On March 14, Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Philippines, announced his intent to withdraw the Philippines from the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in The Hague, amid plans from the ICC to investigate him for crimes against humanity.

Before going too into detail about this, it is important to discuss the investigation and the actions by Duterte that caused it. Elected in 2016, much of the Filipino president’s campaign surrounded on his planned drug war, with him plainly stating his support of murdering suspected drug addicts and users. Prior to his war on drugs, Duterte has been accused of operating death squads to wrongfully kill drug suspects when he was mayor Davao, an accusation he admitted to on national T.V. in 2015, stating “Me? They are saying that I’m part of a death squad? True, that’s true”.

In September of 2016, Duterte openly likened himself to Hitler, saying “Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now there is 3 million, what is it, 3 million drug addicts (within the Philippines), there are.” The man further approved of the connection later in his speech, saying “If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have…” before pointing to himself.
Since entering office, Police under Duterte’s administration have taken credit for more than 4,000 extra-judicial murders of drug suspects, most of whom were from poor families in cities across the nation, while Human Rights Watch estimates that the actual number may be more than 12,000. These massacres are not just limited to adults, with 60 of the confirmed deaths being those of minors.

Following these atrocities, the ICC announced in February that it was opening a preliminary examination into these human rights abuses, to see if they have a basis to open an investigation. Duterte has stated numerous times his intent not to cooperate with these investigations, and now has gone a step further, stating his plans to withdraw from the Rome Statute, announcing “An international law cannot supplant, prevail or diminish a domestic law. I therefore declare and forthwith give notice, as President of the Republic of the Philippines, that the Philippines is withdrawing its ratification of the Rome Statute effective immediately.”

Unfortunately for Duterte, and fortunately for approximately every human being on the planet with a soul, this announcement means pretty much nothing in the eyes of the ICC, as withdrawal does not exempt a nation from the processes of the ICC if such processes were started before it left the Statute. However, even if that weren’t the case, his statement still wouldn’t mean anything, as withdrawals have to occur a year after first notifying the Court of intent to withdraw. Following this, Duterte then claimed that the statute never took effect in the first place as it was never published in the government’s Official Gazette, as per law. Fortunately, there seems to be a strong argument that the Rome Statute does not apply to that particular law, so investigations may proceed. Duterte has also urged other constituent nations to withdraw from the ICC, since apparently the death of justice and accountability in just one nation is not satisfying enough for him.

In a move eerily reminiscent of the events that are unfolding across the Philippines, Donald trump has called for the application of the death penalty for supine convicted of drug trafficking.

While the distribution of illegal drugs to an already vulnerable population is clearly abhorrent and needs to be stopped, with all that is unfolding in the Philippines, people must ask themselves, are more people dying in this fruitless war on drugs what the human race really needs right now? How many more must die due to these vengeful tactics before we as a people say enough is enough? Ten thousand? One hundred thousand? One hundred million? Where are we going as a species if we allow vast portions of a nation’s population to be massacred before any action is taken? How long can we let these monsters lead us before we become like them ourselves?