Despite having left ICC, Phl cannot evade probe
Despite having left ICC, Phl cannot evade probe
By Satur Ocampo
“Withdrawal from the Rome Statute does not discharge a state party from the obligations it has incurred as a member. Consequently, liability for the alleged summary killings and other atrocities committed in the course of the war on drugs [during the Duterte administration] is not nullified or negated.”
Thus declared the Supreme Court, in a 101-page unanimous decision issued on March 16, 2021, penned by now Senior Associate Justice Marvic Leonen.
The Rome Statute is the treaty creating the International Criminal Court, to which the Philippines acceded in 2011. In March 2019, President Duterte withdrew Philippine ratification after the ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda began investigating killings by state security forces during his high-profile war on drugs.
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