Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, was arrested on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court. But questions of jurisdiction complicate the matter.
The Filipino authorities arrested Rodrigo Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, on Tuesday, days after the International Criminal Court secretly issued an arrest warrant accusing him of crimes against humanity.
The case will be a closely scrutinized test of the legal reach of the court, which investigates accusations of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression from its base in The Hague.
Here’s what to know about the court and the lead-up to Mr. Duterte’s arrest.
The I.C.C. arrest comes after jurisdiction questions.
The prosecutor’s office at the International Criminal Court said in 2018 that it was opening an investigation into Mr. Duterte, then the president of the Philippines, and accusations of crimes committed during his crackdown on drugs.
Rights groups have said that roughly 30,000 people were killed in his antidrug campaign, many of them gunned down by police officers, hit men or vigilantes. Some victims were minors, and many were not involved in the drug trade, according to activists.
The I.C.C. draws its jurisdiction from the Rome Statute, a treaty currently signed by 125 countries. Soon after the inquiry was announced, Mr. Duterte said the Philippines would withdraw from the treaty, and the country officially left the court in March 2019.
Mr. Duterte’s lawyer has said the arrest is illegal and without jurisdiction because the country is no longer a court member. A panel of I.C.C. judges, however, wrote in the warrant, dated March 7, that the court had jurisdiction because the accusations dated from when the Philippines was still a signatory of the treaty.
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