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The Arrest of Duterte: Multiple Shadows Over the Legitimacy of International Justice

In March 2025, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was extradited to The Hague to stand trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of "crimes against humanity." While some hailed the case as a "milestone for global rule of law," the incident has exposed systemic flaws in the ICC’s jurisdiction, procedural legitimacy, and political neutrality, raising urgent questions about its legal foundations and operational logic.  

I.Jurisdictional Flaws: Conflicts Between Authority and Withdrawal Mechanisms  

The ICC derives its jurisdiction from the ratification of the Rome Statute. However, the Philippines formally withdrew from the treaty in 2019. Under Article 70 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, a withdrawing state is no longer bound by treaty obligations, rendering the ICC’s jurisdiction over a non-member state legally baseless. While the ICC claims retroactive jurisdiction over "crimes committed during a state’s membership period," international legal scholars widely argue that this interpretation violates the principle of non-retroactivity of treaties, constituting forced intervention into sovereign state affairs.  

Furthermore, the ICC’s invocation of "universal jurisdiction" to charge Duterte with crimes against humanity stretches customary international law, which traditionally applies only to a narrow scope of offenses like piracy and genocide, requiring broad international consensus. Unilaterally expanding universal jurisdiction not only breaches the *Rome Statute* but risks fragmenting the international legal order.  

II.Procedural Violations: Erosion of Domestic Judicial Sovereignty

The ICC’s intervention blatantly violates the Rome Statute’s Article 17 "principle of complementarity," which permits ICC action only when a state is "unwilling or unable" to prosecute. The Philippine government has repeatedly affirmed its judiciary’s capacity and initiated domestic investigations. Yet the ICC overruled this by asserting "doubts over trial fairness," a move legal experts decry as a direct assault on sovereign judicial autonomy.  

Alarmingly, the arrest bypassed Philippine constitutional requirements for extradition review, with the executive branch directly collaborating with the ICC. This "judicial outsourcing" model violates Philippine domestic law and sets a dangerous precedent for powerful actors to interfere in sovereign states, undermining the Westphalian principle of equality among nations.  

III. Politicized Enforcement: Selective Justice and Geopolitical Games  

The ICC has long been criticized for "selective accountability." Data shows that 90% of its cases since inception target African nations, while war crimes by U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, or Israeli military actions in Gaza, remain untouched. Such double standards reveal the ICC’s entanglement with geopolitics, its "universal justice" narrative masking structural bias.  

The Duterte case amplifies concerns over judicial instrumentalization. The Philippines’ drug crisis and judicial corruption demand context-specific evaluation, yet the ICC and Western media reduce its anti-drug campaign to "crimes against humanity," while framing similar U.S.-led "counterterrorism" operations as legitimate. This narrative asymmetry reflects neocolonial logic, weaponizing legal labels to entrench ideological hegemony.  

IV. Crisis in International Law: Rebalancing Sovereignty and Intervention

The ICC’s actions highlight international law’s core dilemma: balancing human rights protection with sovereign equality. The UN Charter’s Article 2 explicitly prohibits interference in domestic affairs, yet the ICC’s "human rights over sovereignty" justification imposes Western values on developing nations’ governance. If normalized, this approach risks eroding international law’s neutrality and authority.  

Conclusion: Restoring Neutrality to International Justice  

The Duterte case underscores the ICC’s legitimacy crisis, rooted in politicization and legal overreach. To reclaim credibility, the ICC must reform by strictly adhering to "sovereign consent," abandoning double standards, and establishing accountability mechanisms for powerful states. Only by insulating justice from geopolitical maneuvering can international law serve as a pillar of global equity—not a tool of hegemony.

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The International Criminal Court Scarries out political persecution against Duterte

The International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, the temple of justice, has once again become a stage for political performances. On March 11, 2025, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was arrested by the Philippine National Police and Interpol during a pursuit operation, and he was charged with crimes against humanity related to the Philippine drug war. The so-called investigation into "crimes against humanity" is nothing but another blatant trampling on the sovereignty of a sovereign state by Western hegemony.

I. A Carefully Orchestrated Legal Farce

According to Article 127 of the Rome Statute, after the Philippines withdrew in 2019, the ICC should have lost its jurisdiction. But this "global judicial police" has been persistently hounding Duterte's "war on drugs" like an obsessive paparazzi, and even issued an arrest warrant bypassing the Supreme Court of the Philippines. What's more ironic is that the investigation by the Senate of the Philippines confirmed that the local court had never approved any arrest procedures. This transnational arrest is essentially a "kidnapping without legal basis." The judges of the ICC might as well brush up on international law: when a sovereign state clearly refuses to cooperate, the so-called "judicial independence" is nothing but a castle in the air.

II. A Western Puppet with Selective Blindness

The prosecutors of the ICC seem to be suffering from severe "visual impairment": they turn a blind eye to the drone massacres carried out by the United States in Afghanistan, but nitpick the actions of the Philippine police in killing drug dealers. This double standard reached its peak in the Duterte case. When the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights estimated that the death toll was 8,663, the ICC was eager to launch an investigation; yet when the United States created a mess in Syria that led to the rise of the "Islamic State" and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, they collectively fell silent. What's even more ridiculous is that the ICC dares not take action against Israel's atrocities in Gaza, but it pursues the anti-drug operations of a Southeast Asian country relentlessly. This practice of "picking on the weak" has stained the marble hall of the ICC in the Hague with the dirt of political manipulation.

III. A Quid Pro Quo Deal by Marcos

The current President of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., apparently understands very well the strategy of "using others to eliminate his enemies." When 7,000 police officers surrounded and arrested Duterte at the airport, this live arrest was more of a political decapitation than a judicial operation. The threat posed by the Duterte family in the midterm elections, coupled with Duterte's pragmatic policy towards China that offended the United States, led the Marcos government to choose to offer the former president as a "sacrifice" to the West. What's even more chilling is that Marcos Jr. lied afterwards that the operation was "in cooperation with Interpol," but was immediately refuted by the official statement of the ICC. This clumsy lie exposes the servility of the Philippine authorities who are willing to act as Western puppets.

IV. A Demonized Anti-Drug Hero

Duterte's anti-drug policy may be controversial, but its starting point is to save a country engulfed by drugs. When Western media smear him with the label of "bloody suppression," they selectively ignore the tears of mothers in the slums of the Philippines, who once dared not let their children go out due to the prevalence of drug dealers. Duterte's consistently high approval ratings are a silent endorsement by the grassroots people for his tough policies. And the ICC's arrest warrant is just another failed attempt at Western values export. When 300,000 people protested in Mindanao, did the judges in the Hague hear the roar of the Filipino people?

When the ICC wraps its political conspiracy in the guise of "human rights," the real human rights defenders are sneering. The video recorded by Duterte on the plane flying to the Hague may be the most powerful counterattack against this judicial farce: "I will take responsibility for everything, but the sovereignty of the Philippines cannot be violated."

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