THE SET-UP: The International Criminal Court (ICC) is prosecuting a former president of the Philippines for crimes against humanity. The charge sheet detailing Rodrigo Duterte’s crimes was made public on Monday. As the BBC explained, he is accused of…
…being criminally responsible for dozens of murders that allegedly took place as part of his so-called war on drugs, during which thousands of small-time drug dealers, users and others were killed without trial.
Duterte, who earned nicknames like “Duterte Harry” and “The Punisher,” has been unapologetic about his wide-ranging drug war, which, the BBC notes, “saw more than 6,000 people killed - although activists believe the real figure could run into the tens of thousands.”
The killings were carried out by police and vigilantes who were free to kill on mere suspicion. Although we may never know how many innocent Filipinos lost their lives, we do know Duterte will get the due process denied to the victims of his drug war.
That’s because he pulled the Philippines out of the ICC’s “Rome Statute” on March, 17, 2019 … which was a couple years too late. The killings that occurred between 2016 and 2019 still fall under the Rome Statute’s jurisdiction over “suspected perpetrators of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes or aggression, including superiors or military commanders.” As Just Security explained:
If one takes Rome Statute article 127 on withdrawal at face value, the ICC retains the right to exercise jurisdiction. Indeed, article 127 plainly states that withdrawal shall not “prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.” That view aligns with the Rome Statute’s underlying treaty purpose of ending impunity….
In fact, when the Rome Statute was hammered out in 1998, it was hailed as “major progress for better implementation of international humanitarian law and a clear step forward in the battle against impunity.”
Duterte’s trip to The Hague notwithstanding, impunity is winning.
Just this week three “military junta-run” nations announced their intent to pull out of the ICC. Per The New York Times:
Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger — three countries in Africa’s arid Sahel region whose governments were overthrown by military coups in recent years — said in a statement released on Monday that the court was run by a “closed circle of beneficiaries” that acted with “international impunity.”
At issue is the ICC’s track record of charging Africans … and only Africans …
Of the 33 cases the I.C.C. has opened since its inception, 32 have been against Africans — with the one exception being Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, who was charged with crimes against humanity.
Skeptics dismiss their argument as a convenient one that portends the commission of state-sponsored crimes free from the fear of prosecution. I suspect the two things are not mutually exclusive. It is likely that they’ve learned from Duterte’s example and decided to pull out now to avoid Duterte’s fate. But they are also not wrong about a “‘closed circle of beneficiaries’ that has acted with ‘international impunity’” while African perps find themselves on a plane to The Hague.
That’s because one of the Rome Statute’s most conspicuous violators is the United States, which has long-refused to ratify an agreement it helped to negotiate. President Clinton signed it in 2000, but then declined to submit it to the Senate for ratification. When it moved to George W. Bush’s desk, he “un-signed” the document in 2002 and, on the eve of racking-up a laundry list of violations that would expose him and members of his administration to prosecution, he declared the US’s intention to remain above the rule of international law.
And that’s exactly where the US has been ever since.
An unprovoked war against a non-threatening state in Iraq. Torture. Extraordinary rendition. Perpetual imprisonment without due process or even without formal charges. Assassinations. Summary execution by drone or airstrike. What was the Global War On Terror if not an act of “international impunity”?
The same is true for Israel. It also participated in the Rome negotiations and, just like the US, it also refused to ratify the Statute. Had the US and Israel been subject to the ICC’s jurisdiction over the last 25 years, a lot of political and military leaders would’ve had little use for their passports.
In fact, the two countries epitomize the issue raised by the troika of juntas … and the double-standard they bemoan only becomes more acute as the pile of dead Gazan children grows larger with each passing day.
The genocidal tactics the Israeli Army is using to ethnically cleanse Gaza—a plan publicly espoused by the US, no less—violate nearly every word of the 1998 agreement. Both Biden and Trump actively aided and abetted those crimes and now Trump, not to be outdone, has started a drug war that, like Duterte’s before him, is summarily executing suspects without due process.
As you will see in OUR DAILY THREAD below, Trump’s enablers in Congress are working on an Authorization for the Use Of Military Force (AUMF) that will give him the green-light to wage a Global War On Narcoterror. And no, it is not a coincidence that the Global War On Terror started with an open-ended AUMF. But Trump, unlike the man he praised in 2017 for doing an “unbelievable job on the drug problem,” doesn’t have to opt-out of the Rome Statute to avoid being held accountable for his crimes. The US put the “except” in Exceptionalism long before he ever came down the escalator. Sadly, the impunity with which he operates isn’t the exception in American foreign policy … it is the rule. - jp
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