MANILA – The International Criminal Court (ICC) is bound to lose more members even without President Rodrigo Duterte calling other countries to withdraw their membership, Malacanang said Monday.
“I think even without the President calling for the member countries to pull out from the ICC, that they may consider because of the development that the Prosecutor breached the principle of complementarity,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. said in a press conference in Camarines Sur.
Roque said the principle of complementarity calls for ICC to exercise jurisdiction only if domestic courts “are unable or unwilling to do so”.
During last Sunday’s Philippine Military Academy (PMA) graduation rites, Duterte said he announced the withdrawal of Philippines’ ratification of the Rome Statute to convince other countries to “get out” of the “discourteous” ICC.
Roque said ICC special prosecutor Fatou Bensouda should take the blame for the Philippines’ withdrawal from the Rome Statute that created the ICC.
He said the move to conduct a preliminary examination on the Duterte administration’s war on drugs was “out of bounds,” as it violated the basis of the country’s consent to be part of the ICC.
“Once that [principle of complementarity] is violated, of course states will think twice about their continuing membership to the ICC,” Roque noted.
“States, when they became part of the ICC, did not surrender their sovereignty. They did not surrender the power of their local courts to exercise jurisdiction over crimes that happened [in their countries],” he added.
Roque said the Philippine courts should not be compared with those of other countries like Sudan, Burundi, and Somalia, since ours are able and willing to exercise jurisdiction over criminal cases.
He then challenged the ICC to drop the charges filed against Duterte, otherwise other state parties may doubt their decision to resume their membership in the international court.
“The ICC should’ve known that the Philippines was at the forefront of the campaign for universal ratification,” Roque said. (Jelly Musico/PNA)
