Duterte’s ICC indictment is yet another proof that relative power remains the ultimate determinant and arbiter of justice. Unless the ICC finds the way and the will to develop the backbone and mechanism to bring a suspected leader to stand trial in its court without having to align itself with unscrupulous forces, it cannot be the beacon of hope that the past, present and future of victims and survivors of genocide can fully trust and depend on. Writes Michael Magcamit
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Barely three years since vacating the presidential seat at the Malacañang Palace, the Philippines’ ex-top leader, Rodrigo Duterte, returns to international spotlight after becoming the first Asian head of state to be indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Acting on an ICC arrest warrant sent to Interpol, the Philippine authorities detained the divisive 79-year-old figure after his arrival at the capital’s international airport from Hong Kong in the early hours of 11 March 2025. The dramatic arrest that ensued came on the heels of the Pre-Trial Chamber’s approval of the arrest warrant application filed by the ICC Office of the Prosecutor against Duterte on 10 February 2025. In their decision, the members of the Chamber concluded that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe that Duterte is individually responsible as an indirect co-perpetrator for the crime against humanity of murder, allegedly committed in the Philippines between 1 November 2011 and 16 March 2019’. Within hours of his predecessor’s detainment, President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr., a former political ally of the now embattled Duterte clan, authorized Interpol to bring Duterte to the Hague to face these charges, claiming that he was simply doing what the international community expects of the Philippine government.
For those who have long been disillusioned with the ICC’s inconsistent record as to who gets to face the scales of justice within its judicial purview, Duterte’s indictment is yet another proof that relative power remains the ultimate determinant and arbiter of justice.
Whilst the arch of the moral universe, to borrow Martin Luther King Jr’s words, is certainly long, within the ICC’s jurisdiction, the point where it bends towards justice materialises only in so far as the defendants who are actually brought to and tried at the Hague from less powerful and, therefore, ‘less’ politically costly and consequential states, whether its officials admit it or not. This argument has become the default line of defence invoked by Duterte’s loose but formidable network of local ‘intelligentsia’ that helped to craft the metanarrative to justify the war on drugs, along with an army of online trolls and die-hard supporters who have vigilantly countered all the criticisms levelled against their leader, going as far as to fabricate news and events to defend him.
This largely unaddressed dilemma has resulted in the Court’s dubious alliance with Marcos Jr who himself has suspicious human rights ethics as evidenced by his continuous denial of his late father’s well-documented human rights violations under the latter’s brutal authoritarian regime (1972-1986). The former dictator’s son is said to be on a mission to repaint his family’s portrait by revising history, starting with the systematic erasure of the horrors of the Martial Law period from the public discourse and consciousness.
And here lies the uncomfortable irony in this latest episode of the dynastic political warfare that has plagued the Philippines since the end of American colonial rule: that the ICC has turned a blind eye to the Marcos family’s own fair share of human rights abuses if only to bring justice to the victims and survivors of Duterte’s inhumane drug war. But perhaps for the ICC heads, this situation, whilst akward, is not a moral deal-breaker given their non-retroactive jurisdiction, meaning their Court has no power to investigate events that happened prior to the Rome Statute’s entry into force on 1 July 2022. Indeed, this legal constraint has, to a considerable extent, given the Court ammunition against potential accusations of complete hypocrisy, if not utter cognitive dissonance on the part of its judges. Yet, by inadvertently acting as Pontius Pilate, the ICC has not only invoked its right to be absolved, but more damningly, it has also viritually washed the blood of the Martial Law victims off the Marcoses’ hands in right in front of the world’s watchful eyes. To add more salt to these gaping wounds, the ICC remains intentionally oblivious (at least publicly) towards the incumbent president’s own failure in fulfilling his promise to end these extrajudicial killings under his watch. The 2025 Human Rights Watch Report reveals that more than 800 Filipinos have already died in drug-related killings carried out by the police and unidentified assailants since Marcos took office in July 2022. To this day, the Court has yet to comment on the still ongoing extrajudicial killings under Marcos Jr’s administration. In both these cases, the ICC has unwittingly contributed to the redemption narrative that the First Family has so desperately promoted since their return to power.
Despite the grave existential moral crisis arising from this current arrangement between Marcos Jr and the Court which many their critics would understandably find hard to confront let alone reconcile, some find solace from thinking that Duterte’s spectacular fall is proof of how punitive and ruthless power can be, especially to those who wield it. For as soon as the power calculus of those players in the upper echelons of the pecking order begins to swing to the other direction, the webs of power that once catapulted leaders to the pedestal and protected them from the consequences of their capriciousness and wrongdoings could all instantly vanish and unravel, leaving them hanging out to dry for everyone to see.
For more cautiously optimistic observers, the ICC warrant is a symbol and a reminder of what justice can and should be for the millions of ordinary Filipinos who, until very recently, have already resigned themselves to the whims of political dynasties. As a nation that stands accused of being a flawed democracy, Duterte’s indictment is a welcome break from the ruling elites’ longstanding impunity and corruption, which have become the entrenched norms of everyday politics in the country. For Filipinos on this side of the debate, leaders who commit atrocious crimes against their own citizens can no longer hide behind the curtain of state sovereignty as they forfeit that protection the moment they debase the humanity and extinguish the lives of their people. At a time when the most fundamental tenets of democracy are gradually but steadily being eroded across the world, for the adherents of multilateralism and believers of international organizations, Duterte’s trial at the Hague is not a sign of the Filipinos’ inability to effectively govern themselves. Instead, the trial serves as a testament to the ever-increasing need to build a genuinely human-centric global court that will stand up to oppressors no matter who they are and where they are from.
This vision requires a drastic overhaul of the Westphalian-inspired sovereignty that accords primacy to the survival of the physical state, and its transformation into a form of sovereignty that makes the wellbeing and survival of the people and the entire planet its paramount concern. However, the fault does not fall squarely on the ICC’s shoulders. After all, like all other international organizations, the ability of the ICC to carry out and fulfil its mandate depends on the amount of power that sovereign member states are willing to bestow upon it. The implication here is that if we want the ICC to be a court of, by, and for the people of the world, it is imperative that we begin the process of rethinking and transforming sovereignty as we know and practice it today. Such a political process and agenda would undoubtedly take a long time and would be met with hostile resistance not least from state and non-state actors that have vested interests in maintaining the status quo conditions of the current international system. Yet, similar to all other social constructs, the nature and conduct of sovereignty can evolve and if necessary, be entirely replaced by something else. Until we reach this era, we can only surrender our fate to an international arrangement wherein the strong will continue to do what they can and the weak shall continue to suffer what they must. Back at the Hague, unless the ICC finds the way and the will to develop the necessary backbone and mechanism to bring a suspected leader to stand trial in its court without having to align itself with unscrupulous forces, it cannot be the beacon of hope that past, present and future victims and survivors of genocide can fully trust and depend on despite its name. Not for the Filipinos. Not for the Ukrainians. Not for the Palestinians. On the contrary, the ICC’s very existence and (in)actions will remain proof that power is the singular factor that can define and bring ‘justice’, until we, the people, help to make it otherwise by starting to reimagine the meaning and essence of a ‘sovereign’ life.
*The views expressed in the blog are those of the author alone. They do not reflect the position of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, nor that of the London School of Economics and Political Science.
