Defense counsel Nicholas Kaufman filed a request on April 13 asking the International Criminal Court’s Appeals Chamber to allow former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to be absent when the tribunal reads out its ruling on whether it has legal authority to prosecute him.
The filing, addressed to the five-judge Appeals Chamber, asks that Duterte be excused from the April 22 proceeding, with his legal team to appear in his place. Kaufman, who signed the document in The Hague on the day of submission, confirmed that Duterte had given his full consent, with a signed waiver placed on the record as an annex to the motion.
The judgment due on April 22 — set for 11 a.m. The Hague time, or 5 p.m. in Manila — will determine whether the court’s earlier rejection of the defense’s jurisdictional challenge will stand. Pre-Trial Chamber I dismissed that challenge on October 23, 2025, ruling that the ICC retains authority over alleged crimes committed in the Philippines during the period when the country was still a signatory to the Rome Statute. Duterte’s lawyers submitted their notice of appeal eight days later and filed their appeal brief on November 14.
The core of the jurisdictional dispute rests on the Philippines’ 2019 withdrawal from the Rome Statute. Kaufman and co-counsel Dov Jacobs have argued that the preliminary examination conducted by ICC prosecutors prior to withdrawal was not equivalent to a formal investigation, and therefore fell short of the legal threshold that would keep the case alive under the treaty’s withdrawal provisions. The defense has urged the Appeals Chamber to declare that no legal basis exists for the proceedings to continue and to order Duterte’s immediate and unconditional release.
Pre-trial judges have rejected that position, holding that the prosecution’s preliminary examination was substantial enough to constitute a matter already under consideration when Manila’s withdrawal took effect. Both the prosecution and the legal representatives of victims have opposed the defense’s appeal on jurisdiction.
The five-member Appeals Chamber set to deliver the ruling is composed of Presiding Judge Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza, Judge Tomoko Akane, Judge Solomy Balungi Bossa, Judge Gocha Lordkipanidze, and Judge Erdenebalsuren Damdin. The waiver request is not the first time Duterte has chosen to be absent from proceedings — he skipped his confirmation of charges hearing held from February 23 to 27, with the court’s approval, citing his non-recognition of the tribunal’s jurisdiction over him.
The April 22 jurisdiction ruling arrives days before April 28, the 60-day deadline for Pre-Trial Chamber I to decide whether to send the crimes against humanity charges against Duterte to full trial.
