Calls are mounting for the Philippines to rejoin 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 detained by Philippine police in Manila on Tuesday and hastily flown to The Hague, Netherlands, where he was transferred to the ICC’s custody yesterday. Philippine police acted on an arrest warrant issued by the court on March 7, in connection with the violent “war on drugs” that Duterte waged during his six years as president. The campaign involved thousands of extrajudicial murders, which the ICC claims amount to possible crimes against humanity.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s willingness to act on the ICC arrest warrant has prompted praise in the Philippines and around the world, marking a blow for international justice at a time when the ICC is under assault by powerful governments including the United States.
It has also prompted a chorus of calls, from both Philippine lawmakers and human rights groups, for the Philippines to rejoin the Rome Statute that created the ICC. Duterte withdrew the Philippines in 2018, following court officials’ criticisms of his drug war killings. The withdrawal took effect in March 2019. The ICC formally opened an investigation into the anti-narcotics campaign in 2021.
In a statement yesterday, the U.S.-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch applauded Duterte’s arrest, describing it as a “long-overdue victory against impunity that could bring victims and their families a step closer to justice.” It also said that Marcos should “rejoin the ICC, a step that an increasing number of Filipinos support.”
The rights group Amnesty International similarly called on the Marcos administration “to rejoin the Rome Statute and cooperate fully with the ICC’s investigation, including if further arrest warrants are issued against other former and current Philippine government officials.”
These calls have also been enjoined by members of the Philippine Congress, who cited the reputational damage that had followed from the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC, and the court’s ability to help the Philippines hold leaders accountable for the worst crimes.
“We left unilaterally from the ICC. I think it’s about time we return to the ICC and show the entire world that this country respects domestic and international laws,” lawmaker Geraldine Roman, an ally of the Marcos administration, said yesterday, according to a report by Rappler. House Assistant Majority Leader Raul Angelo “Jil” Bongalon concurred, stating that the court would help protect the people against the grave crimes.
“For me it’s our duty to give protection to our people,” he said. “One way of doing this is to rejoin the Rome Statute.”
Indeed, there is arguably little reason for Marcos not to re-sign the Rome Statute and rejoin the ICC, given that he has already taken the step of honoring an ICC arrest warrant and turning over a Philippine citizen to the court. Such an expression of support for international law would also be a question of enlightened self-interest, given the Philippines’ reliance on international law (the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea) to challenge China’s expansive claims in the South China Sea.
Whether he does rejoin the ICC will be a test of how far Marcos’ support for international criminal justice, and domestic accountability, really extends. When he came to office in 2022, Marcos initially said that he had “no intention” of rejoining the ICC and made it clear that he would not cooperate with the court’s investigation into the “war on drugs.” In September 2022, the Marcos administration officially requested that the ICC halt the investigation, saying that the court “has no jurisdiction over the situation in the Philippines.”
At the time, of course, Duterte was his ally – part of a “Uniteam” that stormed the 2022 presidential election and vaulted Sara Duterte into the vice-presidency. Since then, Duterte has transmuted rapidly into a rival and then threat, making cooperation with the ICC political expedient. By handing over Duterte to the ICC, Marcos has simultaneously struck a possibly decisive blow in his rancorous political feud with the Duterte family, and earned international plaudits.
None of this matters much for the victims of the drug war, who have finally seen what once seemed elusive: Duterte in the dock. But if Marcos has any genuine commitment to the principles of accountability that animate the ICC, rejoining the Rome Statute is the least he can do.
