International criminal Court's Investigation of Human Rights

TITLE
BACKGROUND:
The ICC is an independent judicial institution empowered to investigate and prosecute

individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. Its

establishment in 2002 signaled the commitment of many countries to fight impunity for the

worst international crimes. Currently, 123 countries are ICC members, giving the ICC authority

under the Rome Statute to investigate and prosecute crimes committed by their nationals or by

anyone on their territory. The ICC is a court of last resort, which means that it will only step in if

national authorities are unwilling or unable to investigate and prosecute crimes within the ICC’s

mandate.

The last January 26, 2023, a pre-trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC)

authorized the court’s prosecutor to resume his investigation into the situation in the

Philippines. The investigation covers alleged crimes committed from November 2011 to June

2016, including the large number of extrajudicial killings in Davao City while former President

Rodrigo Duterte was its mayor as well as in other parts the country during his presidency up

until March 16, 2019, a day before the Philippines’ withdrawal from the ICC’s founding treaty,

the Rome Statute, took effect. The Philippine government appealed the January 26 decision on

February 3. That appeal is pending.

MAIN IDEA:
Due to the increase in crime in the country, the senate decided to proclaim the ICC or

international criminals court. In that way, to prevent various widespread crimes in the

Philippines, for example, the rape case, drugging, kidnapping, carnapping ,climbing houses,
smuggling guns into the country and many others. It can be said that justice is important, but at

the time there is no justice in our country because everyone has their own purpose in life, in

other words they no longer have people who do not care about the law are believed to be the

law, so people who do not care about the law are a big problem for the country. Every day that

passes, many lives are lost because of other people's beliefs. That is why the court decided to

tighten the ICC's declaration for the order of the country.

Criminal liability before the ICC can apply to those who commit crimes, but also to those

who give orders, as well as those in a position of command who should have been aware of the

abuses and failed to prevent them or report or prosecute those responsible. At the ICC there is

no exemption from liability based on official position.

It is a policy of the ICC prosecutor to target those most responsible for the crimes.

DISCUSSION:
The following are the main questions and explanation provided by the Human rights

1.What happened before the January 26 decision, and why was the investigation on hold?

In November 2021, the Philippine government asked the ICC prosecutor to defer the

investigation, claiming that national authorities had begun their own investigations into cases of

extrajudicial killings attributed to the police during “drug war” operations. Upon receipt of the

request, the prosecutor temporarily suspended investigative activities pending his assessment

of the request.

In June 2022, the court’s current prosecutor, Karim Khan, asked the ICC judges for

authorization to resume his investigation, noting that the Philippine government had not
substantiated its deferral request and that the domestic proceedings referenced “[did] not

sufficiently mirror the court’s investigation.”

2. Why did the judges authorize the resumption of the ICC investigation?

In reaching their decision to resume the investigation, the ICC judges examined materials from

the Philippine government and the ICC prosecutor, as well as observations by victims and their

families, to assess the existence of domestic proceedings that would warrant a deferral of the

investigation to domestic authorities through genuine investigations and prosecutions of crimes

under the jurisdiction of the court.

This assessment included information on non-criminal proceedings allegedly

concerning crimes under the jurisdiction of the court.

3.Why did the ICC open an investigation?

Soon after taking office in 2016, then-President Rodrigo Duterte unleashed his “war on drugs,”

which resulted in thousands of killings, mostly of the urban poor. Human Rights Watch and

others found that the police regularly falsified evidence to justify the unlawful killings. The

government reported that members of the Philippine National Police and the Philippine Drug

Enforcement Agency killed 6,252 people during anti-drug operations from July 1, 2016, to May

31, 2022. After Ferdinand Marcos Jr. became president in 2022, the government stopped

releasing these statistics.

The official death toll does not include those killed by unidentified gunmen whom

Human Rights Watch and other rights monitors have credible evidence to believe operate in

cooperation with local police and officials. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner

for Human Rights (OHCHR) calculated in a 2020 report that the death toll was at least 8,663.
Domestic human rights groups and the government-appointed Philippine Commission on

Human Rights state that the real number of “drug war” killings is possibly triple the number

included in the UN report.

The scale of the “drug war” killings prompted the then-ICC prosecutor, Fatou

Bensouda, to announce in February 2018 the opening of a preliminary examination over the

deaths, many of which are linked to “extrajudicial killings in the course of police anti-drug

operations.” In May 2021, following her analysis of these crimes, Bensouda requested the

court’s authorization to open an investigation into the situation in the Philippines. The ICC pre-

trial chamber authorized the opening of the investigation in September 2021.

CONCLUSION:
There are many ways to maintain order and prevent chaos. However, in this case it

is proposed that it is necessary to be strict in order to comply and prevent any crime that is

rampant in the Philippines. The International Criminal Court's affiliate is the strengthening of

order for our society due to law.A review conducted by a Philippine Department of Justice

panel – This is “an ad hoc group of Department of Justice members chaired by the Secretary of

Justice” tasked with reviewind

The ICC is also associated with the acquittal of people accused even if there is no

crime, its purpose is to seek justice and hold accountable those who are really guilty of a crime.

It can be said that most of what is happening in the Philippines is pure lies, as if you have

money You can do everything you want but when you are poor and you don't have money you

will be oppressed and pressured into a crime you don't know. One of the biggest problems in

our country.
 The purpose of the ICC is to publish the truth and dispel falsehood. Expose what's

really happening in the World.In conducting an independent investigation, the prosecutor could

determine that there is insufficient evidence that crimes committed within the court's

jurisdiction have taken place. If the prosecutor decides not to proceed with prosecutions

following his investigation, this decision can be reviewed by the pre-trial chamber.based on the

investigation, the prosecutor decides to pursue prosecutions, the ICC judges will need to

approve the issuance of arrest warrants or summons to appear for individuals on the basis of

specific charges. This requires a determination by the judges that there are reasonable grounds

to believe that the individual named in the request has committed a crime within the

jurisdiction of the court, and either that an arrest is necessary or summons to appear is

sufficient to ensure the individual’s appearance before the court.

REFERENCE:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/02/13/international-criminal-courts-philippines-

investigationa