By Ade S. Fajardo
The International Criminal Court (ICC) Pre-Trial Chamber began the four-day confirmation of charges hearing for former President Rodrigo Duterte.
The world knows that Duterte is set to face trial in the crimes against humanity charges linked to his government’s anti-drug campaign.
This is alleged to be a national amplification of the death squad he created when he was mayor of Davao City.
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This stage of pre-trial proceedings allows the prosecution to lay out the evidence against the accused, and convince the pre-trial chamber that trial should proceed against Duterte.
If convinced, the chamber will confirm the charges and authorize the trial. In which case, the ICC will convene the trial chamber that will thereafter hear the full presentation of prosecution and defense evidence.
If not convinced, the pre-trial chamber might decline to confirm the charges and allow the prosecutors to file a new request based on additional evidence. The prosecution may also choose to conduct further investigation.
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It is now apparent that when the Duterte government launched Oplan Double Barrel, it did not foresee consequences under the Rome Statute — the treaty that the Philippines helped propagate under the Ramos administration, and subsequently ratified under the PNoy administration.
The ICC was granted jurisdiction over “natural persons.” International criminal justice acknowledged humanity’s horrific experiences and military atrocities — thus the ICC’s power try and decide criminal charges against individual “persons for the most serious crimes of international concern.”
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The Duterte administration did not rethink its bloody drug war when confronted with the possibility of prosecution under the Rome Statute.
In 2018, Duterte instead withdrew the Philippines from the Statute, thus: “I therefore declare and forthwith give notice, as president of the Republic of the Philippines, that the Philippines is withdrawing its ratification of the Rome Statute effective immediately.”
Duterte publicly invoked domestic law as his basis for the withdrawal — the purported failure to publish the treaty to make it legally binding.
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Invoking domestic law violates the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which states: “A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification of the failure to perform a treaty.”
The Philippine Supreme Court, while it has acknowledged the effects of the withdrawal, has also confirmed ICC jurisdiction until such withdrawal became effective in 2019.
Cooperation was a question mark until the Marcos administration surrendered Duterte to international enforcement authorities.
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Marcos’ cooperation has mooted Duterte’s belated efforts to wiggle out of ICC jurisdiction. Now he stands on the verge of being tried for crimes against humanity.
Since he was appointed mayor in 1998, Duterte allegedly established “liquidation squads” composed of local police officers and non-police hitmen, which came to be known as the Davao Death Squad.
The ICC prosecutor noted that when campaigning for the presidency, Duterte vowed to implement methods he had developed when he was mayor.
All pushbacks have failed him.
The “Punisher” now faces international criminal justice./WDJ