Judges at the International Criminal Court have put the appeal filed by former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte on hold while requesting further legal arguments on the court’s authority to hear the case against him.
In an order made public on December 16, 2025, the ICC Appeals Chamber directed prosecutors and representatives of victims to submit additional observations addressing how the Rome Statute applies after the Philippines’ withdrawal from the court. The chamber is chaired by Judge Luz de Carmen Ibáñez Carranza.
Under the directive, the Deputy Prosecutor and the Office of Public Counsel for Victims must lodge their written submissions no later than January 16, 2026. The request effectively pauses progress on Duterte’s appeal, which seeks to overturn an earlier ruling affirming the court’s competence to try him.
The jurisdiction dispute traces back to arguments raised by Duterte’s defense in May, when his lawyers challenged the ICC’s authority on the grounds that the Philippines had already exited the court’s jurisdiction. The country’s withdrawal from the ICC took effect on March 17, 2019.
Despite that position, ICC judges ruled in October that the court retained authority over the case, stating “that the Court can exercise its 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.”
Prosecutors accuse Duterte, now 80, of three counts of crimes against humanity linked to killings carried out during his administration’s anti-drug campaign, which investigators say resulted in thousands of deaths.
Duterte was taken into custody in Manila in March and flown to the Netherlands, where he has since been detained at the ICC’s facility in The Hague. Following his arrest, his legal team reiterated that the court lacked jurisdiction, arguing that the country’s withdrawal predated the opening of any investigation.
The ICC has maintained that the alleged offenses occurred when the Philippines was still bound by the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the court.
In a separate decision issued in November, ICC judges denied Duterte’s request for provisional release while awaiting trial, keeping him in detention as proceedings continue.
