October 24, 2025
MANILA – The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) pretrial chamber has affirmed its jurisdiction over the case against former President Rodrigo Duterte in a decision that could finally pave the way for a full-blown trial for murder as a crime against humanity during his administration’s war on drugs.
In a 32-page decision dated Oct. 23, Judges Iulia Antoanella Motoc, Reine Adélaïde Sophie Alapini-Gansou and María del Socorro Flores Liera rejected the Duterte camp’s argument that the court does not have jurisdiction over the case because it had opened its investigation only in September 2021, or two years after the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute became fully effective in 2019.
The PTC judges ruled that Article 127 of the Rome Statute must be read in a way that “balances the right of a state to withdraw from the Statute and the risk of a State using its right to withdraw to shield persons from the jurisdiction of the Court.”
READ: ICC charges Duterte with 3 murder counts over 49 killings
It may be recalled that in 2023, the Duterte camp — then under the advisement of the Office of the Solicitor General and British barrister Sarah Bafadhel — argued that Article 127 should not be interpreted to extend the Office of the Prosecutor’s power to request an investigation even after a state had withdrawn from the statute.
They made this last-minute argument in their 2023 appeal to stop then-ICC prosecutor Karim Khan’s investigation into Duterte’s war on drugs, which saw between 12,000 to 30,000 dead.
The Appeals Chamber later rejected the appeal to stop Khan’s investigation in a narrow 3-2 vote but left this jurisdictional issue unresolved.
READ: Amid calls to free Duterte, victims’ stories reach ICC
This time, however, the PTC judges ruled that the case was already under its consideration even before the Philippines’ formal withdrawal, and rejected their defense that the preliminary examination initiated by former ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in 2018 and their 2021 decision to authorize an investigation were “different matters.”
“Far from ‘trumping’ the Court’s jurisdictional regime,” they added, Article 127(2) “is an essential part of it in respect of a State that has withdrawn.”
“It also guarantees that the right of a State to withdraw from the Statute is respected, while ensuring that it is not able to abuse that right by shielding persons from justice in relation to alleged crimes that are already under consideration by the Court in a manner that undermines the object and purpose of the Statute and the specific terms of withdrawal set out in article 127(2) of the Statute to which a State agrees at the time that it ratifies the Statute,” they added.
Duterte, who is facing three counts of murder over 49 killings, is currently detained at the Scheveningen Prison in The Hague, though his camp has argued that he was unfit to stand for trial.
READ: ICC: 3 doctors to check if Duterte fit for trial
Before this ruling, the PTC ruled on Sept. 24 that they would have Duterte examined by a panel of medical experts to determine whether or not he can exercise his rights to a fair trial.