Cites “baseless, unprecedented, outrageous attacks” on his person, administration as reasons for withdrawal from treaty that establishes the ICC
(Eagle News) — President Rodrigo Duterte has declared the Philippines’ withdrawal of its ratification of the Rome Statute.
In declaring the country’s withdrawal from the treaty that established the International Criminal Court, Duterte in a statement on Wednesday cited the “baseless, unprecedented and outrageous attacks on my person as against my administration, engineered by the officials of the United Nations, as well as the attempt by the (ICC) special prosecutor to place my person within the jurisdiction of the (ICC)” as reasons.
The “actuations and statement of UN special rapporteur Agnes Callamard and UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Zeid Raad Al-Hussein,” he said, in particular, “readily show international bias and refusal of some sectors of the international community to support the Philippines legitimate efforts at self-determination, nation-building and independence from foreign influence and control.”
He said this was “coupled by the implication of culpability that the preliminary examination by prosecutor Fatou Besouda unduly and maliciously created.”
“It is apparent that the ICC is being utilized as a political tool against the Philippines,” he said.
Brazen display of ignorance of law
According to Duterte, this attempt to place his person within the jurisdiction of the ICC was in the first place a “brazen display of ignorance of the law.”
The Rome Statute, after all, he said, “is not effective nor enforceable in the Philippines.”
“Under our law, particularly the New Civil Code, a law shall become effective only upon its publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation. An international law cannot supplant, prevail or diminish a domestic law,” Duterte said.
According to Duterte, “even assuming” that the ICC can acquire jurisdiction over his person, “the acts complained of purportedly committed by me do not fall under the enumerated grounds by which the ICC can assume jurisdiction.”
He said the acts he is accused of committing do not constitute war crimes, crimes of aggression nor crimes against humanity.
The deaths occurring in the process of a legitimate police operation, after all, he said, “lack the intent to kill.”
“The self-defense employed by the police officers when their lives became endangered by the violent resistance of the suspects is a justifying circumstance under our criminal law hence they do not incur criminal liability,” he said.
Effective immediately
Duterte said the withdrawal from the ICC treaty was “effective immediately.”
He said Article 127 of the Rome Statute that states that a withdrawal shall take effect “one year after the date of receipt of notification” of withdrawal by the UN Secretary General, unless a later date is specified, does not apply in this case.
He said there “‘appears,” after all, to be “fraud in entering into such an agreement.”
“The Philippines in ratifying the Rome Statute was made to believe that the principle of complementarity shall be observed; that the principle of due process and the presumption of innocence as mandated by our Constitution and the Rome Statute shall prevail; and that the legal requirement of publication to make the Rome Statute enforceable shall be maintained,” he said.
In February, the ICC launched a preliminary examination into the government’s war on drugs, citing what it claimed were the human rights violations committed by state forces.
Russia, South Africa and Gambia are among countries that have withdrawn from the ICC.
Gambia, in particular, accused the ICC of “persecution and humiliation of people of color, especially Africans.”