’s why we believe the safeguards against the adverse effects of withdrawal are strong, and that it will not simply remove the jurisdiction of the ICC,” Andres asserted.
Unprecedented
The ICC’s ruling on whether it still has jurisdiction over a state that has withdrawn from the treaty would be the first of its kind, according to Andres.
He emphasized the “peculiar fact” in this case of the person responsible for the withdrawal of a state is the same person facing grave charges before the tribunal.
Duterte plans to skip the public reading of the Appeals Chamber’s jurisdiction decision next week. This marks the third time he has asked permission from the ICC to skip relevant hearings of his case in light of claims by his lawyers of his debilitating cognitive impairment and unexplained weight loss.