THE HAGUE, Netherlands – Following a request from the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Philippines arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte due to an investigation into thousands of killings in a violent crackdown on drugs that was the hallmark of his rule.

Here are some important facts about the ICC. Read more in this backgrounder here.

The main contention is this: because the Philippines withdrew from the International Criminal Court in 2018, taking effect in 2019, does the ICC still have jurisdiction or the power to try the Philippines?

The human rights answer is this: yes, because if jurisdiction is taken away after a country withdraws, what’s to stop dictators and strongmen from withdrawing once they know the ICC has started sniffing around?

In July 2023, when the Uniteam alliance between Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte was intact, the Marcos government hired a foreign lawyer to argue this: if the prosecution requested an investigation only before the withdrawal took effect in 2019, then there’d be no problem. But they did not. They requested a judicial investigation in 2021 — two whole years after withdrawal.

They almost won. It was a 3-2 decision on a technicality. While the appeals chamber at the time did not rule per se on jurisdiction, the two dissenting judges believed that this argument was right, citing the research of legal scholars, among others.

So what did Duterte do in 2025? He hired that very same legal scholar, the French lawyer Dov Jacobs, who joined Nicholas Kaufman on the team. Together they argued language of the law, that the exercise of jurisdiction is triggered when an investigation is commenced while the country is a member.

It is a novel question before the ICC, a situation that has never happened before.

In October 2025, the pre-trial chamber issued the first case law: that jurisdiction is preserved as long as the alleged crimes happened while the country was a member.

The Duterte team went to the appeals chamber, and that’s what we are going to hear today at 5 pm.

Whatever the decision will be will impact not just Duterte and the Philippines, but all future cases of the ICC, and the movement that seeks accountability for atrocities worldwide.

This is an all or nothing decision. That’s how Nicholas Kaufman, lawyer of former president Rodrigo Duterte, described what’s about to happen at 5 pm today.

The Duterte camp admits that jurisdiction is their biggest, strongest case. If the ICC decides today that the Court has no right to try the case against Duterte, the case cannot progress, and Duterte will go home.

What are his chances? We can take a look at the composition of the appeals chamber.

• Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza (Peru) – voted in 2023 that there is jurisdiction
• Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa (Uganda) – voted in 2023 that there is jurisdiction
• Judge Gocha Lordkipanidze (Georgia) – voted in 2023 that there is no jurisdiction
• Presiding Judge Tomoko Akane (Japan) – first time to rule on jurisdiction
• Judge Erdenebalsuren Damdin (Mongolia) – first time to rule on jurisdiction

It’s a tight case. Judges Akane and Damdin could be the swing votes.

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Former president Rodrigo Duterte may either be allowed to go home or not on Wednesday, April 22.

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) Appeals Chamber will rule on whether the court has jurisdiction over Duterte’s crimes against humanity cases.

Duterte had already lost twice on the jurisdiction issue at the ICC. Will things change on Wednesday?

Watch the proceedings on Rappler.

From the archives:

The International Criminal Court (ICC) upheld its jurisdiction over the crimes against humanity case against former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, clearing another hurdle to the delayed pre-trial.

“The chamber finds that the Court can exercise jurisdiction in the present case over the crimes alleged against Mr. Duterte that were committed on the territory of the Philippines while it was a state party,” said the ICC pre-trial chamber judges in a unanimous vote of three, issued from The Hague on Thursday, October 23, 2025.

This was Duterte’s biggest defense move so far, because if he were successful, the entire case would have been junked on the basis of jurisdiction.

Read more here.