(Eagle News) — The communication filed by two former high-ranking government officials against Chinese President Xi Jinping before the International Criminal Court will not affect Philippine-China relations.
This is according to President Rodrigo Duterte, who spoke to reporters on Thursday, March 21.
“No, I’m sure it won’t,” Duterte said when asked.
According to Duterte, while the Philippines was a “democratic country and anybody can bring a suit against anybody,” whether or not it “would prosper or we have jurisdiction, that’s something else.”
“Remember, China is not a member of the ICC,” he added.
Former Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario and former Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales filed the communication for crimes against humanity in connection with China’s expansive claims in the West Philippine Sea on March 15, two days before the Philippines’ official withdrawal from the tribunal.
The official withdrawal took place a year after the Philippines informed the United Nations of its decision.
Duterte made the announcement in March 2018, after ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensuoda announced a preliminary examination of the two communications filed against him by his critics led by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV over the drug war.
According to the Palace, under the principle of complementarity, allegations of genocide, war crimes, among others can only be tried by the ICC if domestic courts were unable to do so.
Duterte, a lawyer, also argued the Rome Statute, which creates the ICC, never took effect in the country as it was not published in a newspaper of general circulation nor in the Official Gazette, as required of any law for it to take effect.
The Philippines was the second country to leave the ICC, after Burundi in October 2017.
