The International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague delivered a one-two punch to former president Rodrigo Duterte last week, nearly 10 years after he took office and unleashed his brutal “war on drugs” across the Philippines.
The first blow landed on April 22, when the ICC Appeals Chamber upheld the October 2025 Pre-Trial Chamber I (PTC I) decision affirming the court’s jurisdiction over his case. The second came the next day, when the three-member PTC I unanimously confirmed charges that he had committed crimes against humanity.
These decisions set the stage for his trial on allegations that he was chiefly responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings in his centerpiece anticrime program that began when he was the mayor of Davao City. The decisions were made a decade after he expanded his iron-fisted campaign from his hometown to the rest of the country when he took office as president on June 30, 2016.
The ICC presidency moved quickly to constitute the trial chamber. On April 24, it designated Nicolas Guillou of France, Joanna Korner of the United Kingdom and Keebong Paek of South Korea as members of Trial Chamber III. The announcement of the appointments was made public on April 28.
Duterte is charged with the crimes against humanity of murder and attempted murder in at least 49 incidents that victimized 78 individuals, including two mayors—Rolando Espinosa of Albuera, Leyte, and Reynaldo Parohinog of Ozamiz City—whom he had named as drug lords before they were killed.
The case against Duterte covers the period from Nov. 1, 2011, to March 16, 2019, when the Philippines was still a state party to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC.
Duterte ordered the withdrawal of the Philippines from the statute after he learned that the ICC Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) began on Feb. 8, 2018, a “preliminary examination” of extrajudicial killings in his drug war. That was less than a year after lawyer Jude Sabio submitted the first “communication,” or complaint, alleging “mass murder” in the drug war in the Philippines in April 2017. Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV and his fellow Magdalo party mate, former representative Gary Alejano, filed a “supplemental” communication in June 2017. The National Union of Peoples’ Lawyers (NUPL) submitted a communication on behalf of the families of the drug war victims in August 2018.
Despite Manila’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, the preliminary examination continued and the official investigation of Duterte’s drug war by the OTP was authorized by the PTC I in September 2021.
Under Article 127 of the statute, a state is deemed withdrawn one year after it files a notification to withdraw. That state, however, has the duty to cooperate with “any criminal investigations and proceedings” if these involve “any matter” which is already under the ICC’s “consideration” before the withdrawal took effect.
No ‘matter’ under consideration
Duterte’s lawyers argued that when he was arrested in the Philippines and flown to The Hague in the Netherlands on March 12, 2025, and placed under ICC detention, the Philippines was no longer a state party to the statute.
Moreover, they insisted that there wasn’t any “matter” under consideration because the OTP’s official investigation came after Manila’s withdrawal had become effective. They said the “preliminary examination” of the situation in the Philippines doesn’t qualify as a “matter” under consideration because it was an unofficial or internal process.
The Appeals Chamber rejected all the arguments of Duterte and his lawyers that there was no legal basis to continue the ICC proceedings against him and that he should be released immediately.
In its April 22 ruling, the chamber said the Rome Statute “must be interpreted in a systemic manner and in line with the object and purpose of the statute, which is to put an end to impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.”
It ruled that the defense’s interpretation of Article 127 would be “incompatible” with the “object and purpose” of the ICC if it allows a state party to “evade its responsibilities under the Statute” by withdrawing from the treaty after it discovered that alleged crimes committed within its territory by its nationals are being examined by the prosecution.
It noted the PTC I’s conclusion that there was “a direct relationship between the Prosecutor’s announcement of the opening of the preliminary examination and the decision of the Philippines to withdraw from the Statute.”
This was the same position taken by the Philippine Supreme Court in an obiter dictum (a legal opinion that is not binding but persuasive) when it ruled to declare as “moot” a petition against Manila’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute. It was, in a way, a cautionary note by the high court to the government: that it may withdraw from the ICC, but it continues to be liable for any crimes under the tribunal’s domain while it is still a party to the Rome Statute.
Public warning
The Appeals Chamber’s ruling on jurisdiction could also be seen as a public warning to all other state parties that withdrawing from the statute is not an escape hatch to evade prosecution.
Raul Pangalangan, a former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Law and the only Filipino so far to have served as an ICC judge, said in an interview with CoverStory in March 2025 that “ordinarily, a party may challenge jurisdiction only once.”
Duterte’s chief lawyer, Nicholas Kaufman, conceded that jurisdiction “has been settled” and that it was “the end of the road” as far as that issue was concerned. Speaking to reporters in The Hague in the presence of Duterte’s supporters, he said the former president was “stoical” after he informed him about the chamber’s decision.
On April 23, the Pre-Trial Chamber confirmed all the charges against Duterte. He was found to have committed three counts of crimes against humanity—of murder in Davao involving 19 victims in nine incidents between 2013 and June 2016; of murder of “high-value targets” across the country, with 14 victims in five incidents between July 2016 and July 2017; and of murder (43 instances) and attempted murder (two instances) in 35 barangay “clearance operations” around the country between July 2016 and September 2018.
The PTC I said Duterte allegedly committed these crimes over two distinct periods—from November 2011 to June 2016, when he served as vice mayor and mayor of Davao; and from July 2016 to March 2019, the first three years of his presidency.
The chamber said Duterte was responsible for the killings by co-perpetration, by ordering and inducing the bloody attacks, and by aiding and abetting the killings.
It identified the former president as an “indirect co-perpetrator” in his war on drugs along with at least eight alleged co-perpetrators that comprised the top tier of the organization that he headed and that directed the killings—first in Davao and later in the rest of the country.
They included Senators Christopher “Bong” Go and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, a former Davao police chief and Duterte’s first Philippine National Police chief. Dela Rosa went into hiding in November 2025, after unconfirmed reports spread that the ICC had issued a warrant for his arrest. He has since been absent from Senate sessions.
Davao Death Squad
The PTC I cited Duterte’s own statement during an October 2024 Senate inquiry that he had organized a death squad in Davao City. The chamber said in its decision that he “sat at the top” of the hierarchy of the Davao Death Squad (DDS).
It said the killings were an “organizational policy” of the DDS during the Davao period and became a “state policy” involving a “National Network” during Duterte’s presidency.
The PTC I, citing evidence from interviews and documents from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and Duterte’s co-perpetrators, said the fight against drugs and criminality would be a “scaled-up version of the ‘Davao Model’ at the national level.”
Duterte and the others participated in carrying out a “common plan” to “neutralize” crime suspects, including alleged drug offenders, in a “widespread and systematic” manner, according to the PTC I. It said “neutralize” meant kill, in the context of Duterte’s drug war.
Duterte was said to have used his authority, first as mayor and later as president, to order and induce the “physical perpetrators” or the hitmen of the DDS and the National Network to launch the bloody “common plan,” locally and nationally, through a chain of command system with him at the “apex.”
“Those who did not follow orders risked being killed and were disposed of when perceived as opposing or posing a threat to the Common Plan, however insignificant,” the PTC I said.
The chamber said Duterte’s “essential contributions” to the common plan included providing manpower and logistics, such as weapons; offering financial incentives and promotions to police officers and hitmen; creating a system in which those involved in the killings were aware of protection and immunity from investigation and prosecution; and publicly identifying alleged criminals and “high-value targets.”
The number of DDS victims in Davao has been estimated at over 1,000. On May 31, 2022, a month before Duterte stepped down as president, the government’s consolidated report on drug war deaths recorded 6,252 people killed in official antidrug operations during his presidency up to that point.
Human rights groups say the number is many times higher—12,000 to 30,000—including vigilante killings and “unexplained” deaths.
‘Double whammy’
NUPL chair Edre Olalia was hopeful that the drug war victims’ families would get justice from the ICC’s back-to-back decisions.
“With this double whammy, there is therefore rightfully and effectively no legal impediment for [Duterte] to face the music, no matter how vexing it may sound to him,” Olalia said. “The road to concrete justice now seems less long and winding for the victims and their kin.”
The Pre-Trial Chamber said Duterte’s contributions to the drug war included his public statements “authorizing, condoning and encouraging” killings of alleged drug offenders recorded in videos, transcripts and translations of his speeches, interviews and statements. These were cited also as evidence against him during the confirmation of charges hearing.
It’s “a classic case of a ‘fish caught by its mouth’,” according to NUPL president Ephraim B. Cortez.
In an interview in The Hague reported by ANC, Kaufman said the defense team would make a request for an appeal to the PTC I as he “can’t even see one piece of evidence cited in the footnotes to justify their decision.” He said he found it “rather bizarre and strange” that the chamber “didn’t find it necessary to cite any evidence” in its 50-page decision.
Kaufman said the reversal of the PTC I decision would be up to the same judges of the chamber. “But we have to be realistic, and we are facing a trial now,” he said.
The case against Duterte was “built on the testimony of cooperating criminal witnesses of the most vicious nature,” Kaufman said.
He said the defense would prepare to cross-examine those witnesses if the prosecution presents them — “and then we will question them and show them to be the liars that they are.” CS
Read more: Duterte loses ICC appeal, remains in detention in The Hague
