ICC to decide Duterte's appeal on jurisdiction on April 22
The International Criminal Court has set April 22 as the date for its ruling on former president Rodrigo Duterte’s appeal questioning the tribunal’s jurisdiction over his crimes against humanity case, which has been tied to his bloody war on drugs.
In a news release, the tribunal's Appeals Chamber will decide whether it will affirm or reverse the Pre-Trial Chamber I's decision rejecting the defense's challenge to the court’s jurisdiction over the case.
Duterte's camp previously asserted that his arrest in March 2025 was unlawful and challenged the jurisdiction of the court on the basis that it did not open a full-fledged investigation into crimes in the Philippines until after the country had withdrawn as an ICC member, effective in 2019.
Under the court's rules, a withdrawal from the ICC does not affect matters "already under consideration by the court."
According to Duterte's defense, the so-called preliminary examination into the situation in the Philippines by prosecutors—announced just weeks before Manila said it would leave the court—was not enough to conclude that alleged crimes by Duterte were already under consideration.
However, judges at the ICC disagreed, explaining that even if an official investigation sanctioned by judges only started in 2021, the prosecution's preliminary examination was substantial enough to say it was a matter already under consideration.
Duterte's camp later appealed once more, asserting three "errors of law and fact,” namely, that the Rome Statute allows the opening of an investigation after the Philippines' effective withdrawal from it, that a preliminary examination is a ‘matter under consideration’; and that the reference to ‘the Court’ in Article 127(2) includes the Office of the Prosecutor.
The camp argued that the Pre-Trial Chamber I “erred in law by finding that Article 127 of the Rome Statute is lex specialis (the principle of a special rule overrides a general rule).”
They added that the finding is a "legal novelty" not supported by the Statute’s drafting history and lacks a legal conflict to merit an interpretation.
“Indeed, the words ‘lex specialis’ appear nowhere in any of the 10,531 pages of documented preparatory negotiations to the Rome Statute 19 nor is there any support whatsoever for such a view in any of the recognized commentaries to the Rome Statute."
They also argued that the Chamber erred in treating preliminary examinations and the decision to open an investigation as the same “matters under consideration.”
"These matters are definitely not identical since the ‘consideration’ of each of them is carried out by different organs of the Court and is subject to distinct provisions," the document read.
Duterte has been at the ICC since March 12 last year.
He was arrested at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on March 11 following a warrant of arrest issued by the ICC via the International Criminal Police Organization.
He has been accused of being an "indirect co-perpetrator for the crime against humanity of murder pursuant to Article 7 (1)(a) of the Rome Statute."
The hearing on Duterte's appeal will be livestreamed on the ICC's website, as well as on their Facebook account and YouTube channel. The chamber is composed of Presiding Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, Judge Tomoko Akane, Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa, Judge Gocha Lordkipanidze, and Judge Erdenebalsuren Damdin.