The law of the strongest must not govern
BERLIN—I was invited to speak at the launch of Amnesty International (AI) Germany’s annual report titled “The State of the World’s Human Rights.” The report was delivered by AI Germany’s secretary general, Julia Duchrow, who emphasized that “the law of the strongest must not govern the new world order.” The report can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/3ztj5x47. An Iranian lawyer, Raha Bahreini, spoke about the horrendous human rights situation in her country. I spoke about the relevance of our country’s case in the International Criminal Court (ICC) to the reprehensible events that are unfolding on the world stage today.
I am sharing my speech, abridged due to space limitations, in the paragraphs that follow.
What do you do when your own government embarks on a killing spree against its own people by ordering its police force to employ mass murder as a solution to a societal problem like the use of illegal drugs? What do you do when your domestic justice system is rendered sterile to prosecute the perpetrators of these cold-blooded murders because the police either refuse to document them or destroy the records of the killings?
These were the questions that tormented us in the Philippines during the reign of terror of Rodrigo Duterte as Davao City mayor and as our nation’s president, successively, from 2011 to 2019. Mr. Duterte was a shameless admirer of Adolf Hitler. He declared openly that if “Hitler massacred million[s] [of] Jews … [t]here [are] million[s] [of] drug addicts. I’d be happy to slaughter them. If Germany had Hitler, the Philippines would have [me].”
Before Duterte’s term ended, as many as 30,000 drug suspects were extrajudicially killed. There were more than 300,000 victims of illegal imprisonment, and many others became victims of torture, disappearances, and sexual violence.
During those bloody years of the Duterte regime, the Philippines was a terrifying place for the victims’ families because many of them were imprisoned on false charges as a means of preventing them from filing complaints. Duterte threatened to kill human rights advocates who dared to oppose his violent campaign against illegal drugs. He threatened a shoot-out if the ICC dared to arrest him. He cursed human rights organizations, foreign heads of state, and religious leaders.
In March 2025, Duterte was finally arrested and brought to The Hague to face charges of crimes against humanity before the ICC. The arrest and prosecution of Duterte would not have become a reality if not for the abiding faith of the victims’ families that there is justice to be attained under international law when the domestic justice system fails. The prosecution of Duterte is a testament to the achievement of the combined efforts of victims’ families, local and international human rights organizations, principled advocates, and supportive foreign governments in championing the ICC as an effective last resort against the most despicable crimes committed against humankind.
The proceedings against Duterte at the ICC are a sign of hope for the survivors’ struggles for justice. It shows that international human rights protection is not a paper tiger. No one is above the law. Even presidents can be held accountable for human rights violations. For this to remain the case, the international community must protect the International Criminal Court from attacks by the United States, Russia, and other states.
The whole world is currently in the vortex of devastating events, which are the gruesome results of war crimes, crimes of aggression, genocide, and crimes against humanity. These horrible international crimes are committed by a cabal of rogue countries, which are forcing the rest of the world to abandon the peace-inducing rule of international law and are instead imposing the mayhem-engendering, old, and discredited creed of “might is right.” The vast number of killings, the massive destruction of communities, and the severe economic suffering being experienced by the world right now, are a preview to the grim and chaotic future that awaits the world, if the gang of warmongering countries have their way.
The vast majority of peace-affirming countries must hold the line by collectively denouncing attempts to subvert international law as the life-affirming path for humanity. International law is not perfect in its current shape, but its imperfections emanate from the refusal to comply with its norms by a marginal number of countries. The right path forward is for countries to intensify efforts to enforce compliance with international law, condemn wayward and defiant nations, and protect the ICC as a bulwark of international justice.
For 10 long years, the victims, their families, and their defenders could not see the light at the end of the terror tunnel in the Philippines. But they did not lose faith. They continued to document each crime that was committed. With Duterte behind bars awaiting trial before the ICC, Filipino survivors are living testaments to the adage that the arc of the moral universe may be long, but it bends toward justice.
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