By Genalyn D. Kabiling
It is the “beginning of the end” of the International Criminal Court following the country’s pullout from the tribunal over violations of due process, among others, Malacañang declared yesterday.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque cautioned that there might be an “avalanche” of countries leaving the ICC while other nations are likely to refuse to join the international court now.
“This is the beginning of the end of the court unfortunately,” Roque said. “What I’m afraid and what makes me sad is that the Philippine withdrawal, I’m sure, will start an avalanche of other states leaving the court because no one will tolerate an unaccountable prosecutor conducting even a preliminary examination in brazen violation of the principle of complementarity,” he added.
Roque added that no other Asian nations would join the ICC now since the Philippines was the one previously trying to convince them to become a member of the tribunal.
“In the first place, we don’t have universal ratification. There’s only 124 countries out of 198 countries. You only have a simple really majority of states becoming members,” he said.
“The major powers – the United States, Russia, China – are not even members of the court,” he said.
Roque also scoffed at the possibility of any state party trying to apprehend Duterte even assuming the ICC could acquire jurisdiction over his person and starts a formal probe.
