What if ICC officers get caught in PH?

President Rodrigo Duterte can be charged with violating international law if he orders the arrest of any investigator from the International Criminal Court (ICC) who comes to the country to investigate him, an international law practitioner said yesterday.

In a briefing hosted by Cebu for Human Rights, lawyer Ruben Carranza explained that Article 70 of the Rome Statute of the ICC, criminalizes “offenses against the administration of justice,” which include “intimidating an official of the Court” to keep him or her from performing duties or “retaliating against an official” of the ICC.

This month, President Duterte threatened to arrest ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda if she comes to the country to investigate him for the thousands of deaths caused by his administration’s anti-drug campaign. From July 1, 2016 to March 20, 2018, at least 4,075 persons have died in anti-drug operations, according to the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. Its latest report no longer includes “deaths under investigation.”

“Systematic, widespread attacks against a civilian population” constitute a crime against humanity of murder, said Carranza. The Cebuano, who served as commissioner of the Presidential Commission on Good Government in 2001 to 2004, now heads the Reparative Justice Program of the International Center for Transnational Justice, a nongovernment organization based in New York.

Last February, Bensouda announced that the ICC has started a preliminary examination into the complaint filed by lawyer Jude Sabio, who accused President Duterte and other national officials of crimes against humanity.

One year

Even if Duterte ordered the country’s withdrawal from the ICC earlier this year, Carranza said that will not stop the ICC prosecutor from investigating the President because the withdrawal will not take effect until March 2019.

Among the things the ICC’s investigators can do is examine whether a connection exists between the data on killings since this administration’s anti-drug campaign began and Duterte’s own statements about killing drug addicts, peddlers, and drug lords.

“Efforts to provide impunity, such as promising to shield police officers,” may be considered among the acts that “indirect co-perpetrators” need to answer for.

Carranza also thinks a good argument can be made for challenging in a Philippine court the President’s decision to withdraw from the ICC, considering that the Senate, which ratifies treaties like the Rome Statute of the ICC, didn’t have the opportunity to concur with the decision to leave it.

That effort can be led by “senators who believe in accountability, and who understand that it may be difficult, if not impossible, to obtain accountability (for the drug campaign-related deaths) in a Philippine court,” the lawyer said.

Under the Rome Statute, anyone can communicate with the ICC in The Hague to provide information or analysis about potential or ongoing crimes against humanity.